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The 1904 cars look pretty much the way they did when they made their first runs on the BMT. Mechanically, of course, they have been altered.

One feature has gone untouched - the manually operated iron gate at then end of each car. A five-car train used during rush periods requires four conductors. A three-car train at other times needs two. By retiring the wooden cars, the authority will soon save forty seven jobs.

The 1905-06 replacements were originally all wood too. But they were fitted with steel ends in 1938, leaving only a small mid-section of wood. Now they have been remodeled once more. Equipped with brighter lighting and new seats and painted a gay maroon. Tile has been laid on the floor.

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Brooklyn Eagle Sept. 2, 1888

Horse Car Growth

Twenty-five years of Street Railroading

Brooklyn Rolling Stock of Earlier Times Contrasted With That of Today - How the comfort of Passengers Has been Promoted. Grounds for Equine Gratitude.

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It is probable that very few of the many thousand citizens of Brooklyn who daily patronize the cars on any of the systems of surface railroads which run in any direction think of the improvements that have been made, not only in the style of the car used, but also in the manner of constructing and operating the roads. Although Brooklyn has now practically four lines of elevated roads in active operation, with others in the course of construction and others still projected, it is a city of horse cars, as the peculiar formation of the city makes it practically impossible to maintain a system of elevated roads whereby persons living in any of the outlying wards may reach some of the other remote suburban locally. The city of New York, built as it is on "a narrow neck of land", is especially adapted for easy and profitable travel by an elevated system of roads, but for anyone living in South Brooklyn who wishes to reach Hunter's Point the only means of public travel is the horse car, unless, indeed, he crosses the East River to New York and then embarks on another ferryboat for his destination. Then again, any one living in that rapidly growing portion of the city included in the Twenty-third and twenty-fifth wards who wishes to reach the lower part of Broadway or any part of the Eastern District is dependent upon the street cars unless he lives near enough to the line of the Brooklyn Elevated road to take advantage of the system in use in that road whereby passengers on the main line are transferred at the Gates avenue station to trains on the Broadway route. Brooklyn thus far is practically a city of horse cars. There is no city in the country or where there are more horse cars used and a more diversified system of horse car routes exists than in this city. Twenty-five years ago the condition of the horse car service was far different from what it is at this day. Then Brooklyn was far behind other cities but the progress and improvement that have been made have placed it now in the front rank. Although doubtless the citizens of Boston will