New for 2006, M.T.H. introduces full-scale models of the subway cars that served Brooklyn for 50 years. Built in the World War I era by American Car & Foundry, the 2500-series cars were part of a family of over 900 similar cars that became known as BMT Standards. The BMT, as Jim Poulos puts it on his bmt-lines.com Web site, "was arguably New York's best subway. Incorporated in 1923 as a re-organization of the then-bankrupt Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation emerged to operate the most colorful, innovative, progressive, and profitable subway line in New York City. Unfortunately political and economic considerations prompted a municipal takeover in 1940." The system later became known as the BMT division of the New York City Transit Authority.
Through all the changes in names and management, the 2500-series cars and their brethren soldiered on until the mid-1960s. At the time of their construction, they had represented the state of the art in transit cars, with features such as a coupler that incorporated all the electrical connections between cars, and headlights and taillights that automatically reversed direction according to the position of the motorman's control handle. The spacious interiors of the BMT Standards were 16' longer and a foot wider than those of competitive Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) cars, whose size was limited by tight tunnel clearances. But fifty years later, as the BMT Standards rode out their final years in service, passengers must have felt they were stepping into a time warp when they rode these non-air conditioned cars with wooden window sashes lit by bare incandescent light bulbs. Originally built as single 67' cars with a control cab at each end, many of the 2500-series cars were later modified into permanently coupled 3-unit sets with a control cab at each end.
The Premier BMT subway set features transit stop simulation available only from M.T.H. Designed specifically for our municipal transit cars, the unique Proto-Soundr 2.0 transit program features Station Stop Proto-EffectsT, allowing you to program the train to stop automatically at designated station stops, even in Conventional Mode. When configured to run on automatic, the subway stops itself at locations you define and calls out accurate BMT station names that you select in advance; the subway essentially runs itself. And when you program the set for an out-and-back route, it even reverses itself and heads back downtown when it reaches the end of the line - stopping along the way at each station to broadcast the name of the stop and the hustle and bustle of passengers coming and going.
