*clunk* whine whine whine *clunk* whine whine whine

When I was a kid in NYC in the 1960s, one could always tell by sound if it was a train of old R-1/9 cars in the IND. That is when the train was starting up. As it accelerated the whine became higher pitched and inaudible.

Two technical questions:

1) What was the *clunk*?

2) Was the whine because the motors were old (wearing out), or simply because the design was not modern?

don't know about the clunk, but the whine comes from the motor design

I always thought the clunk was from the circuits going from switching to series to parallel and vice-versa.

Could also be the train being "stretched" from stop, ie. the looseness in the couplers suddenly being drawn taught, also.

RearOfSignal wrote:I always thought the clunk was from the circuits going from switching to series to parallel and vice-versa.

Thank you. That must be it.

I've always thought that the clunks were from flat spots on the wheels hitting the tracks. After all, the 1960's marked the beginning of deferred maintenance.

I don't know if you're referring to a different sound than I'm thinking of, but usually "clunks" are the wheels crossing over switch frogs or crossovers, and the "whines" are the flanges grinding against the rail while the train goes around curves.

RedLantern wrote:I don't know if you're referring to a different sound than I'm thinking of, but usually "clunks" are the wheels crossing over switch frogs or crossovers, and the "whines" are the flanges grinding against the rail while the train goes around curves.

No. Those are clacks and squeals, not clunks and whines. They still have those.

Clunks were from the group switch, whine was from the reduction gears on the motors. Older equipment had quite a bit of what's called "gear rattle" - you should have heard the old open-platform cars on the Myrtle Ave. line.

If I remember correctly, the clunk sound is something that can be found with CAM type DC propulsion. A lot of times, those types of cars have huge grids and compressors underneath which can create the noise. The Washington Metro used this type of propulsion on the 1000/2000 series cars before being rehabbed and switched to AC.