The R44 is a New York City Subway car model built by the St. Louis Car Company from 1971 to 1973 for the B Division and the Staten Island Railway (SIR). The cars replaced many R1-R9 series cars, and all remaining 1925 Standard Steel built SIRTOA ME-1 trains, providing Staten Island with a new fleet of railcars. The R44 fleet originally consisted of 352 cars, of which 58 remain in service, all on the Staten Island Railway.
The first R44 cars entered service on the subway on April 19, 1972, and on the Staten Island Railway on February 28, 1973. Various modifications were made over the years to the R44 fleet. The R44s set the world speed record for a subway car in 1972, reaching a top speed of . In the early 1990s, the R44 cars were rebuilt by Morrison–Knudsen for the New York City Transit Authority. Though the R160 order replaced all New York City Subway-operated R44s from December 18, 2009 to September 16, 2010 because of structural integrity issues found on them, the Staten Island Railway fleet remains in operation and is to be replaced by the R211 order by 2024–2025. As of 2023, the R44s are the oldest active rolling stock within the NYCT system, following the retirement of the R32s.
Description
A total of 352 R44 cars were ordered; 300 cars for the New York City Subway (numbered 100–399, with 278 of the cars later renumbered 5202–5479) and 52 cars for the Staten Island Railway (also known as ME-2, MU-2, or MUE-2 cars, numbered 400–435 and even numbers between 436 and 466).
The R44s originally came in singles, but needed each other to run, much like the "married pairs" of subway cars before them (R26 to R42, except R33S). The NYCT cars were reassembled after overhaul into ABBA sets of four; A cars are evenly numbered with a full-width operator cabs at the number 1 end, while the B cars have odd numbers and no cabs at either end. The SIR cars were not reassembled after overhaul and remain as single units.
The R44s were also factory equipped with automatic train operation (ATO) equipment, in anticipation of their use on the new Second Avenue Subway Line that was being built at the time.
Since September 16, 2010, all NYCT R44 cars have been retired and replaced by the R160s due to structural integrity issues found on those cars, leaving the SIR as the sole operator of the R44. Currently, 61 SIR R44 cars remain in service and are maintained at Clifton Yard, with heavier maintenance being performed at Coney Island Yard.
Firsts
The R44 was the first car for the New York City Subway. The cars were introduced under the idea that a train of eight cars would be more efficient than one of ten cars. Despite the increase in length, the R44s had eight pairs of doors per car (four on each side) like previous B Division cars. As a result, eight cars have only 64 (32 per side) pairs, whereas ten cars have 80 (40 per side). The reduced number of doors on a train of eight cars increased boarding and dwell times, so recent car orders have returned to ten 60-foot (18.29 m) cars, starting with the R143.
The interior design was very different from previous models. The R44s had orange and yellow plastic bucket seats—a feature that would be incorporated into the other B-division cars and the A-division R62s and R62As. The seats were protected from the doorways by faux wood and glass panels. They were also the first car class delivered with crosswise seating since the R16 order from 1954. The walls were tan with "wallpaper" featuring the seals of New York State and New York City made from graffiti-resistant Formica plastics. The new interior decor was carried over to the R46 fleet.
The R44 was the first car since the BMT Green Hornet to incorporate a two-note warning tone, the first two notes of Westminster Quarters, that sounds before the doors begin to close as the train prepares to leave the station. When the cars were built, the chime was sounded four seconds before the doors closed, but the time delay was later removed. This has become the signature sound of the subway and is used with all subsequent cars.
The R44s were also the first NYCT subway cars to feature a newly designed WABCO-RT5 electronically and pneumatically controlled braking system also known as the P-Wire system, which did not fare well with this fleet of cars (similar systems also plagued the R46s), since most of the shop personnel were not adequately trained to deal with the P-Wire braking system's sophisticated fail/safe design for automatic train operation. The system would sometimes trigger the train's emergency braking system unexpectedly, which caused a situation known as stuck brakes.