Know Your UFO's Destination at a Glance

In the early days of the subway, and for that matter, elevated lines as well in New York, older equipment did not have modern front destination signs that were visible.  In fact, the BMT Standards and the IRT Lo-V style type of equipment had no destination signs or route markers at all..  Yes, some of the elevated equipment had metal plates at front, but they did not go through any long dark tunnels.  Trains had to be identified regarding destination so proper switching could take place and for years, older equipment, for all three subway divisions, had a color lights or laterns system that signaled a destination at the front of the car.  These lights were used to identify train destinations by towers and were quite useful.  Even the more modern R 1-9 subway cars had these lights, in fact, I believe the R-38 (1967) cars built in 1967 were the last cars to have these lights, even though they had front route and destination signs. I remember some old timers in the 1950's were at Court Street station at Montague Street and they were able to tell, while looking into the tunnel and see an approaching train, usually a BMT Standard, the line and it's destination, for example, a Fourth Avenue Local to 95th Street, Bay Ridge by looking at the lights.   Not all passengers knew of this system and it was not publicized.

 Please see the list below which comes from the nyc subway website that has some train marker identification used until 1967.

      One of my favorite radio shows is "America Coast to Coast with George Nory" and there is very interesting stuff there dealing with UFO's. Many people worldwide have seen UFO's, sometimes seen as colored lights in the sky. It would be helpful if the beings in charge of these UFO's  would adopt the system below to help us earthlings know their destinations. Or perhaps, since we can always use more transportation help here in New York, we can recruit the UFO's to provide transit services.  So therefore, if you see two colored lights in the sky over the Bronx which are yellow and white, it is a "D" bound UFO headed towards Brighton Beach.while you  see one light that is white and one is green over Downtown Brooklyn, it is a GG UFO bound for Smith-9th Street.

Incidentally, the IRT subway and the elevated lines such as the 3rd Avenue El had also their own system of marker lights.

Subway FAQ: Subway Train Marker Lights

From nycsubway.org

NYCTA subway trains (and elevated trains, for that matter) had marker lights on the front indicating route and destination. The practice is now mostly discontinued (although the PATH system still uses them). Thanks to a nyc.transit post by "marcm" we have a list of IND/BMT Division marker combinations from 1976. The format for each line is destination-cab marker-opposite side marker.

Line	Destination	Cab Marker	Opposite Marker
A	Lefferts	Green	Green
	207th	Red	Green
	Far Rockaway	Red	Green
	Rockaway Park	Yellow	Green
	Round Robin	Red	Red
AA	Chambers	Green	Red
	168	Green	Red
B	Coney Island	White	Yellow
	168	Green	Yellow
	Bay-Parkway	Yellow	Yellow
	57	White	Yellow
	W4	Green	Yellow
	2-Ave	Red	Yellow
CC	Rockaway Park	Yellow	Red
	Bedford-Park	White	Red
	Euclid	White	Red
	Rockawy-Shuttle	Red	Red
D	Coney Island	White	White
	205	Green	White
	Brighton-Beach	Yellow	White
E	Chambers	Green	White
	179	Green	White
F	Coney-Island	White	Green
	179	Green	Green
	Kings-Hwy	Yellow	Green
GG	Smith-9	White	Red
	Continental	White	Red
J	Broad	Yellow	Yellow
	168	Yellow	Yellow
	Eastern-Pkway	White	Yellow
LL	8-Ave	Green	Red
	Canarsie	Green	Red
	Atlantic	White	Red
	Bway-Jcn	Yellow	Red
M	Coney-Island	Green	Red
	Metropolitan	Yellow	Red
	Brighton-Beach	Yellow	Red
	Bway-Myrtle	Red	Red
N	Coney-Island	Red	White
	Continental	White	White
	Kings-Hwy	Green	White
	57	Red	White
	Whitehall	White	White
QB	Coney-Island	Red	Yellow
	Astoria	Green	Yellow
	57	Red	Yellow
RR	95-St	Green	Green
	Astoria	Green	Green
	36-St	Red	Green
	Chambers	White	Green