On August 26th, members of the NYCTRC were treated to a tour of the Corona Subway Maintenance Shop which services the cars on the 7 line. Completed in 2006, this state-of-the-art facility is also LEED certified, the first for NYCT and only one of its kind in the United States.
The tour was led by Ray Del Valle, NYCT Superintendent, Car Equipment — Subways, and Tom Abdalla, NYCT Chief Environmental Engineer. Del Valle explained how the maintenance program works and members saw a myriad of actvities, including battery replacement to electronic panel testing to wheel grinding. Since the shop opened, the MDBF (mean distance between failure) has been improved 21%. After an hour tour of the shop floor, the group moved to a conference room for a presentation on the “green” qualities of the building.
Tom Abdalla, NYCT Chief Environmental Engineer, explained how the facility incorporated “green” technology: solar panels on a white roof; natural ventilation and exhaust air Heat Recovery units; roof drains to harvest rain water for use in train car washing; skylights for natural light along with high efficiency lighting systems; and a pilot Fuel Cell system whereby excess heat, resulting from electrochemical reaction of natural gas and steam, is captured and utilized for domestic hot water. For more information on the energy savings of these features click here. The group then got to go up on the roof to view the solar panel installation and the exhaust air Heat Recovery Units.