The metal wheels of a subway automotive usually final months earlier than needing to be refreshed and resurfaced by way of a course of known as “truing,” which ensures the wheels are spherical and correctly tapered to glide easily over the rails.
An E subway practice. (Shutterstock)
“NYC Transit engineers are reviewing why wheels on some R160 cars appear to have worn down sooner than anticipated, requiring nonurgent repairs,” William Amarosa, MTA’s appearing head of subways, confirmed in a press release. “Preliminary review is underway to determine the root cause of the apparent additional wear on those wheels, beyond what is routinely anticipated by the planned maintenance schedule.”
The speedy wheel put on has resulted in a large practice scarcity on the system’s “B division” — the lettered traces — and has brought about the MTA to shuffle round older rolling inventory to maintain up adequate service throughout the board.
Massive chunks of the territory served by the E, F and R trains — particularly the Queens Blvd. line in Queens and the Culver line in Brooklyn — function with computerized signaling programs and require vehicles geared up to speak with the trendy sign community.
Which means the MTA has needed to pull extra fashionable trains from elsewhere within the system to complement the ailing R160s out of Jamaica.
A mysterious monitor downside is carrying out the wheels on some New York Metropolis subway vehicles. (Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Each day Information)
Final weekend, G practice riders had been greeted with the acquainted orange “conversational” seating of the outdated R68 practice vehicles, roughly 60 of which had been pulled off of the B, D, and N traces to serve on the G.
In flip, the MTA despatched a dozen five-car R160 units from the G practice to Jamaica, the place they had been configured into six 10-car trains for service on the E, F and R traces. An unknown variety of R179s from the A and C are additionally being despatched to Jamaica.
The extra trains are supposed to permit service to proceed as regular on these three traces, even if trains are being taken out of service for wheel truing extra steadily.
Up to now, MTA officers say, the subway swap has been a hit — all B-division traces concerned have been operating with the identical variety of trains on the identical schedule this week, in line with MTA headquarters, and the one change straphangers see is a retro experience on the G.
However the reason for the quickly carrying wheels stays a thriller — and it’s anticipated to have an effect on the vehicles borrowed from different traces quickly sufficient.
The R160 trains in query rotate between the E, F and R traces, the sources stated, and should not strictly devoted to 1 route or one other.
The E, F and R trains run collectively alongside the Queens Blvd. line from the Jamaica Yard earlier than splitting to go their separate methods beneath Sunnyside. The F practice travels into Manhattan by way of the newly refurbished 63rd St. tunnel. The E joins the M within the 53rd St. tunnel, and the R joins the N and the W within the sixtieth St. tunnel.
Vehicles from different traces that share parts of monitor with the E, F and R should not displaying related put on points, sources stated — which means that the issue is probably going in a bit of monitor used solely by E, F or R trains. Such sections would come with the 63rd St. tunnel, the Rutgers St. tunnel connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan, or the southern ends of the Culver and Fourth Ave. traces in Brooklyn.
An MTA spokesman stated the company is anticipating to seek out and repair the issue quickly. The borrowed R160s are anticipated again on the G line by the tip of March, after they’ll be joined by two new R211 trains.
An R160 and a set of monitor defects had been on the heart of a weird derailment final January, when a slow-moving F practice jumped the monitor on the Culver Line in southern Brooklyn.
There isn’t a indication that the wheel-wear challenge is in any approach associated to final 12 months’s derailment.
Initially Printed: January 8, 2025 at 5:15 PM EST
