R179 (New York City Subway car)

Description

The R179s are numbered 3010–3309. Cars 3010-3049 are arranged as five-car sets, while cars 3050-3309 are arranged as four-car sets.

Features

The R179 cars are equipped with updated control systems, HVAC and public address systems to guarantee the utmost in safety and passenger comfort. They are visually very similar to the R160s, but the two car types are not interoperable with each other due to electrical incompatibilities between the two types of cars.

The R179s, like the R160s, employ an advanced alternative to electronic strip maps, called the "Flexible Information and Notice Display," or "FIND." They are manufactured by Panasonic. This includes an LCD screen displaying the route, route information, and advertisements, as well as a dynamic red, yellow, and green LED strip map that displays the next ten stations, plus five consecutive "further stops" to riders. There are three of these in every car. The display updates the stations at every stop, also giving the number of stops to each station listed. This allows for instant route or line changes with the correct information, which includes, but is not limited to, omitting certain stops (displayed as "Will not stop" in red). The LCD displays where the route is displayed are slightly larger than those on the R160s. If the FIND has gone blank, the R179 FIND displays "Route change: this map is not in use", as opposed to the R160 FIND, which displays "Listen to train crew for announcement."

Unlike the R160s, the cab cars have advertisement space on the wall between the operators' cab and the passenger areas.

The R179s include provisions for the retrofit of CBTC equipment.

The R179s will be equipped with looped stanchions in the interiors of trains, so as to provide passengers on crowded trains with a greater amount of pole surface area to grab on to. This feature is used on R160A consist 9798–9802.

Contract plans

The R179 contract originally consisted of 208 75-foot-long (23 m) cars. Later, in the 2010-2014 Capital Program, the proposed order was expanded to 420 cars (340 for the New York City Subway and 80 for the Staten Island Railway).

The official RFP was issued on June 3, 2010. Bids were due by the following August 13, and in April 2011 the contract was expected to be awarded for $637.8 million. However, there were delays with negotiation problems, and the projected cost went up to $748 million in October 2011.

The order was reduced to 340 cars in early 2011, broken down to 290 base order cars (250 arranged in 5-car sets and the remaining 40 arranged in 4-car sets), and 50 first option cars arranged in 5-car sets. There was also a second option for 80 additional cars, which would have supplied cars for Second Avenue Subway Phase I service. The proposed MTA 2010-2014 Capital Program pointed towards an order of 60-foot (18.29 m) cars. Finally, in November 2011, the order was altered to a base order of 300 cars (260 arranged in 4-car sets and the remaining 40 arranged in 5-car sets), with no options.

The contract was finally awarded on March 24, 2012, when it was awarded to Bombardier Transportation for $599 million, below the projected cost. The joint venture Alskaw Inc., made up of the companies Kawasaki and Alstom, which built the R160A/B cars, protested the award of the contract to Bombardier immediately after the MTA Board approved the contract. However, the protest was denied, and the contract was signed by the company on June 4, 2012.

A 2012 news report from the New York Daily News indicated that a high-ranking MTA official had been in talks with car builder Bombardier Transportation, Inc. for a job. This prompted an ethics investigation, but has since been resolved.

The R179s were originally intended to replace all the R44s, but due to structural integrity issues found on New York City Transit's R44s in early 2010, those cars' retirement was facilitated by an option order of R160s. Additionally, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority later dropped the plan to order R179s for the Staten Island Railway, instead opting to overhaul some R46s to replace the existing R44s there (which has also since been cancelled). As late as 2015, the R179s were anticipated to retire all remaining R42s (50 cars) and R32s (222 cars). However, the R32s and R42s are now expected to be retained due to delays in the delivery of the R179s and potential need of extra rolling stock to provide additional service. As a result, the MTA plans to spend another $49.2 million to refurbish and maintain 132 R32 cars through 2018 and then 110 R32 cars through 2019, before finally replacing the remaining cars with the R211As. In addition, the MTA plans to deliver all the R179s before the 14th Street Tunnel shutdown in 2019.

Manufacturing issues

In a timeline set in October 2012, the first test train was scheduled to arrive on December 22, 2014, the first production unit was scheduled to arrive on July 27, 2015, and the entire order was to be completed on January 30, 2017. After some delays in starting production, a non-operational mockup was built in late November 2013. Delivery of the first 10-car test train was now scheduled for the third quarter of 2014, though delivery of the production cars was still scheduled to begin July 2015 and continue through January 2017. However, as NYCTA's and Bombardier's inspectors found cracks due to welding issues in the prototype train's chassis, the entire lot was rejected, and the delivery schedule was pushed back by two years. The delays in delivery have increased the cost of the cars from $599 million to $735 million; these additional costs add to the costs required to maintain older cars.

Delivery

Bombardier is building the cars in its Plattsburgh, New York, facility. The first car of the first five-car consist, 3014, was delivered on September 6, 2016, and delivery of the other cars (3010–3013) was completed by September 8, 2016. The other five cars of the first test train (3015–3019), were expected to arrive by mid-September 2016, but delivery of the cars was delayed until November 15, 2016, when 3019 was delivered. The rest of the consist, 3015-3018, was delivered on November 16–17, 2016. The first five R179s began non-revenue track tests on October 13, 2016, when cars 3010-3014 were set up as a test train and sent to the test track in Broad Channel. These same cars began system-wide testing on November 17, 2016. 3015-3019 began track testing in Broad Channel on December 14, 2016. One week later, on December 21, 2016, 3010-3019 tested for the first time as a 10-car train. Two months later, the 4-car consist, 3054–3057, began testing in the Rockaways.

On the same date, the first half of the first 4-car set (3050-3053), cars 3053-3052, was delivered. The remaining two cars 3050-3051 were delivered the following night, completing the first 4-car set. The second 4-car set (3054-3057) was delivered in the same fashion between January 25, 2017 and January 26, 2017, respectively.

As of January 2017, the first production cars are expected to be delivered in September 2017. Delivery rate is proposed to be one car per day, in an effort to have all cars on property by July 2018.

It has been planned that the five-car sets will make up a small part of the A's fleet and that the four-car sets will be split among the C and the J and Z. In general, the cars are tentatively planned to be assigned on services that currently use R32s and R42s.