Vintage Train Rides for Mets Opening Day, but Fans Learn No #7 Express This Season

East side, West side, everybody’s coming down, to meet the M-E-T-S Mets, of New York town. On April 4, happy Mets fans boarded a vintage nostalgia train for an Opening Day run.

Unhappy Mets fans from Manhattan, however, also learned that express trains from Manhattan on the #7 line will be out of commission for the third season in a row.

The lyrics of the original 1962 New York Metropolitans (a.k.a The Mets) song, have changed a bit but seemed era-appropriate for the equipment that the New York City Transit Museum had supplied on April 4, for the return of a nostalgia train to Citi Field on Opening Day. While Yankee fans had enjoyed a nostalgia train to Yankee Stadium for the past several years, a Redbird train for a Mets ride was last utilized for the 2018 home opener. This year, the NYC Transit ran the train on the #7 line from the Hudson Yards Station to the Willets Point Station, making stops at Times Square, Grand Central, and several stations in Queens.

While it was not quite the one-stop Grand-Central-to-Yankee-Stadium run that Yankee fans enjoyed a week earlier, it was still faster than the normal trains to Citi Field. The Mets ride drew a good crowd, even if the train was not quite as jam-packed as the Yankee Express had been; then, some disappointed Yankee fans were left on the platform at Grand Central.

Unfortunately, Mets fans were also learning with dismay that the track repair work that had blocked a true express train to Citi Field for the past two seasons, was not done by its expected January 2025 completion date. The MTA said the express train will be canceled until sometime in 2026 due to ongoing structural work at the Woodside/61st Street station.

Mets fans on the nostalgia run at least did not have the shock of seeing a costumed subway surfer atop a train heading downtown like the one that rumbled past the Yankees nostalgia train just as it approached the 161st Street/Yankee Stadium stop on March 27. The subway surfer was arrested by police and identified as an 18-year-old male, according to the MTA. The NYPD did not release any info about that case.

Fortunately for Mets fans, the nostalgia ride went a little more smoothly to Citi Field. Noted New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow, “Regular season, playoffs, and hopefully the World Series, New York City Transit provides Mets fans with the safest, most convenient way to get to Citi Field every single day.” The subway, even without a true express train, is still faster than driving, and fans on the subway will be spared the $40 parking fee at the city-owned parking field surrounding the stadium.

The lure of the older subway trains was tantalizing for the Mets fans to come and ride, amid continual screams of “Let’s go Mets!” Additionally, a group of train aficionados, mostly senior high school students, jumped on at the Hudson Yards departure station just to ride the train, mingling with the Mets fans.

The original Redbird cars were operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) system starting service in 1959, three years before the New York Mets were born. The Redbirds consisted of a fleet of different car types all painted in a deep red. The most recent routine operation of these cars was 32 years ago. Of the 1,960 cars of this kind built, the eight-car train used on the Citi Field trip is part of a small number of serviceable subway cars left in existence, most either in train museums or used for occasional service on the NY subway system to this day.

Straus News found a West Side Spirit-reading Manhattanite, Patrice, accompanied by her grandson Mason from Westchester, both festooned in Mets regalia. Patrice talked about how she would attend baseball games with her parents, and how Mason had become a Mets fan and he in turn turned his grandmother into a born-again Mets fan.

Patrice noted that it was “a great bonding experience” for both of them.

Even if the train was not stopping at their station, many commuters on the platforms whipped out phones as the nostalgia train whizzed past. At Woodside, a group of the train enthusiasts who had boarded at Hudson Yards disembarked, freeing up a little more space on board for the fans headed to watch their Boys of Summer battle the Toronto Blue Jays.

NYPD officers were on each car to prevent any impromptu subway surfing since the borough of Queens, with its plethora of above-ground tracks, has been the scene of many of the tragic subway surfer accidents over recent years.

For the rest of the Mets season, Manhattanites have other transportation options to get to Citi Field. Grand Central Madison and Penn Station offer frequent Long Island Rail Road service also to Willets Point, and can arrive in 19 minutes, which is faster than the #7 subway. Mets fans on the 7 line will still have to suffer through another season of limited express train service. A Reddit user posted recently that the MTA is now acknowledging that the track work that was supposed to be done in January, 2025, won’t be completed until late 2025 or early 2026

For all the Mets fans who rode the special train, the 5-0 shut-out win for the home team made the nostalgia ride even sweeter. For those trying to get back to Manhattan, only the jam-packed Manhattan “special” was running, to bring home the sellout crowd of 43,200 people. The usually less-crowded Manhattan “local” back to the city was canceled entirely on Opening Day. Mets fans may have to adopt the old Brooklyn Dodgers rallying cry and “Wait Till Next Year” for true two-way express service to and from Manhattan.

For further information, go to www.nytransitmuseum.org and www.mta.org.