More than three months after the inaugural run of the first R211 train on the MTA’s A line, the new rolling stock is ready for full service, MTA officials said Thursday.
“We’re going to be adding an additional R211 train to the A-line,” MTA’s VP of subways, Demetrius Crichlow, told reporters at Brooklyn’s Hoyt-Schermerhorn station.
“Now your chances of catching the R211 are doubled,” he added with a laugh.
“We have a beautiful new car that’s going to be going into service today.”
Thursday’s train is the second set of Kawasaki-built R211 cars to carry passengers on the A line. The train, which will begin running a full schedule next week, is entering service after the MTA spent three months testing and tweaking the first R211 train.
“We had to make modifications to the software, which took us a little longer than we had anticipated,” Crichlow said.
“The mechanical elements of the car fared extremely well — it did require additional updates to software as we were rolling out.”
Both Crichlow and MTA’s head of NYC Transit, Rich Davey, characterized the software updates as an ordinary part of introducing new technology to the system.
“Kawasaki has made us a really, really competent car,” Crichlow said.
The new trains — which can be spotted by their unique LED headlights — have wider doorways, fully digital displays and a suite of on-board security cameras.
The R211s are also purpose-built to integrate into the MTA’s planned future signaling system, the computerized communication-based train control, or CBTC, which will let trains run faster and closer together.
“From this point forward, we’re going to be introducing upwards of two trains [on the A line] a month,” Crichlow said. “They have already demonstrated how reliable they can be over our existing fleet.”
The cars, built in Lincoln, Neb., by Kawasaki, first arrived in New York for testing in June 2021 — a year late due to pandemic supply chain issues and early design…
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