In its earlier incarnation, Automobile RD340 stored straphangers transferring as one of many distinctive “Redbirds” that for years made up a part of the subway fleet on the numbered traces.
On Sunday, the once-red however now dull-yellow automotive might be again to protecting riders transferring in a unique kind — as an MTA work practice spraying de-icer liquid on the third rail throughout a winter storm that might wallop the town with greater than a foot of snow.
“We’re going to be ready and we’re determined to maintain service,” Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and chief govt, vowed Friday morning on the Laurelton cease on the Lengthy Island Rail Street. “We’ve done it again and again and again and we’re on duty to deliver for New Yorkers.”
New York Metropolis Transit’s de-icers presently in use — six for the subway, one for the Staten Island Railway — make up a lesser-seen a part of the fleet: repurposed subway vehicles that preserve the power-supplying third rail from icing. Six of the vehicles have been transformed within the early Nineteen Nineties, in keeping with the MTA.
A New York Metropolis Transit de-icer automotive was stationed at a Brooklyn subway yard forward of an anticipated giant snowstorm, Jan. 23, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Their recycled position is in clear distinction to different previous subway vehicles that have been junked or sunk in an effort to grow to be synthetic reefs.
“Of course, it’s a second life,” mentioned Ravi Ganpat, a common superintendent for New York Metropolis Transit’s Upkeep of Approach division.
Transit officers on Friday showcased a de-icer automotive stocked with 11 barrels containing 605 gallons of fluid at a Brooklyn subway yard forward of a snowstorm that has the MTA in an all-hands-on-deck mode. The automotive — rusted in spots, however nonetheless totally practical after many years on the tracks — is supplied with specifically made gadgets that scrape ice off the third rail, then spray it with fluid.
“We try to send the de-icer trains normally before precipitation because we want to treat the rails and get some of the fluid onto the rails so we stop freezing” Ganpat mentioned. “And then during the storm, we keep going, following the passenger trains and treating the rails as the storm goes by.”
For snow and ice removing in addition to systemwide emergency response, New York Metropolis Transit’s fleet contains 55 diesel locomotives and 39 rider vehicles to move crews and 10 snow-thrower models deployed to numerous subway yards.
In a system with 665 miles of monitor, the tools is particularly essential alongside the 222 miles which might be uncovered to the weather. These embrace elevated tracks, traces which function at avenue stage and in open trenches that span components of Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx, the place the MTA levels the refurbished vehicles in anticipation of a projected snowstorm.
Scrapers connected to the underside of the MTA’s de-icer trains are designed to take away winter-storm buildup from the third rail, Jan. 23, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
The stakes are excessive because the storm strikes nearer. Throughout a December 2010 blizzard, near 500 folks have been stranded in a single day on subway vehicles that received caught within the snow, in keeping with a 2011 report from the Workplace of the MTA Inspector Basic.
Amongst them have been an N practice stalled on the tracks on the elevated New Utrecht Avenue station in Brooklyn and two alongside the A line in Queens on the Broad Channel and Aqueduct Racetrack stops.
Within the years that adopted the 2010 blizzard, the MTA operated cautiously upfront of projected main snowstorms. In January 2015, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo suspended subway, commuter rail and bus service at 11 p.m. forward of a forecasted blizzard that turned out to be a dud.
Throughout a January 2016 snowstorm and once more in February 2021, subway service was suspended alongside the out of doors stretches of the subway system, together with service on the Lengthy Island Rail Street and Metro-North.
Lieber mentioned that possibility just isn’t shaping up as an possibility simply but, however conceded that the transportation authority might be “calling those audibles as needed.”
The MTA rolled out its fleet of labor trains that take away snow and ice from the tracks forward of an anticipated giant snowstorm, Jan. 23, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“Per the governor’s instruction, the MTA will be running service come hell or high water,” he mentioned. “Whether it’s seven inches or 13 inches or whatever, we’re going to be ready — this is not our first rodeo.”
As he waited for a Manhattan-bound practice on the out of doors Ninth Avenue station in Brooklyn, Denny Espinoza, 26, mentioned he’s relying on the subway this weekend to get him to his job as a cook dinner on the Junior’s Restaurant in Occasions Sq..
“I’ll just bundle up, just hopefully not freeze too much and make it to work on time,” Espinoza mentioned. “I’ll definitely need extra time to bundle up and get to work.”
Lieber inspired those that want mass transit throughout the looming storm to rely on the buses. The MTA chained the tires on those who might be in service, whereas additionally planning to not run service on any of its 1,161 accordion-like articulated buses. These longer, versatile coaches usually tend to encounter issues within the snow.
“The bus system picks up the slack, we know how to prepare for these events — how to get our equipment in place, how to get our people in place,” Lieber mentioned. “God bless the people who are going to work their tails off this weekend to make sure that we are ready.”
Extra reporting by Lilly Sabella.
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