Amtrak706

Does that rear coupler look a little skewed to anyone else?

Interesting. So during rush hours trains would occasionally be put on the local track to get passed by trains?

I've always wondered about this: back when the was running, how did it make a faster trip than the ? After a few skipped stations, the would surely get stuck at regular express speed behind the next and sit in the tunnel behind each station stop of that next train? Or am I missing something?

There are quite a few based out of 207. It is not uncommon to see an A train with no R46 B cars.

Bombardier MITRAC like the R142As and R143s.

And that makes sense, considering I've just found out my own argument is BS, lmao: http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/pdf/160222_1000_Transit.pdf Page 28 shows that R42s have a slightly worse MDBF than R32s as of December. Oops.

Ah, that makes more sense. So a fair amount of SMEEs from ENY will be staying after the R179s arrive. I still don't get why they wouldn't compose that fleet of the 50 R42s plus however many of the best performing R32s are necessary, but I guess time will tell. That would be interesting if a few R46s were retired. I would assume that their MDBF is a lot better than that of the R32s and R42s but I haven't actually seen the stats on that.

Right now, the is about half-and-half R32 and R160, and the is roughly two-thirds R32/42 and one-third R160. All of the 4-car R179s are supposed to go to 207th Street for the , so the will almost certainly get some R32s from the . I'm not sure how the would balance out the NTT/SMEE fleets on the unless a bunch of R32/42s move to another yard, which (as far as I know) is pretty unlikely.

Right, but from what I understand, all of the R42s and only a few dozen R32s are supposed to go. So that's somewhere around 80-90 cars that will retire once the R179s come in. That means that about 80-90 R32s could be retired, keeping the 50 R42s and the remaining ~150 R32s. And even though the R42s look terrible (which is being taken care of with the recent SMS), they have had a higher MDBF than the R32s for some time now. The resulting lower maintenance costs for the 60' SMEE fleet would certainly offset any costs involved in keeping parts, etc. for the R42 fleet. Or am I completely and totally mistaken, lol?

I have been reading through these threads, and one thing in particular seems odd to me. Why is it that the R42s are slated to be retired first once enough R179s get here? The R32s have a lower MDBF, and the 42s appear to be currently going through heavy SMS. As much as I like the R32s, I feel like it would make more sense to get rid of the worst performing 32s first, then the better ones, and kill the 42s last. Side question --- how many of the 290 R32/42s will stay after the R179 order is complete?

Wow, I stand corrected. That's really interesting. I wonder how long they stayed that bright, haha. Those photos almost look photoshopped.

Hi all - new member here. Random question: why did the MTA choose to paint R33 pair 9016-9017 in that weird not-quite-a-Redbird paint scheme? No car ever wore bright red from roof to trucks, with yellow handrails, etc.