R211 (New York City Subway car)

With all options exercised, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) plans to spend at least $3.686 billion in the order. The contract is split into three parts: R211A, R211S, and R211T. The majority of the 535-car base order will comprise 440 R211A cars that will partially replace the aging 748-car R46 fleet. There are also 20 R211T open gangway prototype cars, first delivered in late 2022, and 75 R211S cars that replaced the now year old remaining 61-car R44 fleet on the Staten Island Railway. The R44s and R46s are long, and the R211s are only . As a result, the 752 R46s would need to be replaced by 940 R211s. In September 2024, the MTA indicated the possibility of retiring a handful of R68 and R68A cars with R211s, and in December, it was confirmed that some R68s would be replaced by the second option order. Any cars from the option orders that do not replace existing rolling stock will be used to expand the system's fleet. , the R211As and R211Ts are based out of Pitkin Yard and Coney Island Yard, and the R211Ses are based out of Clifton Yard. For the subway fleet, the R211As are assigned to the , , , , and Rockaway Park Shuttle, and the R211Ts are assigned to the . ==Features==

On the exterior, the cars have a blue front with large windows, LED headlights, and a blue stripe with gold accents on the sides. To designate the route, a large LED screen with the route bullet is displayed at the ends of the train, while the route's destination is displayed above the door on the front. On the sides, there is a screen that displays both the route bullet and the route's destination. This door width will also promote accessibility on the cars, making them the first fully accessible subway car in New York City. This design change partially incorporates a design feature of the R110A prototype subway cars, which had doors that are wide. Flanking each set of doors are lights, which illuminate to indicate on which side of the train the doors would open. There are twelve lights around each set of doors. These lights turn green when the doors open at each station and turn red when the doors are closing. Designers at Antenna used gold seats to indicate priority seats for disabled and senior passengers, as riders often ignored priority-seating signs in older rolling stock models. unlike the older New Technology Trains, which lack these features. There are 28 screens inside each car, including updated digital displays over doors. The overhead screens display additional information, such as specific bus transfers, elevator locations, and which car the customer is located in. These cars, which are designated as R211T, are the first contemporary trainsets to have full-open gangways in New York, and the first open gangway cars in the system since the introduction of the BMT D-type Triplex in 1925, the MS Multi-section cars in 1934, and the Bluebird Compartment Cars in 1939. Similar open gangway designs are used in major cities such as Toronto (Toronto Rocket), London (S Stock) and Paris (MP 14). The open gangways also help prevent subway surfing, as subway surfers can no longer climb between cars to reach the train's roof, as was possible on older trains and the R211As. To test out the curve radius and gangway flex in the existing 60-foot-long cars, an R143 test train was equipped with measuring gauges and was operated on most parts of the B Division. The prototype cars consist of two designs. Two of the five-car sets utilize interior panels in the gangway connection ("hard shell"), and the other two five-car sets use interior bellows in the gangway connection ("soft shell"). The latter design also contains a wider walkway and handles between cars. Ultimately, the hard shell was chosen for the second option order, which will include 80 cars of the type. Mechanical and signaling systems The cars use Alstom's OPTONIX propulsion system. All R211S cars are equipped with pulse code cab signaling. ==History==

Initial request for proposal The R211 Design Master Plan was approved by the MTA in December 2011, and design planning began in December 2012. An R211 solicitation was posted in the classified section of Metro Magazine's May 9, 2013, issue, stating the proposal to acquire these cars in the near future. At the time, the order was planned to be in length, the same length as the R46 and R68 cars. Open-gangways, which would allow passengers to seamlessly walk throughout the train or units, and other alternate configurations were also initially considered for the entire order. By the release of the MTA's 2015–2019 Capital Program in October 2015, the order specified cars, which has been the standard length of new B Division cars since the R143 order. , open-gangways will be tested on ten cars (now designated as the R211T). and the contract was expected to be awarded in early 2017, The model was completed and was made publicly accessible from November 30 to December 6, 2017, so riders could review it. In August 2017, Bombardier Transportation, who was manufacturing the R179s at the time, was banned from bidding on the R211 contract due to various delays and problems associated with the R179 contract. On January 19, 2018, the MTA Board suggested that Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc, a subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries of Kobe, Japan, be awarded the $1.4 billion base order for the first 535 new R211 cars. The R211A/T cars are being assembled at Kawasaki's factories in the U.S. at Lincoln, Nebraska, while the R211S cars are being assembled at Yonkers, New York. In October 2019, the MTA Board ratified a contract with Thales Group (since acquired by Hitachi Rail) for the installation of CBTC equipment in 92 five-car R211 sets. Option orders In October 2018, it was noted that the second option order would consist of 89 sets, and in September 2019, it was confirmed that the 89 sets would be formed from 437 cars. The entire order will consist of 1,612 cars with both options exercised. at a cost of $1.7 billion. All cars in the first option order would be R211A cars. The cars in the option order would be delivered from February 2025 to December 2026. The second option was revised from 437 cars to 435 cars linked in 87 five-car sets, of which 355 would be R211A cars and 80 would be the hard shell open gangway R211T cars. This option, along with some related non-car options would cost $1.3 billion. It was expected that these CBTC-equipped cars would begin to be delivered in 2027 and 2028, and would replace R46 and R68 subway cars. The first two test trains of ten R211T open-gangway cars would have been delivered in May 2021, followed by the first 5-car set of R211S cars for the Staten Island Railway in December 2021. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted global supply chains and manufacturing, so the delivery of the first cars was delayed by between 9 and 14 months. Kawasaki planned to deliver 22 cars per month, a rate that an independent engineering consultant for the MTA described as "aggressive". At its June 2021 meeting, the MTA's Capital Program Oversight Committee announced the R211A pilot had been delayed to July 2021 and the R211T test train had been delayed to June 2022. The production of the R211A base order, the R211S test train, and the rest of the R211S order had the same timeline as was outlined in January 2021. Some of the other issues with the test train, such as cracks in the HVAC frame, had been identified in previous months and fixed. Kawasaki was obligated to construct 40 cars per month in Nebraska as part of its contract with the MTA. The R211 fleet won the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce's "Coolest Thing Made in Nebraska" contest for 2022. the first set of R211A cars (4060–4064) was delivered to the New York City Transit Authority at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The next five cars (4065–4069) were delivered starting on July 12, 2021, forming a complete pilot ten-car train for acceptance testing and evaluation. The test train was delivered despite a lack of staff in Nebraska and a shortage of important parts, which prompted an independent engineering consultant to predict that delivery of the test train could be delayed past July 2021. By December 2022, the set began testing. After undergoing several tests on New York City Subway trackage, the unit was transported to Staten Island during the week of October 16, 2023. Service The R211A cars were placed into revenue service on the on March 10, 2023, for a 30-day in-service acceptance test. After successful completion, R211A cars officially entered revenue service on June 29, 2023, several months later than originally planned. During a press conference at Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets the same day, it was announced that at least two R211A trains would enter service per month. During a media preview of the R211T cars in February 2023 at Coney Island Yard, it was announced that the R211T cars were expected to enter revenue service in late 2023. This was further confirmed during another press conference in late June 2023, during which it was also announced that the R211S cars would enter service in January 2024. The repairs to the R211As did not delay the delivery of the R211S fleet. By January 2024, deliveries of R211As had resumed. The R211As also began operating on the B route in July 2025. The MTA separately indicated that when revenue-service testing of the R211Ts began, they would initially run on the C route because that route made local stops, making it easier to monitor problems with the trains. At the time, internal MTA policy allowed the R211T to be used only on routes where stops were spaced no more than four minutes apart; only the C and R routes fit this criterion. The R211Ts began running in revenue service on the C route on February 1, 2024. In June 2024, the MTA announced that it expected the first R211S to enter service before the end of that year. The first R211S train began running on the Staten Island Railway on October 8, 2024. When option 2 was announced in December 2024, the MTA announced that two of the five-car open gangway trains would begin operating on the G route in early 2025, The 80 R211Ts in option 2, which have slight differences from the original hard-shell test train, would be able to operate on any route in the B Division. In July 2025, Hitachi Rail and Siemens Mobility received a contract to retrofit the R211A and R211T fleets with 5G radios. The final R211S cars were delivered in September 2025. By mid-September 2025, the R211S had fully replaced the R44 trains on the Staten Island Railway, with remaining R44 cars relegated to a contingency fleet. ==Notes and references==

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