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Discussion relating to the past and present operations of the NYC Subway, PATH, and Staten Island Railway (SIRT).

Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain

 #25462  by UpperHarlemLine4ever
 
Recently saw a photo on nycsubway.org from the late 1970's, early 80's of the remains of an R-12 car that was cut up for a clearance test car to see if a 75 foot car could run on the IRT. Didn't think anything but a 51'9" car could run on the IRT and apparently the tests must have failed because we still only have 51'9" IRT cars. Does anyone out there know any details of these tests??

 #25733  by R142A
 
A 75 foot car would have saved the city money after the 1975 fiscal crisis. Ignorant engineers eventually realized that it would not go around curves properly.

 #26081  by 7 Train
 
There many locations on the IRT system that will not allow 75' cars to pass. For example, many of the Bronx elevated lines have very sharp curves. Also on the 7 (IRT Queensboro division) there are sharp (almost 90') curves just south of Queensboro Plaza and between 45 Rd-CHS and Hunterspoint Avenue.

 #26141  by Phil Hom
 
It is highly unlikely it was 75 foot. The R9 was tested at 70 foot, then 75 foot. If longer cars was for the IRT, it would have been 60 foot.

It may be possible with the South Ferry loop being de-looped in the future. :wink:

 #26147  by UpperHarlemLine4ever
 
Thanks guys for what you said but I'm not the source of the information, someone else is. Here is the site from nycsubway.org R12 photos

5781 Converted in 1973 to IRT 75-foot test car XC875. Used for clearance testing around the IRT to test the feasability of ordering longer cars for the IRT division. Scrapped.
(image 12998) (120 kbytes)
Country: United States
City: New York
System: New York City Transit
Location: Coney Island Yard
Car: R12 XC875 (ex-5781)
Photo by: Steve Zabel
Collection of: Joe Testagrose
Viewed (this week/total): 1 / 1045

I was wondering if anyone had any information about these tests

 #26168  by dgianna
 
The longest car conceived for the IRT was 65-feet. Some thought went into ordering 65-foot R62's, but this never happened.

 #41666  by GP38
 
I don't think they ever tried to bring 75 foot cars to the IRT. They were however going to test for about 60 foot cars on the IRT. That may be what you saw. The test must have shown that it would have been too expensive to raise the length of IRT cars.
There was also a train cut up in the 60's when they they were testing for 75 foot cars on the BMT/IND. Many parts of the BMT had to be realigned to allow for the coming of the R44-46's.
They never got to this on the JMZL lines, that's why the 75 foot cars don't run there.

 #41668  by Chris R16
 
dgianna wrote:The longest car conceived for the IRT was 65-feet. Some thought went into ordering 65-foot R62's, but this never happened.
I thought it was 64'. An 8 car train of 64' IRT cars is only 2 feet longer than a 10 car train of traditional 51' cars. R22 #7509 was lengthened to 64' and it ran over almost every square foot of the A division in the early 1980's to test for clearance problems.

 #42020  by N.Y. State Of Mind
 
Did it not occour to them to engineer a 56' car, which can be used on the 7?

 #42037  by Chris R16
 
N.Y. State Of Mind wrote:Did it not occour to them to engineer a 56' car, which can be used on the 7?
They probably wanted to have a standardized fleet for the A division.

 #42040  by GP38
 
Why can the Flushing line handle 56 foot cars? Is that because it was built to dual contract standards? Can the Steinway tubes handle the 56 feet? I thought that the only thing stopping the 7 line from funning full BMT 60 foot cars was the the tubes themselves, the rest of the line can handle B division cars. Of course that may be because of the width of the tunnels, not the clearances.
Of ocurse all of th IRT can handle 60 foot cars, except for the Contract One and Two portions of the IRT. Of course, the entire IRT has to use the Contract One and Two portions at some point on their routes, so it has to run the skinny equipment.

 #42432  by Robert Paniagua
 
They never got to this on the JMZL lines, that's why the 75 foot cars don't run there.

Yeah I know, and if they decided to ease on some curves on those lines, they would have seen 75 footers, the only place where the J/Z route see 75-footers is in the underground area shared with the E line, the last two eastern stops.

 #42449  by GP38
 
Robert Paniagua wrote:They never got to this on the JMZL lines, that's why the 75 foot cars don't run there.

Yeah I know, and if they decided to ease on some curves on those lines, they would have seen 75 footers, the only place where the J/Z route see 75-footers is in the underground area shared with the E line, the last two eastern stops.
Actually even at Jamaica Center and Sutphin the J doesn't see the 75footers because the E is on the upper level and the J is on the lower level, and the tracks don't connect or intermingle.
Actually, a 75 footer can run to a certain point, but opposing trains can't pass each other at the same time in some spots. Those spots are:
-The Marcy Ave curve from the WillyB
-The Myrtle-Bway curve on the M line

Back in 1976, there was a fantrip run with the R46 bicentenial train that ran from Essex St over the Bridge to Metropolitan Ave (of course they had to watch no opposing train was in those two spots).

As for the J line, not only can opposing trains not pass each other, but the trains can't even make the curves at Cypress Hills and Crescent St. An R46 can't go further than East New York on the J, even if they watch the curves.

 #42511  by N.Y. State Of Mind
 
GP38 wrote:Why can the Flushing line handle 56 foot cars? Is that because it was built to dual contract standards? Can the Steinway tubes handle the 56 feet?
The idea behind 56' cars is to eliminate single sets on the 7, because they currently run 11 50.5' cars, and 10 56' cars are of the same length.

 #42557  by efin98
 
N.Y. State Of Mind wrote:
GP38 wrote:Why can the Flushing line handle 56 foot cars? Is that because it was built to dual contract standards? Can the Steinway tubes handle the 56 feet?
The idea behind 56' cars is to eliminate single sets on the 7, because they currently run 11 50.5' cars, and 10 56' cars are of the same length.
I know this is probably going to be expensive, but what about another round of platform extentions to allow for the entire former IRT system to accomodate 10 56' cars per platform? You could probably staggar the extentions over a few year period starting with the lesser used lines and or stations first so you can get more done early with less impact. Heck, add longer platforms into the renovations of stations since most still have to be finished.