Retired NYC Subway cars dumped in the ocean

This is news to me although it happened a while ago.

This is a short YT video. "Subway Reef"    Play time one minute / 30 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28GDWEzpPMQ

Gary

Dumping old (retired) New York subway cars into the ocean to act as artificial reefs for fish is both ecologically sound and cost effective. Its a pretty well established 'fact' fish and other aquatic sea life are attracted to these 'man-made' coral formations on the sea floor in order to breed. The US Navy in particular has been intentionally sinking their obsolete ships in the ocean for many years primarily for target practice and sea rescue drills. Intentionally sinking these older ships in warmer ocean waters make excellent artificial 'coral reefs' for marine life.

Apparently salvaging scrap metal and such from these subway cars and ships isn't economically viable or desirable. However anything deemed 'recoverable' is taken off before dumping them in the ocean. Makes sense to me!

The subway cars and Navy ships are carefully cleaned to remove potential pollutants before they are sunk to become wildlife habitat.

Are the shells that far gone that they cannot be rebuilt into a new rail car?

Maybe our friend Joe "The Subway Man" Frank could put together a diorama using a salt water fish tank and some old subway car models.

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Are the shells that far gone that they cannot be rebuilt into a new rail car?

That's what I wondered. Apparently they were seriously worn out after a long service life. Here is some background on them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbird_Reef

The [artificial] reef comprises 714 Redbird (R26–R36 World's Fair series) New York City Subway cars,^[2] 86 retired tanks and armored personnel carriers, eight tugboats and barges, and 3,000 tons of ballasted truck tires ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R36_World%27s_Fair_(New_York_City_Subway_car)

In 1962, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) ordered 430 cars for the 7 train...

The R36s were the first cars to be rebuilt in the NYCTA's General Overhaul Program (GOH) in the 1980s. This program improved car life by rebuilding older cars and keeping other cars in a state of good repair. A trial rebuild program was done on selected Westinghouse R36 cars in 1981-83. Beginning in late 1984, the other R36 cars were rebuilt at rate of 200 cars per year ... In 1999, the R36 cars were the most reliable in the NYCT fleet, with a Mean Distance Between Failure (MDBF) rate of 194,150 miles, despite being 35 years old at the time. While in decent shape mechanically, rust holes and carbody corrosion were beginning to form in the sides of most of the cars.

The R26 was a New York City Subway car built in 1959–1960 by American Car and Foundry (ACF) ... As time wore on, heavy service took their toll on these cars. The R142 and R142A cars replaced the R26 fleet in 2001 and 2002, and many cars were stripped to help create the Redbird Reef. They made their last trip on October 24, 2002 on the 5 service.

There were politics and federal funding involved in the decision not to rebuild some of these cars. It would have been reasonable and prudent to do so.

There was no reason to rebuild them, they basically had passed their useful life. Modern subway cars have features that would be prohibitively expensive to retrofit on the older cars, the A/C is more efficient, they have more efficient lighting, they offer patrons electronic messaging and from what I have been told have semi automatic control, and also are more efficient in their use of power according to what I have read. I don't know what would be prudent about rebuilding 50 year old subway cars, it likely wouldn't be cost effective and would lack the benefits the modern cars have. 

But it seems the newer stuff will not live as long as the old.  Example:  Trucks on new SEPTA cars!

What was needed was an engineering economy analysis, which was not performed. Federal financing requirements for new equipment was the deciding factor. I don't know if anyone ever hooked a watt-hour meter to a subway car. Great idea. But there was also the issue of in-house vs contractual rebuilding. The ta keeps engineering studies like CIA documents. Hush-hush, mush-mush...

NYC Subway cars get the crap kicked out of them daily - once they are retired, they stay retired and become a reef and evrything else goes to the scrapper. Nothing is really worth saving

Fortunately several employees of the New York City Transit System have made sure that at least 2 of most every model of subway car have been saved and are in operating condition. I certainly can't say the same for the good people of the CTA in Chicago. Even Bruce Moffitt of the CTA who is the Bill Wall of New York City Transit for what ever reason did not have any CTA cars saved for the CTA and has to  go to museums in the Chicago area and borrow former CTA cars to operate on the CTA such as the 4000 series recently.

Ed G.

Jon

The redbirds could not be upgraded  They were rusting away and very unsafe   The R38's in one of the pictures above were developing serious cracks in the chassis   The R32's in one of the other pictures are stainless steel cars that are still in service on the C and the J Lines.  They were new in 1964.  They operate great but the maintenance is costing more than new cars would.  We are still waiting for the R179's from Bombardier to replace the remaining R32's.  There isn't any American rapid transit manufacturer left.  Budd, St Louis Car, Pullman are do do birds now

To me, I think there needs to be a standard like the PCC cars of the 1930's.  Car length has to be adjusted for each system, but that can be done in CAD.  There is no reason to reinvent the wheel for each order.  People do not REALLY care what the car looks like, as long it is clean, works including A/C, and is on time!