SWINGING INTO ACTION
YANKEES, METS HIT THE FIELD FOR OPENING DAY
Next stop: 1917.
Fans heading to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium on Thursday can ride to the game in old-school style as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rolls out a 102-year-old subway train.
The throwback locomotive is a part of New York City Transit Museum’s semiregular “Nostalgia Train” series, which temporarily brings some of the city’s oldest train equipment back into service.
The train running Thursday is a 1917 IRT Lo-V, one of the last models operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Co.
The cars on the vintage ride are fitted with leather seats, and lack modern features like LED screens and air conditioning. If riders of yesteryear wanted to cool off while cruising underground in the summer — or let out tobacco smoke filling up its interior — they’d have to crack open a window.
Much to the delight of transit nerds and logophiles, straphangers who nab a spot on Thursday’s Lo-V train — for low voltage — can literally hang onto straps hanging from hand rails.
The train hearkens back to a time when New York City’s subway was the envy of the world, a far cry from the current system, which has been in a Gov. Cuomo-ordered state of emergency for nearly two years.
Thursday’s Nostalgia Train is scheduled to depart from the uptown No. 4 train platform at 42nd St.-Grand Central at roughly 11 a.m., two hours before first pitch at 1:05 p.m.
It will run nonstop to 161st St.-Yankee Stadium, a trip that will take 25 minutes, assuming there are no signal problems or mechanical failures.
The ride requires nothing more than the swipe of a MetroCard, and spots on the train are on a first-come, first-served basis.