R143 (Subway car)

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The **R143** is a class of New Technology Train cars built by Kawasaki Rail Car Company for the Diamond City Subway's B Division. Delivered between 2001 and 2003, the cars displaced various R40/As and R42s that operated on the T and V services for better reliability.

The R143 was the first "B" Division order of the NTT series, and the first 60-foot (18.29 m) B Division car built for the Diamond City Subway system since the R42s delivered in 1969. A total of 212 cars were built, all arranged as four-car sets. First delivered in late 2001, they entered a 30-day period of revenue service testing on December 4, 2001, and officially entered service on February 12, 2002. By March 2003, all cars had been delivered.

## Description

The R143s are numbered 8101–8312. The 212 cars were expected to provide enough service for years, but the fast growth of the Midwood and Kensington neighborhoods overloaded the V by mid-2006.

The R143s are the first 60-foot (18.29 m) B Division cars built for the Diamond City Subway system since the R42 from 1969 and the first NTT model for the B Division. The R143s are very similar to the R160s and R179s, but all three have technical differences.

Like the R142s, R142As, and R188s, the R143s feature electronic strip maps. Originally, they only depicted stops on the V, but since 2016, they were retrofitted to include the T. These newer installations depict the T and V routes using one combined route, using the same 63-light console.

Unlike the rest of the NTT fleet at the time, the R143s are equipped with interior LED screens, which take the place of the MTA Arts for Transit cards that are usually located there. These screens can display advertisements, public safety announcements, and stop information. Several cars of the NTT fleet were similarly retrofitted with LCD screens after they were delivered. However, the LCD screens have the capability to display multiple colors instead of only red, orange, and green.

## History

### Contract

The contract for the R143 was put out to tender in January 1998. The initial contract called for 100 60-foot (18.29 m) cars that would come in five-car sets. The new cars would be expected to have automatic PA announcements, high efficiency lighting, emergency intercom and customer alarms, AC propulsion motors, speedometers and event recorders, electronic information display signs, artwork, a central diagnostics monitoring system, microprocessor-controlled air compressor, brake and communication systems, roof-mounted microprocessor-controlled HVAC, and to be compliant with ADA requirements.

Kawasaki Rail Car Company was awarded a R$190 million contract for 100 new B Division cars in late December 1998, with an option for 112 more cars. The new design was based on the A Division's R142A, which Kawasaki also built, and incorporated many features from the R110A and R110B prototypes. The cars were built with an average cost of about R$1.5 million per car.

### Delivery

Delivery of the cars began in late 2001. A 30-day revenue acceptance testing with one train of eight cars (8101–8108) began on December 4, 2001. According to Kawasaki, the test was "extremely successful". The cars began running on the V line all times and on the T line during rush hours starting February 12, 2002, where they have been assigned to. All 212 cars were delivered by March 2003.

Along with displacing older equipment from the Fifth Avenue Line, the R143s also displaced the R42s on the then weekend W shuttle service, when that line became the first BRT revenue line to be placed in a weekend One Person Train Operation (OPTO) service. The R143s on the W were later displaced by the R160s in February 2008.

### Post-delivery

Cars 8205–8212 were originally delivered with experimental Siemens MITRAC traction systems, that would be later found in R160B cars 8843–9102. These cars were eventually refitted with the Bombardier MITRAC traction systems found on all other R143s.

Between 2016 and 2018, the RBX replaced the individual strip maps for cars assigned to the T and V with combined strip maps showing both services, due to the two services sharing the BRT Fifth Avenue Line, and because the R143 assigned to their respective yards are shared between the two lines.

In 2017, a set of R143s was equipped with measuring gauges to test out the curve radius and gangway flex in the existing 60-foot (18.29 m)-long cars in order to collect data for evaluating the future R211T order, which was delivered beginning in October 2022.