R46 Subway Cars: A History of Failure
On Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at approximately 9:48AM, a southbound A express train arriving at the 125th street station in Harlem, Upper Manhattan, suddenly derailed injuring 34 people.
Let me tell you a little about the type of subway car involved in the crash. As most of you know, the rolling stock used on the NYC subway (rolling stock is another way of saying locomotives or vehicles used on a railroad) is very old. The New York Times recently published this article about the oldest trains still on the rails in the United States and this article highlighting the antiquated signal equipment. NYC Subway car types are referred to by their contract number, and in the case of yesterday’s A train accident, these were R46 type cars. These cars can also be seen on the R line and sometimes on the F line.
The R46 cars are the second-oldest type behind the old C trains (those are R32s, and some car types between them and the R46s have already been scrapped and off the rails for years).
Correction: R46s are the fourth-oldest type. There are still a handful of R42s that run on the J line (though most of that fleet was scrapped long ago). There is also a small fleet of R44s that runs on the Staten Island Railway, but they are near identical to the R46s save for their seats and the company that built them.
They are 75 feet long and 10 feet wide, a standard that has since been abandoned in exchange for 60 foot long cars. It was thought that 8 car trains with 75 foot cars trains were more efficient than 10 60-foot cars. They weigh up to 91,000lbs each (without a full load) and have 4 sets of doors on each side. They were built and delivered from 1975–1978 by the Pullman Standard Company in Chicago. They were brought to New York one by one.
These cars were known for their issues from the beginning. Pullman was the lowest bidder on the R46 contract, beating companies like General Electric and Westinghouse. They were delivered far behind schedule due to a strike at their South Side Chicago factory and other manufacturing problems. By the time the last of the 754 R46 cars were delivered in December of 1978, they were 3 years and some change behind the expected 1975 delivery date. Check out this video from 1981 when the cars were relatively new from the perspective of the workers who made A service possible back then.
Almost immediately, their problems began to emerge. First, a crack was found in the frame of one of the trucks on a subway car. The truck is the part of a train which contains the wheels and axles and attaches to the passenger part of the vehicle. By 1978, cracks were found in 264 R46 trucks. All R46s had to be checked 3 times per week for these cracks. By February of 1978, 889 cracks has been found in 547 trucks. The problem became so bad that in June of 1979, Mayor Koch ordered any R46 with 2 or more cracks out of service. By this time, more than 1,200 cracks had been found. By 1980, 1,700 cracks had been found and two new types of cracks never seen before were discovered. The NYCTA minimized the use of the entire (keep in mind: brand new) R46 fleet until all trucks could be replaced.
Also in 1979, Pullman informed the MTA that the hand brake assemblies for the R46 were problematic. Additionally, inspections revealed that the steel where the car body was joined to the truck (big surprise) was wearing away, a severe safety issue. This, in addition to many other flaws, caused the Transit Authority to file a $80M charge against Pullman and it’s subcontractors. The MTA maintained the cars the best they could while replacing the trucks and beginning in 1989, Morrison-Knudsen of New York rebuilt the 752 surviving R46s (2 of the original cars were badly damaged when an E train hit a wall in 1986, hmmmm) during what is called the “General Overhaul” program. The General Overhaul program or “GOH” is done about halfway through a subway car’s useful life to restore and replace all critical systems and make cosmetic upgrades. During this time, the R46 fleet received the iconic LCD destination signs that still distinguish them today.
These cars have tw0 main safety systems aboard that activate the emergency brakes: a dead man’s switch and a tripcock. The dead man’s switch is activated when the operator is removed from control and on the R46 it requires the operator to let go of the throttle. The tripcock is a device that stops the train if it attempts to pass a red signal. A third way to engage the emergency brakes is if someone pulls the emergency brake cord located inside the cars.
The R46 car type is still heavily used by the MTA, and their original estimate to remain in service until 2011 has been pushed to 2025.
When Tuesday’s derailment occurred, newly re-appointed MTA Chairman Joe Lhota addressed the crowd outside of the 125th Street station in Harlem saying “The emergency brake automatically went on. The train bucked forward. It bucked backward.”
Does that even make sense to you? Originally, I believed the emergency brake story. These trains are old and there are several ways in which equipment could have malfunctioned and tripped the emergency brakes. In any case, emergency brake application (which slows the train at 3.2 mph per second) should not cause a train to derail. But yes, it was rush hour, and these trains are heavy with a lot of momentum when they are moving.
The brake application and subsequent derailment threw people from their seats, created a storm of sparks that was 10 feet high and started a fire, and ripped off a side door while the train scraped against a concrete wall. The train came to an abrupt stop. Riders were left for 10 minutes with no word on what had happened while smoke built up in the cars. People were desperate to escape and with no information, some did so through windows or doors. 1,300 people had to be evacuated from the derailed train and the trains in the surrounding area that were stopped when the power was cut off. Service along the A, B, C, D, E, F, and M trains was disrupted or halted across the entire city
During the day of the accident, headlines read “Investigators are trying to figure out why an emergency brake suddenly activated and derailed a southbound A train.” Everyone assumed that this is what had happened. After all, if a train’s emergency brakes were activated to stop the train at once, wouldn’t everyone riding on the train know it?
Then, nearly a day after the accident, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota issued a statement saying that an “improperly secured piece of replacement rail” that was stored on the tracks caused the derailment. Storing unused rail in the center of the tracks is standard practice employed by railroads and you see it everywhere. The 13 foot piece of replacement rail stored on the tracks weighed several thousand pounds, so how did it move into a position that derailed a train? Did the emergency brakes actually engage suddenly as was previously reported? What’s the real story here?
Recently, I made a Facebook post about the MTA. I am a huge transit nerd and love the NYC subway. I feel like I understand people’s woes and also understand the reasons why the MTA can’t do what they need to do. And boy did people come for me. I ended up having to delete the post, because I’m not here for that, but it made me think critically about the problems that plague the subway. The reason that the subway is in it’s current state is simple: it’s old and it’s massive. And over the years, deferred maintenance on top of a few decades of neglect and 24 hour operation over it’s entire life have caused everything to deteriorate. But what could be done? In order to do what needs to be done, which is a complete overhaul of the entire track and signalling system in addition to at least 1500 new cars, it would cost tens of billions. It would require shutting down huge parts of the subway for years in order to complete. New York is in a growth period where it relies completely on the subway. What are the consequences of doing what needs to be done?
This morning, at a so-called (and curiously timed) “genius conference,” Governor Andrew Cuomo declared the subway in a “state of emergency” that includes a reorganization of the MTA and it’s maintenance processes and an additional $1B in capital funding through 2019. While the Governor continues to deny full responsibility over control of the MTA, it seems to me like $1B won’t quite be enough.
You can read here about other recent derailments in the region.
