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Reply to "My 1st attempt at a MTA garbage flat car. ๐Ÿš‡"

Number 90 posted:

Very nice modeling, Chris.  And I tip my hat to you for thinking to model such a train.

Since I live out on the prairie, I'm not even slightly familiar with the trash pickup operation in the New York subways.  Does this train get pulled by a dinky diesel locomotive?  Or is it a little electric locomotive?  Is this strictly a nighttime operation?  Do workers, by schedule, collect garbage at a certain hour for that station, and stage it at the edge of the platform for collection by this train soon thereafter?  Does the train have a regular schedule of its own, so that it fits between regular subway trains without delaying them?

Please pardon my ignorance.  This is very interesting to me.

And -- saving the big question for last -- does our own Ben (blueline4) ever run this train?  Maybe he'll tell us.

Refuse trains are pulled by purpose-built box motors designated R127 or R134, and sometimes R62 or retired R36 "redbird" subway cars are added when conditions warrant air-conditioning for the crews. A typical train has a box-motor/subway car on either end bracketing three refuse flats carrying two rows of narrow dumpsters that are swapped at each station from an enclosure where the station porter deposits trash bags collected from regular waste bins on the platform. The flatcars are the same length width as IRT rolling stock, are equipped with standard freight roller-bearing trucks, MU couplers for pass-through control to the trailing motors, and headlight/taillights beneath the anticlimber.

Ben, as far as I know is in regular passenger subway service. I believe the refuse train assignments are rather high-seniority posts but I haven't investigated that. He's in a far better position to to fill you in on that.

---PCJ

Last edited by RailRide

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