Inside the gigantic repair shops where subways get a makeover
The average New York City subway travels approximately 53,000 miles per year on some of the oldest transit infrastructure in the world. Rumbling through a web of filthy tunnels and weathered elevated tracks, the cars are exposed to overcrowding, underfunding, vandalism, trash and routine wear and tear.
Sometimes it is a miracle that the system functions at all.
Breakdowns do happen, but the number could be much higher if it weren’t for a diverse legion of technical specialists who keep the moving parts doing just that: moving.
Every wheel, motor, brake, axle, wire and door of every subway car is completely renovated every six to twelve years at the Coney Island Overhaul Shop in Brooklyn or its sister facility on 207th Street in Manhattan. The work is part of a planned maintenance program, introduced in 1989 and intended to prevent failures before they occur.
The system works in much the same way as a planned tune-up of a car. Trains roll into the facilities, where they are disassembled, overhauled to near-factory specifications and then returned to a railroad that functions like New York’s vascular system, pumping more than a billion passengers annually over 545 million miles, 24 hours a day. day, every day.
On a recent afternoon, Gay Burdick, an electronic equipment manager, unfurled a fresh new roll of train signs at her individual workbench in the cavernous 207th Street facility. It is her job to ensure that the small motors that, for example, change the rolling fabric signs from A to Q and from 1 to 6, work perfectly.
“If it’s a clean plate,” she said with obvious pride, “I’ve fixed it.”
There has been a lot of criticism of the metro lately. There have been a number of notable failures in the system in recent months, including a number of derailments due to various causes: human error, faulty tracks, vandalism and perhaps, in one case, loose bolts. The entire system is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, but the overhaul teams are proud to note the success of the planned maintenance.
Before the overhaul program was introduced, the average distance between failures in a car’s major components was just 16,000 miles in the 1970s and less than 7,000 miles in the 1980s, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But after the program was introduced, the number of miles between failures rose to nearly 60,000 miles in the 1990s. With the system more or less humming along – and the advent of more technologically advanced train fleets introduced this century – most cars travel more than 140,000 miles between failures.
“The magic,” says Julio Bernard, head of production planning at the Coney Island store, “is during the overhaul.”
New York City has some of the oldest subways in the world; some have been in use since the 1980s. Normally, a battered train arrives at the shop bearing the scars and corrosion acquired during thousands of grueling miles over the busy, 119-year-old system. The exterior is smeared, the wheels brown, the parts smeared with years of soot. But after a few weeks in one of the overhaul shops it appears as if it came off the factory floor.
The scale of this magnificent transformation from dirt to shine inspired photographer Christopher Payne to spend hundreds of hours commuting between Coney Island and Upper Manhattan since January 2020 to vividly capture the scope of the work.
Completed in 1929, the Coney Island Complex is the largest rapid transit wharf in North America. Spread over 75 acres just north of Coney Island Creek, the facility includes 28 acres of buildings that resemble an unusually clean, quiet factory.
There is the electric motor repair shop, the pneumatic brake and air conditioning workshop, the car repair shop and the wheel and axle workshop. The facility handles between 40 and 45 cars at any one time.
Nearly 1,000 employees, most of whom are members of the Transit Workers Union Local 100, work together in three daily shifts, 24 hours a day, to overhaul as many as 1,100 cars per year.
A job with the repair crew is highly sought after; Many employees have been working there for years and are generally extremely proud of their success. John Simino, an air brake technician, started at the Coney Island yard in 1982.
“It’s a very good place to work,” he said, as he watched colleagues move a part into place under an R160-class passenger car (known in the MTA as a “revenue car”). “You meet a lot of good people.”
One of them is Keith Washington, a fifteen-year automotive inspector. Every time he rides the subway, he is aware that he is partly responsible for ensuring that everything runs smoothly: the engines humming at high speed, the wheels turning, gearboxes free of contaminated oil, doors always open and closed to go.
“I worked on every part of the train, I did it all,” Mr. Washington said. “There are times when I’m on the train, you know, outside of work, and I look at something like the windows and think, ‘I probably replaced that there.'”
Today, Mr. Washington removes the heavy bolts that secure the trucks’ engine mounts, which are massive 16,000-pound structures with wheels, axles, engines and brakes.
They are self-contained locomotion units that resemble giant rolling insects, each of which can move and brake at the operator’s command. Each car has two sets of trucks with four wheels each. The trucks keep the train moving. The car just goes along for the ride.
The wheels, each weighing 750 pounds, are inspected for cracks, dents and abnormal wear. If a wheel is deformed, another machine in the workshop can sharpen the wheel. But for the planned 12-year maintenance, each wheel is exchanged for a shiny new one.
While the trucks are getting a makeover, each of the more than 6,000 passenger cars is also being renovated. Doors, windows, signage, seating, floor tiles and HVAC have all been overhauled. After the cars are placed back on the trucks, they roll on rails astride a long trench about three feet deep, allowing technicians access to the undercarriage of the fully assembled trains for final inspection.
Karen Guillory-Edwards is a car inspector. She has held numerous jobs in the subway system, including operator on both the N Line and the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. She has also been a conductor, car driver and coordinator.
“I get bored doing the same thing over and over again,” she said.
She has seen almost everything there is to see in the subway, including the tunnel residents who live underground.
“Some people down there have sheets cleaner than yours,” she marveled.
Ms Guillory-Edwards has also sat in the pit beneath one of the reassembled trains, a view that very few people ever see. The reconditioned bases are so dust and dirt-free that they shine. On a part underneath that car – out of sight of virtually everyone except the rats once the train returned to service – was a round, black and white sticker. It featured a smiling cartoon face resembling Thomas the Tank Engine and proudly displayed the words “Coney Island Overhaul Pneumatic Shop.”
Christopher Payne is a photographer specializing in architecture and American industry. His new book ‘Made In America,” was published by Abrams in the fall of 2023.