The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) New York City Transit announced Wednesday, July 1, the debut of standard R211A trains on the D line, marking the sixth subway line to be served by the new train cars. MTA officials said the new train cars will eventually replace the R68s, which have been in the system along the line since the 1980s, adding that the news comes just in time for summer trips to the beach at Coney Island. The first stop on the D train in The Bronx is at Norwood / 205th Street. It continues to Brooklyn via Manhattan.

 

MTA officials said the R211 cars are a critical part of the MTA’s ongoing modernization efforts and feature 58-inch-wide door openings that are eight inches wider than standard door openings on existing cars, designed to speed up boarding and reduce the amount of time trains sit in stations. They said the new models include security cameras, additional accessible seating, digital displays that will provide more detailed station-specific information, and brighter lighting and signage, among other features that improve the customer experience.

 

“Today we celebrate the debut of the new R211s on the d line,” said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. “These new trains will take customers where they want to go faster and more reliably. Riders have told us that they love the new designs and the extra space on the new trains, and we love the fact that R211s are much less prone to breakdowns – running almost 300,000 miles between breakdowns, double the rest of the fleet.”

 

Meanwhile, MTA Chief of Rolling Stock Jessie Lazarus, said, “Southern Brooklyn residents deserve a comfortable and modern riding experience. We’re proud to be rolling out R211s on the d line, further expanding on the upgrade of our fleet. These new trains have the latest technology, including digital information displays and new security cameras and brighter lighting.”

 

For his part, New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said, “I am thrilled that the d train is going to be joining ‘the Fleet of Fleets’ and that customers will be able to benefit from everything that new train car offers. Modern, reliable cars is one thing that the MTA has committed to, so we’re looking forward to providing great service to customers with these new cars.”

According to the MTA, last month, R211s replaced all R46s on the Rockaway Shuttle S line, and in 2025, R211s replaced all R44s on the Staten Island Railway. They said these cars will eventually replace the current fleet of R46 subway cars, which have been in service on A, C, N, Q, R and W lines for decades.

 

They said NYC Transit also began replacement of the R68s, which they said entered service in the mid-1980s and primarily operate on the B, D, N, W lines, with the B line being the first to debut a standard R211 in the summer of 2025. They said open-gangway R211 cars began operating on the G line in 2025. They went on to say that a new railcar has an average mean distance between failure (MDBF) rate of approximately 294,221 miles, compared to the R46’s 58,685 miles. They said the MDBF is a measure of how far the railcar travels before a mechanical issue occurs that requires maintenance.

 

The latest announcement follows the MTA’s recent announcement in March that the Authority is seeking proposals from rail car manufacturers for its largest subway car contract in history with a base order of 1,140 subway cars to replace the R62 and R62A fleets operating on the 13 and 6 lines, and if an option to purchase the additional 1,250 cars is exercised, to replace the R142 and R142A cars on the 24 and 5 lines.

 

MTA officials said customers who ride trains that use the R211 are more likely to be satisfied with train cleanliness: A (63%), B (62%), C (64%), and G (78%), compared to the overall average of 59%, adding that those figures continue to improve on each line. They said train cleanliness is typically one of the top three drivers of subway customers’ overall satisfaction. They said the B and G trains, in particular, which introduced the R211 in 2025, saw significant improvement in customer satisfaction with cleanliness with the B rising seven points to 62%, and the G line rising 14 points to 78% in the Fall 2025 Customers Count survey.