Worn Out ACs Lead To Sauna-Like Conditions On 1 Train: Report

NEW YORK CITY, NY – Even time travel is possible here in the city that never sleeps, where a ride on the 1 train’s vintage cars can take you all the way back to the 1980s.

That's right: subway cars on the 1 train, known as R62s, were built when Thriller, Purple Rain, and Born in the USA topped the charts.

Unfortunately, a ride in these antique cars often comes with a free sauna.

According to Gothamist, the vintage air conditioning units in the 1 train’s R62s are not only old and in constant need of repair, but were poorly designed in the first place.

How hot do these cars get?

Gothamist recorded a temperature of 95 degrees on a 1 train car with a broken AC unit. Out on the street, it was a pleasant 82 degrees, fairly average for July in New York City.

Some passengers described unsafe conditions on social media.

“HONESTLY @MTA its ALWAYS the 2nd and 3rd train car on the 1 train with no AC. This has not been fixed for years. In a heatwave with elderly and pregnant folks on board. Get this fixed. Unacceptable!” a user wrote on X.

Another rider identified a specific car with a unit they said wasn’t operating: “@mta please fix the AC on the 1 train. Every car on this train is suffocating. Car 1518.”

Unfortunately for straphangers, conditions won’t improve anytime soon, in part because New Yorkers are currently enduring what may be the city’s hottest summer ever, but also because plans to replace the 1 train’s vintage R62 subway cars are on hold following Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to “indefinitely delay” congestion pricing.

Congestion pricing, a plan to toll drivers in Manhattan below 60th Street, was set to raise billions of dollars for the MTA, much of which would’ve gone to maintenance and upgrades of the city’s dilapidated subway system.

A local line, the 1 train runs from South Ferry, at the southern tip of Manhattan, to Van Cortlandt Park-242 Street, in the Bronx.