Third rail support during switches

Disney Guy wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2012 7:06 am

truck6018 wrote:The individual car does lose propulsion. It's not an issue unless the whole consist gaps.

It is intentional that traction power is not carried from car to car via cables; this would in effect combine all of the third rail shoes on all of the cars which would in turn bridge two (track electrical) sections which could cause electrical problems.

Furthermore it would not make sense to interconnect all of the cars with traction power for the
motors but not connect the lights to the shared power also.

One exception: the pre-1915 IRT "High Voltage" (Hi V) cars had a 600 volt trainline between cars, so even over gaps
all cars would have power for propulsion, heating and lighting, provided at least one car was "online".

The replacement of the HV system with low voltage (LV) was for safety concerns to crew members working
with 600 volts in cabs and while coupling.