Amtrak706

I lived off the all those years too, and still do. I am almost positive it was sometime in 2015. This is very bizarre, I vividly remember it but I can't find my videos or any others. I guess I am going nuts. Hopefully someone else eventually remembers it too.

I vividly remember at least one set of R42s operating on the (A) sometime in 2015 or 2016. It was decidedly after and seperate from the period when all 50 were assigned to the (A) in 2012. Not sure how many cars were assigned, and for some reason I can find no information or videos online from this. I took my own videos a couple times but have not been able to find them. Does anyone else remember this or am I going nuts??

Has the cause of the pull-apart been identified?

I don’t think anything is going to be cancelled as far as new cars. The R46s are 45 years old and unlike the R32s and many other 60’ SMEE cars, they did not receive a full structural rebuild and reinforcement during GOH. Don’t forget that even the almighty stainless steel can experience fatigue and stress cracks. These cars are going to need to be retired in the near future.

Did I ever say they could? Below is what I meant.

Most railfans don't even know what that stuff is. Personally buses bore me to death, I really don't understand the appeal.

Saw an R32 heading uptown at 175 St today around 6:25 pm. Bottom roll signs were set between destinations or in one case to “South Terminal” because of the Jay St GO. Only one or two cars actually appeared to have Jay St-Boro Hall destinations.

Don’t get too excited. There’s a 99.9% chance all 5 of these cars will be scrapped

That looks like 5286-9 as well. I know it's a long shot but it would be awesome to somehow make 5240 operational using some/all of this set. Anyone know if it would be possible to link two A cars like the R46s, or is there equipment on the B cars that is needed?

Where is 5286-9? I had heard something about a 4-unit set of R44s surviving the 2013 scrapping but I never saw anything confirming that. Supposedly they were badly flooded in Sandy as well.

So it’s no longer worth preserving more pairs of R32s in the transit museum because they don’t have ceiling fans and because the doors aren’t blue anymore?? I’m sorry but that’s a stupid reason. Any car that survives 55+ years in revenue service is worth special treatment in preservation IMO, so I maintain that it would be worth preserving another pair or two to represent the prolonged-life fleet. I doubt they’ll do that, but that’s because of lack of space/funds etc., not because someone thinks they “lost their color” and “aren’t interesting.”

Well considering they do use the R42s on the TOMM, I don’t think it’s because the type is still in service. The Phase II R32s were not well-running cars, especially with their NYAB brake system. And keep in mind the actual point of preservation: what is around today and what may seem “bland” now certainly won’t down the road. All the car types currently in the museum were once plentiful in regular service and otherwise unremarkable. I’m glad not everyone has the mindset you do, otherwise nothing would have been saved and there would be no museum fleet.

Absolutely. Once retired they will be among the longest serving cars of all time, and that’s definitely worth preservation. I would even go as far as saying it would be worth having a whole 8-car train of them - there is already a TOMC and TOMM. If two Phase I pairs are saved, this could be done I don’t remember exactly which components were original, but I do remember that they sounded like GOH R38s.

I remember a similar incident riding on the last car of an R38 train (this was towards the end of their lives, around 2007-08). We were plodding along on the express run between 168 and 145, probably passing under 155, when one single door slowly drifted about halfway open on the left side of the car. No loss of the indication light, no loss of power, nothing. About 5-10 seconds later it engaged the door motor and closed. Luckily the car was almost empty and no one was even standing up, let alone leaning on the doors.

Probably to prevent foamers from stealing them so they can keep them to sell in the surplus store.

Basically yes. They were a pilot group of the first R32s sent out for GOH and kept a few more original components than the MK cars.

So of the 234 surviving Phase I R32s, that means we have 208 in active revenue service (including the 4 work motor cars that were reactivated yesterday), 6 in work motor service, and 20 out of service (the 16 from last week, 3878/79, and 3786/87). Is this right? 3354/3355 - NYCT - In Service 207 3360/3361 - NYCT - In Service 207 3376/3377 - NYCT - In Service 207 3380/3381 - NYCT - In Service 207 3383/3890 - NYCT - In Service 207 3384/3385 - NYCT - In Service 207 3388/3389 - NYCT - In Service 207 3394/3395 - NYCT - In Service 207 3396/3397 - NYCT - In Service 207 3400/3401 - NYCT - In Service 207 3404/3405 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3406/3407 - NYCT - In Service 207 3410/3411 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3414/3415 - NYCT - In Service 207 3416/3417 - NYCT - In Service 207 3419/3740 - NYCT - In Service 207 3424/3425 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3426/3427 - NYCT - In Service 207 3428/3429 - NYCT - In Service 207 3430/3431 - NYCT - In Service 207 3432/3433 - NYCT - In Service 207 3436/3437 - NYCT - In Service 207 3438/3439 - NYCT - In Service 207 3440/3441 - NYCT - In Service 207 3442/3443 - NYCT - In Service 207 3444/3777 - NYCT - In Service 207 3445/3468 - NYCT - In Service 207 3446/3447 - NYCT - In Service 207 3448/3449 - NYCT - In Service 207 3452/3453 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3454/3455 - NYCT - Emergency Service 207 (OOS when?) 3460/3461 - NYCT - In Service 207 3471/3658 - NYCT - In Service 207 3472/3473 - NYCT - In Service 207 3476/3477 - NYCT - In Service 207 3484/3485 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3488/3489 - NYCT - In Service 207 3494/3495 - NYCT - Emergency Service 207 (ex-Work Motor 38) 3496/3497 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3500/3501 - NYCT - In Service 207 3510/3511 - NYCT - Work Motor 207 3512/3513 - NYCT - In Service 207 3514/3515 - NYCT - In Service 207 3518/3519 - NYCT - In Service 207 3520/3891 - NYCT - In Service 207 3522/3523 - NYCT - In Service 207 3548/3593 - NYCT - In Service 207 3550/3551 - NYCT - In Service 207 3552/3553 - NYCT - Work Motor 207 3574/3575 - NYCT - In Service 207 3578/3579 - NYCT - In Service 207 3586/3587 - NYCT - In Service 207 3590/3591 - NYCT - In Service 207 3606/3607 - NYCT - In Service 207 3610/3611 - NYCT - In Service 207 3614/3615 - NYCT - In Service 207 3618/3619 - NYCT - In Service 207 3621/3644 - NYCT - In Service 207 3624/3625 - NYCT - In Service 207 3628/3669 - NYCT - In Service 207 3642/3643 - NYCT - Emergency Service 207 (ex-Work Motor 38) 3646/3647 - NYCT - In Service 207 3650/3767 - NYCT - In Service 207 3654/3655 - NYCT - In Service 207 3660/3661 - NYCT - In Service 207 3664/3665 - NYCT - In Service 207 3670/3671 - NYCT - In Service 207 3672/3673 - NYCT - In Service 207 3682/3683 - NYCT - In Service 207 3688/3689 - NYCT - In Service 207 3694/3695 - NYCT - Work Motor 38 3698/3699 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3706/3707 - NYCT - In Service 207 3708/3709 - NYCT - In Service 207 3714/3715 - NYCT - In Service 207 3716/3717 - NYCT - In Service 207 3718/3719 - NYCT - In Service 207 3726/3727 - NYCT - In Service 207 3728/3729 - NYCT - In Service 207 3730/3731 - NYCT - In Service 207 3732/3733 - NYCT - In Service 207 3736/3737 - NYCT - In Service 207 3738/3739 - NYCT - In Service 207 3770/3771 - NYCT - In Service 207 3772/3773 - NYCT - In Service 207 3774/3775 - NYCT - In Service 207 3778/3779 - NYCT - In Service 207 3780/3781 - NYCT - In Service 207 3782/3783 - NYCT - In Service 207 3786/3787 - NYCT - Re-Railing Training CIY (OOS when?) 3792/3793 - NYCT - In Service 207 3798/3799 - NYCT - In Service 207 3804/3805 - NYCT - In Service 207 3806/3807 - NYCT - In Service 207 3810/3811 - NYCT - In Service 207 3818/3819 - NYCT - In Service 207 3820/3821 - NYCT - In Service 207 3822/3823 - NYCT - In Service 207 3828/3829 - NYCT - In Service 207 3834/3835 - NYCT - In Service 207 3840/3841 - NYCT - In Service 207 3856/3857 - NYCT - In Service 207 3864/3865 - NYCT - In Service 207 3870/3871 - NYCT - In Service 207 3872/3873 - NYCT - In Service 207 3876/3877 - NYCT - In Service 207 3878/3879 - NYCT - OOS (when?) 3886/3887 - NYCT - In Service 207 3888/3889 - NYCT - In Service 207 3894/3895 - NYCT - In Service 207 3896/3897 - NYCT - In Service 207 3900/3901 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?) 3912/3913 - NYCT - In Service 207 3924/3925 - NYCT - In Service 207 3928/3929 - NYCT - In Service 207 3932/3933 - NYCT - In Service 207 3938/3939 - NYCT - In Service 207

GE pair 3594/3595, they are at Floyd Bennett Field.

Do you have car numbers for those 16? And 204+16 is only 220, where are the other 14? I know 240 still exist with 4 Phase II cars held OOS for the transit museum and 2 GE cars off property being used for police training. That leaves 234 Phase I cars.

My turn for a dissertation, lol. I’ll try to keep this as succinct as possible though. Field “shunting” or “weakening” refers to the use of a resistive load placed in a circuit with the DC traction motors. This is done in order to more finely control the field strength through the motors at slower speeds, and to allow the motors to exceed their “balancing speed” (more on these uses in a bit). The resistive load is provided by resistor banks that hang beneath the car. A mechanical cam unit controls the propulsion system by advancing through several stages that progressively increase the motors‘ field strength. From a dead stop, the first few stages place the motors in series, and resistor banks are connected in series to further weaken the field strength and keep acceleration at about 2.5mph/s. As the car picks up speed, these resistor banks are progressively dropped out from the circuit until full series is reached. The cam then advances to parallel until the “balancing speed” is reached. This is when the electromagnetic force put out by the motor matches the back-electromagnetic force, or back-EMF, acting on the motor as a function of its rotational velocity. To overcome this, a shunt field is applied to the motor (a parallel resistive load that increases the required current through the motor at a given voltage). Field shunting can also be used to avoid commutator flashover caused by excessively high voltage, instead increasing current to provide more power. IIRC the propulsion mods in 1996 only disabled the last stage(s) of field shunting, restricting the motors to less than 100% of maximum attainable field strength with full field shunting available (not aware of the exact numbers, although it’s probably less than 71% given that was one of the suggested values to which the fields strength could be increased). If I am correct about the mods only affecting the last stages, reverting the cars to full or increased field strength should just be a modification of the cam and shunt coils. The DC cars also had a switch somewhere in the cab marked “exp/local” or “energy conservation” that when turned on would restrict the cam to enable or disable field shunting completely. I am pretty sure these switches are still in place on all cars except the ex-Corona R62As, on which they have been repurposed to control the side rollsign express/local LEDs. Of course, the cars can still be restored to full field strength - the T/O would just not be able to turn it off. This probably wouldn’t be an issue though, as prior to 1996 the switches would mostly be left on at all times. One last thing to clear up any confusion about series/parallel and the master controller. The second and third notches are referred to as series and parallel - not because they directly move the cam to series or parallel, but because they STOP the progression of the cam at series or parallel. If the T/O wraps the controller around to full parallel from a dead stop, the cam will still advance through each stage of series and resistor banks. There is no reason to take off at series position on the controller and then advance to parallel, as the cam will do this regardless, and will do it smoother than the T/O could anyway. The exp/local or energy conservation switch was essentially a cheap TA attempt at a fourth controller notch, as its position on/off would either stop the cam at parallel or allow it to advance to full field shunting. And finally, the first notch on the controller is often called “shunt” (referring to its use for a slow-speed shunting move in the yard, not field shunting). This notch stops the advancement of the cam before full series, keeping some resistor banks cut in. That is why T/Os are told not to stay in this notch, as leaving the resistor banks cut in could burn them out. Congrats if you read this whole thing - now get ready to have it all be completely irrelevant in 10-15 years once the fleet is fully AC propulsion. Lol...

@RR503 Awesome writeup, thanks! I do have a couple nitpicks, though - I am pretty sure the horsepower increase during GOH on the 60’ SMEEs was to offset the weight of added equipment like AC, and that the cars’ performance was more or less the same as pre-GOH. Also, the NTSB found that if the striking train had compliant brakes providing 3.0 mphps deceleration, it would have stopped 48 feet short of impact, as @Union Tpke stated.

Oh ok, I see what you mean. The fact remains, though, that this type of wreck did not occur prior to the 90s. If this was just due to a lower probability of it happening before the brake mods were added to the situation, then that probability was low enough to meaningfully change the risk/reward involved in running the system that way. I still think it's worth an analysis (which is not in the two sources you provided, although those were very interesting - thanks for the links). I'll be interested to read that. I do appreciate your detailed and thoughtful responses.

Lol. Those R143 screens are so old that they’ve come full circle for me and are almost cool. It seems like these screens become little preserved snapshots of whatever the MTA was going on about when the trains were new.

Can you elaborate on these inaccuracies and spurious details? And how would a lack of coverage of the TA’s post-crash decisions somehow invalidate a write-up of the pre-crash events? Is there any evidence the IND (then BOT or TA) did not take this into account when designing the R10 and up and their compatibility with the existing system? How come this type of crash hadn’t happened prior to the brake mods? There were plenty of crashes, but as far as I know, none were due to insufficient emergency braking performance after hitting a tripper. That sounds reasonable, but at some point there are so many different safety margins and allowances designed into various parts of the system that they begin to have a serious impact on everything else. Didn’t the IND engineers allow for a 35% safety margin on the control lines to mitigate this sort of thing?

Next time you’re on an R179, take a look at the LCD screen in the FIND module. It’s a bit wider than those on the R160, and is clearly a newer, sharper model of screen. But of course, this being the MTA, they decided to literally copy and paste the shitty 2005 video loop from the R160s, complete with off center black borders to cover up the aspect ratio difference, a slogan the MTA doesn’t even use anymore (Going Your Way) and graphics straight out of the dark ages such as the slide featuring the “new” Coney Island Station as a backdrop while an animation about litter catching fire plays at about 5 frames per second. Am I the only one bothered by this? The only newer graphic is the EasyPay MetroCard ad (probably not too helpful to the OMNY campaign), which is copied over from those newer screens retrofitted onto some R160s in the windowsill a few years ago. Even the route bullet screens are slightly stupid. You can tell on most of them that they have been stretched quite severely to fit the new screen, resulting in some weird looking route descriptor text. Come on guys, it can’t be that hard...