Allan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 1:54 pm
AllenPHazen wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2024 7:59 pm
Remark-- the article says the oldest cars in revenue service date to the 1980s. So (i) NYCTA seems to be working with a 35-40 year expected life span for its cars and (ii) (personal) NO car I rode when I last lived in New York City is still in service: hard to believe!
Welcome to Railroad.net and the NYCT, MTA Subway, PATH and SIRT forum (it is rare anyone recently joining gets welcomed so I took the opportunity to do so).
You are correct in the 35-40 year service life in general. Although the R32/32A cars built in 1964-65 were actually in service longer having been officially retired in January 2022 (that makes nearly 56 years in service for some of those cars). The R46 cars are now the oldest active cars in service (entering service between 1975-1978 making it nearly 50 years of service (and getting them ready to be retired and replaced by R179 and R211A cars - which is currently happening). The R62/62A cars are next going into service in 1984-85 and slated for replacement by the R262 cars around 2030.
Allan (answering APH's observation post):
I was also trying to reply on the subject of the R32/32A "Brightliner" cars built by the Budd Company in 1964-65.
Back in the late 1980s these cars were extensively overhauled and rebuilt with new and reconditioned parts by
removing just about everything down to the stainless steel car body shells and for all intents and purposes the
R32 cars were renewed for a fraction of the cost of new Subway cars...NYC Transit certainly got their money's
worth out of the R32 fleet with about 30 years of added service...What would bother me is that the mention of
the R32 car fleet's original age should have included information about this very successful rebuild program...
- What I am uncertain of was the R32 rebuild program done in-house by NYCT or an outside contractor?
The 745 car R46 fleet built by Pullman-Standard had its own problems remembering the defective Rockwell
International trucks but would turn out to be a car fleet with its own significant longevity...I remember that
there were changes made to the R46 fleet such as re-numbering and removing the blue lower side stripe...
- Were the R46 cars overhauled or rebuilt at some point during the 1990s as I seem to recall?
- Do you have any general idea about how many R46 cars may have been retired at this point?
I was trying to research information about the R32 and R46 cars when I ran into my problem trying to save
the post that I was trying to submit - I figured that you would know about these two car fleets and with the
assistance of Gene Sansone's book be able to clarify when and where these cars were rebuilt...MACTRAXX
EXPRESS TRAIN TO NEW YORK PENN STATION-NO JAMAICA ON THIS TRAIN-PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING TRAIN DOORS