R17 (New York City Subway Car) - Description

Description

There were 400 cars in this class, all built by the St. Louis Car Company, and all single unit cars capable of operating both independently or as part of a longer train. The electrical components were split between General Electric (cars 6500-6699), and Westinghouse Electric (6700-6899). Cars 6800-6809 actually had air conditioning when delivered, but the air conditioning experiment was considered a failure and the cars were refitted with standard axiflow fans between 1962 and 1964. As delivered, R17s came equipped with low running lights at the ends. In 1957, sealed beam headlights were added to the cars.

The R17s were delivered in a maroon paint scheme. Some were repainted bright red ("tartar red") in the late 1960s. All cars received the TA platinum mist/blue paint job starting in 1970. In the early 1980s, they were painted plain white and eventually 16 cars were repainted fox red for 42nd Street Shuttle service in 1985-86. All 16 of the fox red cars were sent to the Flushing Line to fill in for the R-33 singles while they were being overhauled. The red R17s were the last to remain in service, running on the 5 route and being mixed with both rebuilt and unrebuilt R26-R33 cars. The last run of the R17s was on February 29, 1988 which was a solid ten car train of fox red R17s that ran on the 5 line.

As delivered, R17s came with very comfortable foam rubber seats. However as time went on, vandals and wear and tear contributed to rapid and frequent damage to the seats, leading the Transit Authority to deem them unsuitable for service. Ultimately they were replaced with hard fiberglass benches similar in feel to the ones in use on New York City subway trains today.

While the cars received the fox red paint scheme like other cars that would go on to be later known as "Redbirds," that nickname was never given to these cars. The R17 cars themselves did not have any nicknames except from shop and operating personnel who referred to the General Electric cars (cars 6500-6699) as "Flat bottoms." The name was derived from the large box underneath the car that contained the switch group, resistor grids, and other propulsion control electrical equipment. Designed to simplify maintenance, in practice the heavy box proved unwieldy. Resistance grids also generate a good deal of heat, and therefore need to be cooled. Typically this is done automatically on a subway car that uses a DC propulsion system, as the grids are exposed and the train's natural movement creates a breeze that ventilates and cools the grids. But since the R17's grids were enclosed in the heavy box, ventilation and cooling would be provided by using the spinning rotor of the Motor-generator to act as a fan feeding air into the box. The GE R17s were not the only subway cars with this arrangement. The GE cars in class R16 also had a similar setup, and therefore the "Flat bottom" nickname applies to the GE cars in that class as well for the same reason as above. The nickname never applied to the Westinghouse cars in either class.

During the course of their careers, two cars (6673 and 6786) were wrecked in 1957 as a result of a collision near Zerega Avenue, and three cars (6595, 6597, and 6601) were destroyed by fire - at the 42nd Street Shuttle fire at Grand Central in 1964. The majority of the remainder of the fleet has been scrapped since their service lives ended in 1988, although a few cars have been preserved.

The major identifying characteristics of the R17 can all be found in its windows. These include the circular windows on the car end doors, similar to those found on the R15 and the B Division R11 and R16. The R17 also features large, rounded rectangle windows on its side doors, similar to those found on nearly every car in today's subway system. While similar to the R16 in outward appearance, as an A Division car, it is smaller and contains only three doors on each side of the car (instead of four).

The R17, like many older New York City Subway cars built for the A Division, also features two sets of mid-carbody passenger windows on each side. Normally arranged in two pairs of three on the R15, on the R17 one set of windows on each side contains a rollsign in lieu of a third window. The sign contains three readings arranged vertically on its box - the top two being the train's terminals, and the bottom being the train's route. This window and signbox pattern became the blueprint for the later R21 and R22, the Redbirds, and even influenced the design of trains still in service today. The R32 class of subway cars uses a similar rollsign design to that first found on the R17.