The R17 was a New York City Subway car model built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1954 for the IRT A Division. A total of 400 cars were built, arranged as single units. Two versions were manufactured: Westinghouse (WH)-powered cars and General Electric (GE)-powered cars.
The first R17s entered service on October 10, 1955. Originally painted maroon red, the R17s subsequently received several different paint schemes, including bright red, platinum mist/blue, or plain white. The R17s were replaced by the R62As in the 1980s, and the final train of R17s ran on February 29, 1988. Some R17 cars were saved for various purposes, but most were scrapped.
Description
The R17s were numbered 6500–6899. They were one of three car classes purchased in the mid-1950s by the New York City Transit Authority to replace much of the pre-World War II IRT High-Voltage (Hi-V) rolling stock, which included the Gibbs cars, the Deck Roofs, and the Hedley Hi-V cars. The cars were single unit cars capable of operating both independently or as part of a longer train.
There were two versions of the R17: General Electric-powered cars (6500–6699) and Westinghouse Electric-powered cars (6700–6899).
Cars 6800–6809 were factory equipped with air conditioning when delivered. However, 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 with low-running lights and very comfortable foam rubber seats. In 1957, sealed beam headlights were added to the cars. Additionally, vandalism and wear & tear contributed to rapid and frequent damage to the original seats, leading the Transit Authority to replace the seats 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 only nickname for the R17s was "Flat bottoms", which was given to the GE-powered cars by shop and operating personnel. 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-powered R16s, R21s, and R22s had a similar setup, and therefore the "Flat bottom" nickname applies to the GE cars in those classes as well for the same reason as above. The nickname never applied to the Westinghouse cars in either class. The GE cars built and delivered after the R22s have eliminated this unfortunate system, and reverted to the former exterior-mounted grids that are exposed as the train's natural movement creates a breeze that ventilates and cooled the grids starting with the R26s cars in 1959.
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). Side windows are of a two-pane, pull-down drop sash type (used until the Main Line R36s).
The R17, like many older New York City Subway cars built for the A Division, also features two sets of mid-car body 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, first appearing on the R16, became the blueprint for the later R21 and R22, the Redbirds, and even influenced the design of trains still in service today.