The Q's had a very long and interesting Service life. These cars were rebuilt with closed ends and operating doors from BRT BU Gate cars originally built in the first decade of the 20th century. The rebuild occurred in the late 1930s to provide BMT equipment for Worlds Fair service in 1939-40 for its share of the jointly operated Flushing and Astoria Elevated lines. They were painted in the NYC colors of Orange and Blue. They worked on these lines until 1949 when the Joint IRT BMT operation of these Queens Els was eliminated. The cars were then transferred to the 3rd ave El operation in Manhattan to replace composites then in service on that line. When they came back to the BMT in the late 1950s they ran on the Myrtle Ave El until 1969 when the line south of Broadway was closed and torn down. So0me of these cars were used in work service on Pump Trains. A set were preserved for the NYCTA museum and another set was rebuilt into Gate cars from whence they came. I saw a photo of some of these cars in the 39th street yard looking like they were on their way to the scrapper. The NYCTA had a long service and use period for this design spanning almost 100 years from when the cars were originally built as gate cars.
Gate cars ran on the BMT in the post war period on the Lexington Ave, Myrtle Ave and Fulton Street lines. During the war they ran to Park Row over the Brooklyn Bridge . After the Fulkton Street El was closed in Brooklyn, there was a special service on the Fulkton street El in Queens through Atlantic Ave, the Broadway El and the Lexington Ave El onto the Myrtle line, to Park Row and then as far as Bridge and Jay Street afer 1944 . This operation lasted until 1950 whenn the Lexington Ave El was closed and torn down. BU convertible Gate cars continued to operate on the Myrtle Ave El until 1957-58 when the Q cars replaced them. They have been the last convertible gate cars in service on the NYCTA .
I would like to see MTH or Lionel make a set of these cars . They are an interesting prototype and weree the mainstay on the NYC Els in those early years until the LoV;s on the IRT and the Standards on the BMT came along.
