R21 (New York City Subway car)
class of 250 New York City Subway cars
The R21 was a New York City Subway car built by St. Louis Car Company from 1956 to 1957 for the IRT A Division. A total of 250 cars were built, arranged as single units. Two versions were manufactured: Westinghouse (WH)-powered cars and General Electric (GE)-powered cars.
The first R21s entered service on November 7, 1956. The R21s were replaced by the R62As in the 1980s, and the final train of R21s ran on December 30, 1987. Four R21 cars were preserved, while the rest were scrapped.
Description
The R21s were numbered 7050–7299. They were similar to the R17s, except that they featured windows of a slightly different design. The cab doors were mounted the same way as the newer R62 and R62A subway cars; however, this was not repeated on the next order for R22 subway cars, which reverted to the normally mounted cab doors.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “R21 (New York City Subway car)” as class of 250 New York City Subway cars. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as class of 250 New York City Subway cars. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7274450. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1957 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “R21 (New York City Subway car)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.