Railroad Forums 

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

Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain

 #1437421  by trainbrain
 
I believe this was first done in 2011 where they ran some R46's on the C and R32's on the A. The same thing was done in 2012. They seem to have since ended this practice by transferring some of the 8 car R160's from East New York to the C and sending the R32's to the predominantly above ground J line.

The C normally runs 480 foot trains made up of eight 60 foot cars. The A normally runs 600 foot trains made up of eight 75 foot cars or ten 60 foot cars. When they swapped R46's to the C, they kept them in the usual full length sets, while the R32's that ran on the A had to be lengthened to 10 cars. Wouldn't there have been a shortage of trains because of having to lengthen the R32 sets to run on the A? I'm guessing that was the reason they decided to use the 8 car R160's instead beginning in 2013.