The AB Standard was a New York City Subway car class built by the American Car and Foundry Company and Pressed Steel Car Company between 1914 and 1924. It ran under the operation of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) and its successors, which included the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the New York City Board of Transportation, and the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA). The cars were designed following the signing of the Dual Contracts, which called for a major expansion of the BRT. A total of 950 cars were built. In their earliest days of service, operating crews frequently called them Steels to distinguish them from the wooden BU elevated cars. However, these cars were most commonly referred to as BRT Standards, BMT Standards, or simply Standards. Train crews and the car shop departments often referred to them as 67-foot cars, AB-types, or most frequently ABs. For their time, the cars introduced a significant number of improvements to urban rapid transit. The AB Standards were slowly retired in the 1960s, last running in 1969. Several AB Standards have been preserved. Background When the BRT was to begin operating new subway lines that had been planned under the Dual Contracts of 1913, it marked the BRT's entry into providing subway service in New York. Previously, the BRT had only provided passenger rail service on elevated or surface routes. Expansion into the subway meant the BRT had to design a subway car suitable to run underground in tunnels. This also meant the new cars would have to be very different from the BRT's elevated fleet, and significantly stronger. The BRT was a forward-thinking company and sought to design a car that improved upon those already in use on the IRT subway. To do this, the BRT hired engineer Lewis B. Stillwell to design the cars, based on his work in the railway industry. It was known ahead of the actual signing of the Dual Contracts that the BRT was to operate subway routes, so the engineering effort actually began prior to 1913. Stillwell completed his initial designs for the new 67-foot Standard cars by 1912. In September 1913, a wooden mockup of Stillwell's Standard design was placed on display in Brooklyn for the public and received generally positive reviews. This was enough to go ahead with an order of the new cars. Service history All told, 952 A/B Standards were