Lion, as far as I know, the R-32's are not taller than newer equipment. The older equipmenet that may be unable to fit are probably the various nostalgia trains, with cleristory and semi-cleristory roofs, R1- R10, BMT Steel Standards ("B-types), D-Types, IRT LowV's, and the elevated gate-cars.
The IRT R-33 and R-36 cars, which became the Red-Bird fleet, are as tall as the R-32's and the remaining ones are work-motors and rider cars that can run anywhere on the entire system.
In passing, the 4th Avenue subway in Brooklyn has higher than normal clearances to accomodate the regular box and refrigorator cars of the period (1915).
Contract II did include the upper portion of the Lexington Avenue subway, the part from Grand Central south beihng part of the original subway. I think from memory from all the times I rode that line, that the track spacings and tunnel width with invert on each side would not permit easy conversion to B-Division standards. More than cutting back platformj nosings woiuld be required. Nearly the whole line is in a double-level tunnel, with the local tracks on the upper level and the express tracks on the lower level. At 116th Street you have a conventional single-level four-track subway local station, and at 125th two levels again, but with southbound local and express on one level and northbound on another. (Lion or someone can remind me which is up and which is down.)
Upper platform is northbound at 125th St. If I remember correctly there is a tower at the north end of that platform.
daveklepperLion, as far as I know, the R-32's are not taller than newer equipment.
I only know about the embargo, not the mechanical reasons behind it. The issue is a vertical issue. The spacing of the trucks could have something to do with it as well as the overall height of the train.
ROAR
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But you are certain it was the R-32's?
N (ote that when the Q-types were about to start their third career on the Myrtle Avenue Elevated, they had their roofs lowered, so they could go to Coney Island, via the Nassau Cit and the Motague St. Tunnel for repair and maintencance. (There second careeer was on the 3rd Avenue Elevated, but they were built for BMT Astoria and Flushing services.
Overmod aegrotatio I guess the paper written by the NYC board of transportation was wrong about this. I should probably go find it and post it here. Now that you've invoked it == yes, you should. Or at least provide detailed cites so that someone can search for it.
aegrotatio I guess the paper written by the NYC board of transportation was wrong about this. I should probably go find it and post it here.
Now that you've invoked it == yes, you should.
Or at least provide detailed cites so that someone can search for it.
I don't disagree, but I have to admit that I honestly can't find the piece. I read it on the nycsubway.org web site and saved it, but I just can't find this piece now. It's a great article. They talked about how the IRT was an experiment and how the BMT reflected better ideas.
What this piece does not mention is that the BMT and IND specifications were derived from the wider trains used on the Boston Cambridge Subway (the modern MBTA Red Line) that were developed after intensive study of mass transit in that city. These specifications also ended up being the basis of most subway systems today including the Philadelphia Broad Street Subway and today's BMT and IND.
You are correct. The Cambridge - Dorchester "Tunnel," Boston Elevated cars pioneered doors (3) spaced along the side without any at the ends, standard railroad width, and longer cars. The original BMT steels, in A (single motor car) B (two driving motors each end with blind motor in the middle), BX (two driving motors with trailer in the middle, only one such in a seven-car train and not allowed over the Manhattan Bridge), and BT (BX with the trailer removed) were all based on the Cambrdge - Dorchester cars, with similar length and identacle width and height. But Stillwell came up with considerably lighter car design. I consider all these cars, Boston's and the BMT's as very good designs.
The IRT cars were simply adaptations of regular elevated railroad practice, Chicago as well as NY and Brooklyn, to the subway. Of course the big innovation was pioneering, along with the LIRR, steel construction. Structurally, the big Boston cars were an enlargement of the structural design of the modified Gibbs IRT subway cars, just then recently modified with center doors. The Gibbs design was basically a gondola car, with heavy framjing around doors to preseve sructural integraty. Stillwell's designs used the entier side as a truss. Both of course were an improvment over a house on a flatcar, which was the typical previous wood-car construction.
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