New metro trains in New York will be replaced by 56-year-old trains

MTA will stop the operation of the latest metro cars and replace them with old ones. In new cars, malfunctions of the coupling mechanism were discovered. It seems that for this supplier this was the last contract with the largest transport company in New York. This publication writes Daily News.

This summer, a set of 56-year-old subway cars will again begin to carry passengers to Brooklyn and Queens. This decision was made due to problems with a batch of new trains acquired by MTA.

Antique wagons called R32, also called Brightliners, first arrived in New York in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson was president. These are the oldest train sets that still work in any metro system on the planet. They were operated on lines A and C before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. In March, they were placed in storage, as a shortage of healthy workers caused serious reductions in metro services.

The cars had to stop operating at the beginning of this year. However, due to a mistake made by the manufacturer of new trains that were supposed to replace Brightliners, the latter will continue to carry passengers.

On June 3, all 318 new wagons called R179 were decommissioned after an incident near Chambers Street in lower Manhattan. On that day, two cars disengaged right while driving. AIT was forced to evacuate 10 passengers directly from the tunnel.

As a result, malfunctions of the coupling mechanism in the cars of this model were identified. The incident occurred through the fault of the manufacturer, the latter did not install metal couplings - a device that reliably fasten the cars to each other.

Since the R179 was decommissioned, the MTA was forced to expand the use of cars previously operated only on line L, also on lines J and Z.

Starting Wednesday, July 1, the Brightliners will again run along the J and Z lines, where they have been working for decades. In old wagons, passengers will have limited access to the area near the conductor’s cabin. This will be done so that conductors have a place for social distance.

Transit officials hope they can finally decommission old cars this summer. Although this will depend on whether the new R179 are in working condition. By the way, every new wagon cost the taxpayer approximately $ 2 million.

It is worth noting that the June incident with Bombardier wagons was an isolated one since the manufacturer began building wagons for NYC Transit in the 1980s. In 2012, MTA acquired 300 wagons for $ 600 million, but the company provided 18 additional wagons for free due to a three-year delay in their construction.

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The last of the R179s was delivered to MTA in December, and a month later, transit officials decommissioned all R179 wagons after some of the wagon doors did not close completely.

Currently, only two companies build subway cars for New York - Kawasaki & Alstom and Bombardier. Therefore, MTA has no choice when it comes to the supplier of wagons.

In 2012, transit officials turned to Bombardier again, ditching Kawasaki & Alstom, to save money and secure jobs at the company's Plattsburgh plant.

However, this summer could be the last for Brightliners, as the pandemic has cut metro passengers by more than 80%. But transit officials still cannot say exactly when this will happen - the main thing is that now we need to provide passengers with the opportunity to maintain a social distance for the sake of safety in a pandemic.