NYC Transit “Rail Fleet Asset Management Plan”
John B. Pegram[1]
This is the one of a series of articles introducing documents obtained from the MTA in response to Freedom of Information Law requests.
New York City Transit’s “Rail Fleet Asset Management Plan” is a gem, which should be useful to anyone interested in New York subway cars and their scheduling. The attached, 83-page, Version 5.0 of the plan was issued in November 2023 in connection with the orders for type R262 & R268 cars. The plan contains a wealth of information regarding the NYC Transit planning process as it relates to railcars and their use.
The MTA gave me this document in response to my request for the most recent report, which discloses the basis for the estimated numbers and costs of subway cars at pages 86-87 and 187 of the MTA 2025-2029 Capital Plan. (No documents have been provided to date in response to the “costs” part of this request). My particular interest in obtaining this type of information is to evaluate the relative cost of NYC Transit subway cars and light rail cars, which the MTA proposes to use on the Interborough Express (IBX) line.
I was particularly interested by the statement on page 21, “The table below describes the subsystems and components common among all new technology cars” and the following table:
This table increased my wondering whether a driverless version of the New Technology cars would be less expensive to buy and operate on the IBX line than light railcars, because of common subsystems and components, volume of similar railcars and expected very high reliability. I expect the IBX team and its consultants will be evaluating those factors and reporting their results.
This article expresses the personal views of the author and does not express the views of his employer, or any client or organization. The author has degrees in law and physics, and has taken several engineering courses. After five years of work as an engineer, he has practiced law primarily in the field of patents for over 50 years, dealing with a wide variety of technologies. He is a life-long railfan and user of public transportation in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Because this article is short and lacks detailed notes, no PDF copy is attached.
[1] © John Pegram, 2025.