Photos of the R-46 truck failures?

Question for anyone who might have them. Does anyone have photos of the R-46 truck failures that were common during the 70s and 80s? It'd be interesting to see the design failure.

there were never any failures. they never allowed them to get past being cracks.

Kamen Rider wrote:there were never any failures. they never allowed them to get past being cracks.

Still would be interesting to see photos of this.

I've said before in this forum that the R-46 North American Rockwell trucks with their air bellows suspension and equalizer bars gave a wonderful, "floating" smooth isolated ride, far superior to the MTA's standard coil-spring subway car truck. The 46's were overweight vis-a-vis spec, and this may have had something to do with the cracking. I also never understood the single-point third rail shoe mounting, which was not up to the job and caused many third rail shoes to be lost. But I felt that a beefed-up version of this truck should have been installed, instead of going with the older coil-spring design.

keyboardkat wrote:I've said before in this forum that the R-46 North American Rockwell trucks with their air bellows suspension and equalizer bars gave a wonderful, "floating" smooth isolated ride, far superior to the MTA's standard coil-spring subway car truck. The 46's were overweight vis-a-vis spec, and this may have had something to do with the cracking. I also never understood the single-point third rail shoe mounting, which was not up to the job and caused many third rail shoes to be lost. But I felt that a beefed-up version of this truck should have been installed, instead of going with the older coil-spring design.

i agree. in addition, arent WMATA cars only slightly lighter? they have a similar truck design iirc...

Fan Railer wrote:

keyboardkat wrote:I've said before in this forum that the R-46 North American Rockwell trucks with their air bellows suspension and equalizer bars gave a wonderful, "floating" smooth isolated ride, far superior to the MTA's standard coil-spring subway car truck. The 46's were overweight vis-a-vis spec, and this may have had something to do with the cracking. I also never understood the single-point third rail shoe mounting, which was not up to the job and caused many third rail shoes to be lost. But I felt that a beefed-up version of this truck should have been installed, instead of going with the older coil-spring design.

i agree. in addition, arent WMATA cars only slightly lighter? they have a similar truck design iirc...

IMHO, some of the older vintage cars gave better rides. I remember well how the R-46's on their original trucks would creak and groan along as if on the verge of collapse. Meanwhile, the R-10's had a very smooth ride.

One story that I read that puts the R-46 turck failure story in a different light is that when the city first went into the railroad business, the R-1 to 9's were equipped for expediency with the same truck design as the BMT Standards, and those trucks were eventually found to be too heavy, and chewing up the tracks. When the specs were being prepared for the R-10 contract, an engineering consulting firm was engaged to come up with truck specs, and they cam eup with an ideal design. But being gun shy about having the trucks be too heavy, The Board of Transportation went with a lighter design that was cracking in regular service. The R-10 trucks were reinforced to approximate the original design aqnd those cars rode quite smoothly for the balance of their service lives. Besides praising the R-10 ride, my other point is that after having problems in the 1930's and 40's with trucks being too heavy or too light, NYC TA should have known better in the 1970's.

As I recall, the trucks on the R-1s and other early IND cars were of an arch bar design! That was really archaic, but they worked and gave a good ride. The MTA's long-time standard coil-spring with leaf-spring truck gave a good ride with the R-40s, but not so good with the R-44s or the R-38s. I think car weight being matched, or not matched to spring rates had something to do with it. The R-160s aren't bad ride-wise, but I'll still take the R-46 Rockwell truck (in a beefed-up version, of course). I remember when the R-46 trucks started to crack, they make clanking and knocking noises, which didn't do much for passenger confidence.

Fan Railer wrote:

keyboardkat wrote:I've said before in this forum that the R-46 North American Rockwell trucks with their air bellows suspension and equalizer bars gave a wonderful, "floating" smooth isolated ride, far superior to the MTA's standard coil-spring subway car truck. The 46's were overweight vis-a-vis spec, and this may have had something to do with the cracking. I also never understood the single-point third rail shoe mounting, which was not up to the job and caused many third rail shoes to be lost. But I felt that a beefed-up version of this truck should have been installed, instead of going with the older coil-spring design.

i agree. in addition, arent WMATA cars only slightly lighter? they have a similar truck design iirc...

I think this NA Rockwell truck was used on Chicago subway cars, which is where the design originated.