R11/R34 (New York City Subway car)

The R11 was a prototype class of ten experimental New York City Subway cars that the Budd Company built in 1949 for the IND and BMT B Division. The city announced the order in 1947 with plans for 400 cars to serve the planned Second Avenue Subway, but only ten were built once work on that line halted, so the cars served as a technology test train for features later used in larger orders. They were the first stainless steel R-type cars in the system, numbered 8010 to 8019, and carried forced air ventilation, electric door motors in place of air-powered ones, drum brakes and Precipitron lamps meant to combat airborne bacteria. At more than 100,000 dollars a car they were nicknamed the Million Dollar Train. An overhaul in 1964 and 1965 under contract R34 fitted disc brakes and let them run with later cars, which is why they are also called R34s. They were retired in 1977 after a yard accident wrecked car 8016, and car 8013 is preserved by the New York Transit Museum and has run excursions since 2014.