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What was the point of the digital end signs of the R32/38?


lilbluefoxie

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What was the point of the digital end signs of the R32/38? The other similarly designed cars kept the rollsigns until retirement, and at that point the R32s and 38s for the most part had the current colors and letters. The (NYCT) Could have saved themselves a lot of money if they just cleaned the roll signs and kept them.

 

It couldnt have been for readability since those flipdot signs are very hard to read untill you are right up close to them.

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I guess the R32/38 were going to live longer compared to the R27 thru R36, which it did. So it got LED instead, rathern then the Redbirds getting any.. Tho its odd that R44/46 got side LED while R32/38 got LEDs in the front of one car.. While R40/R42 got none...

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I guess the R32/38 were going to live longer compared to the R27 thru R36, which it did. So it got LED instead, rathern then the Redbirds getting any.. Tho its odd that R44/46 got side LED while R32/38 got LEDs in the front of one car.. While R40/R42 got none...

 

They are not LED signs, they are not even LCD. They are metal flip dot signs. When the car was GOHed it was a choice between rollsigns and A/C units. The A/C units take up the area right behind the bulkhead where the rollsigns would have gone. There would have been no room to change them. Also, again, the R44/46 signs are not LED. They are LCD displays, please look up what the difference is. The R40-42 did not get LCD signs because they had room for room for rollsigns, plus they were GOHed several years before the R44/46 were.

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What about the IRT redbirds? I remember reading some did have A/C and they all kept their rollsigns till the end. Perhaps they had a different design to the R32 and R38 (which I thought R38s did have A/C to begin with or at least a couple of them)

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As for the redbirds, IIRC they had a different a/c system.

 

Even though the R32 is my favorite NYC subway car, I don't like the flipdots since it is hard to read especially at Roosevelt Avenue when I have to wait until the train is about 10 feet away to see if it is a (E) or (F).

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They are not LED signs, they are not even LCD. They are metal flip dot signs. When the car was GOHed it was a choice between rollsigns and A/C units. The A/C units take up the area right behind the bulkhead where the rollsigns would have gone. There would have been no room to change them. Also, again, the R44/46 signs are not LED. They are LCD displays, please look up what the difference is. The R40-42 did not get LCD signs because they had room for room for rollsigns, plus they were GOHed several years before the R44/46 were.

 

Ill check on that LED/LCD thing. Flipdot i forgot for 32/38. Thx

 

What about the IRT redbirds? I remember reading some did have A/C and they all kept their rollsigns till the end. Perhaps they had a different design to the R32 and R38 (which I thought R38s did have A/C to begin with or at least a couple of them)

 

R26, R28, R29, R33ML, R36ML Married Pairs have A/Cs

 

R33WF, R36WF Singles do Not have A/Cs, but Fans

 

WF= Worlds Fair | ML= Mainline, for the newbies..

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LED is what the NTT's use on the front, and what the (7) and <7> have for locall or express. LCD is orange or green lettering similar to a watch, calculator, cell phone. the FIND is a combination of LCD and LED. Older strip maps have flip dots or slide dots.

 

The PA1 to PA4 cars also had this as an issue. Some of them have a key switch that cycles through to the desired indication, others you have to manually change it, you can check the sign via a small flap that opens to see what the sign is indicating without exiting the train right behind the HVAC. I believe some of the cab cars have something different, but i'm not an expert on PATH rolling stock so i can't be sure.

 

In any case, the indicator up top on R32/R38 are flipdot. I know this for 2 reasons. One, i saw them change it once from (E) to blank, because it was end of morning peak and the train was OOS at chambers, i was standing 2 feet away from the inbound cab end when they changed it. Two, i've seen them broken where it's half (A) half (C) or half (A) half (E) etc.

 

- A

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What about the IRT redbirds? I remember reading some did have A/C and they all kept their rollsigns till the end. Perhaps they had a different design to the R32 and R38 (which I thought R38s did have A/C to begin with or at least a couple of them)

 

That's correct, the redbirds had a different system that didn't need that space, located more to the center of the car

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I guess the R32/38 were going to live longer compared to the R27 thru R36, which it did. So it got LED instead, rathern then the Redbirds getting any.. Tho its odd that R44/46 got side LED while R32/38 got LEDs in the front of one car.. While R40/R42 got none...

 

IIRC the R44 also had LCD (or was it flipdot?) signage on the front for a time as well. I think it was in the early 90's...

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It was a full train of R44s, and it was tested in the late 1980s.

Most other statements in this thread appear to be correct, although the older stripmaps (outside of the sticker/ad panel ones) were all LED.

 

I do not recall what the R110s had for stripmaps. They may have even been light bulbs! Side signs were LCD on both, and were LED for the front of the R110A.

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