On August 12, 2022, an 11-car train of R188 cars entered service on the (R) line! To excite (R) line customers, the type of subway car (R188) was displayed on the exterior signage! /s
In all seriousness, it was pretty cool to see this signage, even if it was not for actual 'R' line service. R188 7503 is one of five cars testing this type of LED signage. A similar message was seen on R142 7021 (R188 and all) but instead of 'R' it showed 'L'. While the 'R' and 'L' could refer to the sides of the car of which they are installed, the sign on 7021 which read 'L' was actually installed on the right side of the car. Another interesting note is that the LED displays on the R142s have 20 character spaces for the destination reading while the R188s only have 19. This means that the side designation for this program showed up in the R188 sign's route box, unlike on the R142. I am not quite sure what this message is from, though it very well could be the LED sign equivalent of the SDS Visual Test seen on the original R142A/R188 LCD signs.
One final thing of note (though not focussed in the video) is 7504's side sign which now lacks the LED route indicator. The sign was most likely replaced recently, but now lacks the LED indicator that was installed as part of the LED test project. It will be interesting to see whether it gets it reinstalled in the future. Another thing of note is that the backlight on 7504's side sign is out when the train is at Hunters Point Avenue. In every other clip (some of which were filmed before and some after the clip at Hunters Point), the backlight is illuminated.
