R32 (New York City Subway car)

The R32 was a New York City Subway car model that the Budd Company built from 1964 to 1965 for the IND and BMT B Division. A total of 600 cars were built, numbered 3350 to 3949 and arranged as married pairs, under a contract split into the R32 and R32A halves of 300 cars each. They were the first mass-produced stainless steel cars on the New York subway, and their ribbed, unpainted exteriors earned them the nickname Brightliners. Budd won the 1963 order, then the largest railcar order ever placed in the United States for subway cars, with the lowest bid at $114,700 a car, and the stainless steel construction cut each car weight by over 4,000 pounds. All of the cars were rebuilt in the late 1980s, and the last train of R32s in passenger service made farewell trips from December 19, 2021 to January 9, 2022. After retirement most were scrapped, sunk as artificial reefs or placed in storage, while some were preserved.