AndrewJC

The basic G.O.s rarely happen tough? When was the last time you've seen a local ?

 

I don't keep a historical calendar of GO's, but the 3 has run local every weekend for months on end in the past.

But that was for budget issued, not for the sake of convenience. Besides if it comes down to it, because IRT weekend G.O.'s are so uncommon, they could just cut it when necessary.

 

As explained in the link, the service needs to be cut to that level for GO's. To save money, the cuts were instituted in the regular (picked) schedules, because the MTA has to pay to operate the full scheduled service even when service is reduced for GO's. But on the 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, service was already cut in 2003 to accommodate GO's.

I don't know why you say they're so uncommon. Don't you remember weekend after weekend after weekend of 5 trains terminating at Grand Central or of 1 trains terminating at 14th, let alone a basic 6-via-express or 2/3-via-local GO?

I don't think there are that many weekend G.O.'s in Manhattan on the IRT, and especially not enough to make a cap for an unlikely hypothetical situation.

 

There was one last weekend on the East Side, and even with the 5 not running in Manhattan (so only 15 tph with the 4 and 6), the congestion was bad.

GO's are pretty common, but even if you don't think capping the service to accommodate GO's is a good idea, that's exactly what was done: http://www.mta.info/...ction/part1.htm ("Reduce Weekend Train Frequencies to Accommodate Construction Work").

Fine, I guess I got over complicated and confused...

 

You can say that again!

Really? What about the IRT Flushing Line since that can be the only alternative for that?

 

The only alternative for what?

I know that the Flushing Line was built around the 1910s and 1920s and stations there open around THAT era. So if the rest of the IRT lines got new signal systems in the 60's and 70's, how come Flushing didn't? There was still time for the to do it in the 80's or 90's?

 

New signal systems are extremely costly, so they have to be phased in over time, as funding becomes available. Signal systems have been modernized since the 50's, a line or two at a time. Now it's Flushing's turn. Plenty of other lines were modernized in the 80's and 90's.

What? You mean the bottlenecks where a comes immediately followed by a and then riders at all stations between 135th Street, Manhattan and Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn are stuck waiting another 8 minutes? Or the 145th Street or Nostrand Avenue junctions?

 

I'm talking about GO's where one track is closed for construction. Everything has to merge onto the other track (local or express), and adjacent track flagging often forces those trains to creep through the work area slowly. That is what constrains capacity to about 18 tph. If service is increased on the 2, then it has to be decreased on the 1 or 3 to keep within the 18 tph cap.

The needs to be at least 6-8 or just 8 minute headways. 12 minutes is too ridiciously low, especially for a route that has more demands than that of a line that needs CBTC installed and is NEARLY almost elevated as well...That would just add MORE trains to the and ridership there doesn't even warranted it.

 

As I asked before, what does that have to do with the age of the signal system?

Rush hour service has a train every 2-3 minutes. The signal system can clearly support service that frequent, and the old signal system could as well.

As I explained, weekend service is infrequent due to GO-related constraints in Manhattan. The signal system has nothing to do with it.

Then why is the scheduled to come every 12 minutes on weekends then?

 

All of the mainline IRT services are limited on weekends by the cap of 18-20 tph on the mainlines to accommodate GO's. The West Side breakdown is 7.5 tph 1 + 5 tph 2 + 5 tph 3 = 17.5 tph; the East Side breakdown is 7.5 tph 4 + 5 tph 5 + 7.5 tph 6 = 20 tph (but the 5 is often reduced to 3 tph on weekends when work is going on in Manhattan, to keep the total down to 18 tph).

(What gave you the idea that the age of the signal system had anything to do with it?!)

Don't a lot of people who are residents of White Plains Road use it for the West Side destinations in Manhattan and/or Flatbush Avenue/Eastern Parkway/Nostrand Avenue destinations in Brooklyn and reverse goes true for northbound?

 

Of course.

I know that the is a long route with 49 stops and higher ridership compared to the and ...

 

What difference does it make how many stops it has?

I agree installed CBTC should be installed White plains Road Line ( that Unionport Yard & 239 street yard home of 2 & 5 line are capable to handle CBTC , Pelham Line capable to handle. That Westchester Yard can handle. )

 

The signal system on the White Plains Road line is brand new!

As Far Rock Depot explain in a previous post, the lines where the run on are older than the IRT Flushing Line. I'd ather have CBTC installed on the ENTIRE Jerome Avenue, Dyre Avenue, White Plains Road, Pelham, and Lexington Avenue lines since the and EVEN the part-time are arguably buiser and way more demanding than the . Those lines have higher ridership and serve high pollitical hoods and that also includes the even though its fleet is R62A's while the , while it does have a good ridership, is mainly a supplement.

 

As Art Vandelay said, what matters is the age of the signal system, not the age of the line itself. Almost all of the IRT, aside from the Flushing line, has had its original signal system replaced, beginning in the 50's and 60's. The signal system on the Flushing line is the oldest on the IRT.

The signals on the Flushing line are failing at an increasing rate and are costing more and more to maintain. They need to be replaced. The signals on almost all of the rest of the IRT are newer and are not up for replacement yet.

Again, you're reversing cause and effect. As I said, the driving force is the need to replace the signal system on the Flushing line. The cars will end up where the cars end up.

I can bet that its feasible that they can keep the R62As on the Flushing line and the existing signals until the R62A's replacements finally arrive. The is already frequent as it is, even if it is isolated like the and has high ridership which scores better than many other lines ONLY because they are shorter and self contained lines. This is why I don't even agree with this Flushing CBTC/R188 plan any way. Since both the and 's cars get regularly maintained due to their shorter and insolated lines which is why they have well on-time preformances and higher MDBFs.....

 

You are missing the point. The issue is that the signal system on the Flushing line is very old and has to be retired. Everything else is irrelevant. Without a functional signal system, trains can't run.

Those questions have both been nagging me for years now. This could have been foreseen well before the end of the R142/A order.

 

Agreed.

Fine, then I guess the entire reason why the is doing this is because the IRT Flushing Line is the oldest out of all the IRT lines in the subway. And or riders have to deal with the R62s or R62As. At first I thought they were doing this because they "want" the to use the R142As/R188s (making the strip maps of the 's R142As a waste of money and serving no purpose) until now since nobody (except you and Art) has explain why the is doing this.

 

You have (or had) it backwards. The signal system is what's driving the car assignments. Flushing is getting CBTC; therefore Flushing needs R188's; therefore the R62A's that currently run on Flushing will need to be swapped with the cars on one of the other lines.

I agree but the issue topic you know . Why send R62 / R62A back to Lexington Avenue .

 

Because they won't be able to run on Flushing once CBTC is installed, and retiring them this young would be wasteful.

I still think Putting CBTC on queens Blvd is gonna be the biggest mistake they ever made, i don't agree with QB getting CBTC, i can deal with the , the its no big deal, but QB is a bad idea

 

Putting a high-capacity signal system that will improve operations and speed up service on one of the busiest lines in the city is a mistake? What do you recommend doing instead, keeping the 1933 wayside signals even longer?

But the first train is supposed to ARRIVE in the next couple months. Then begin revenue service May 13th as stated by Snowblock. Plenty of time to get out the kinks before 30-Day in service testing which would technically begin on that first revenue run. What happens AFTERWARD can be anything since anything can happen to cause the train to be pulled out of service for a bit.

 

Again, May 13 may be a target date, but it's over seven months away, and the work that needs to take place between now and then may take more or less time than anticipated.

A lot of testing needs to take place before the first revenue customer boards the train. Revenue testing is only one piece of the puzzle.

Wow, so you guys are telling me that the can't just convert the new wayside system into CBTC after the R62As retire from service come the late 2020s or past 2030s....? If so, then they should have never placed the R142As on the and/or then...the would have been 100%, if not completely, R142s like the and , and the R62As would have still stayed on the ...

 

Once the MTA has already paid for a high-capacity wayside signal system, why would they then pay again for a CBTC system? Take a look at Canarsie - aside from the section between Broadway-Juncction and Canarsie (which needs to accommodate non-CBTC car moves), the only wayside signals are at interlockings. That's where the savings of CBTC come into play.

The R142A's weren't placed on the 7 from the start because they only had 5-car sets. In retrospect, it would have made more sense to have purchased 6-car sets, and for that matter to have ordered CBTC-ready cars. But what's done is done.

@AndrewJC

 

CBTC and car convertibility costs WAY more than just a new wayside system for the IRT Flushing Line and Scheduled Maintance Service for the 's R62As...Transfering equipment to another yard means more money has to be spent too..There will also be stuck with some R142As at Westchester..There will only be 220 R142As left after this. The is also already frequent as it is and thus had scored better than the in the previous State of the Subways Report Cards. It also already handles the off-peak ridership without the need of reverse peak direction express service save for rush hours and ongoing sports games.

 

Replacing a signal system is a massive expenditure, and the lifecycle cost of a new CBTC system is comparable to, if not cheaper than, a new wayside system, especially on a line that needs to handle frequent service. (Much of the expense of a wayside system is in the physical signals themselves, and a high-capacity wayside system needs a lot of signals to meet the capacity requirements. A relatively low-capacity line can get by with fewer signals.) CBTC comes with additional benefits, such as improved capacity and safety and higher travel speeds.

The additional car maintenance costs are tiny in comparison.

And replacing a signal system twice in 20 years would be exceptionally wasteful.

The only real alternative to replacing the Flushing signal system now is to keep the existing signals hobbling along until the time comes to replace the R62A's, and I'm not sure that's feasible.

In my opinion, it should be three tracks. Not for express service or anything, but for reroute possiblilities due to regular maintenance or the usual unplanned service changes. For instance, if a stalled train was stuck at 72 St/2 Av, the trains behind it would be able to run express until the next crossover instead of having to single-track for a section of the line. One only needs to look at the Canarsie line for an idea of how bad one problem can screw up a two-tracked line in a very busy area.

 

Second Avenue interlockings will be a lot more closely spaced than Canarsie interlockings. If a stalled train is stuck in the station at 72 St/2 Av, following trains can run around it on the opposing track, since there is an interlocking at either end of the station. Messy, yes, but it can be done.

The original plans included a third track at 72nd Street. It was dropped from the plans to reduce costs. A third track the entire length of the line is a luxury that would have killed the entire project.

is it delivery of R188 supposed to be arrival in 2015? Or the order is cancel again for the east side rider or the Pelham riders.

CBTC is under construction on the Flushing line. CBTC will not work if the cars are not properly equipped. The R188's will have CBTC equipment installed.

Canceling the R188 order is not an option.

Cheapest is to wait until the R62/62As retire in the late 2020s or past 2030s then the gets newer models that the can equipped for CBTC and automate the entire IRT Flushing Line, there they have it.

The signal system on the Flushing line is very old and needs to be replaced. It's not going to be replaced with a new wayside system now and then with a new CBTC system in 15-20 years.

May 13th is a Monday, but I think I'm gonna play hookey that day if the R188 is truly running.

There is no possible chance that a precise date is set in stone over 7 months in advance. Even if a delivery schedule were set in stone - and delivery schedules are never set in stone - the first train will need to undergo extensive testing before it can run in revenue service, and the results of that testing can't be known in advance.

May 13 may be a target date, but it can't be anything more than that.

Isn't Coney Island where they set the signage? That's the stop I got off… 2 hours after the fact, and the signage was wrong.

So the crew on your train hadn't yet heard that the GO ended early.

This was already hours after the fact. You'd think a train that could be reprogrammed with the push of a few buttons in an age where the MTA can update its website with real-time statuses would itself have updated signage.

 

The signage is set by the train crew at the beginning of the run. If the crew isn't aware that the GO has ended early, the signs are going to be set in accordance with the GO.

I thought I read up on Wikipedia that the R179s and R211s will be equipped for CBTC...

 

They will be CBTC-ready. That only means that they will have room for CBTC equipment and an interface for the CBTC equipment to plug into. The Canarsie CBTC system is unique - the joint Thales/Siemens CBTC system has not been developed yet - so the CBTC equipment installed on the R143's will be of no use anywhere else.

You can still technically run any car you want on the . With the implementation on CBTC would make seeing anything else is unlikely

 

Anything can run on the L, but the wayside signals are now only at interlockings (except south of Broadway Junction), so any non-equipped train that strays onto the line will be kept very far back from its leader. Not a good idea if you're trying to run 19 trains per hour.

One can't say the 143s will permanently stay on the L. It's ridiculous and preposterous due to many factors:

Although cars assigned to the L are the only cars cbtc equipped, they WILL eventually have NTTs be all cbtc installed. Why not add newer cars to the L by installing the equipment and have 143s go to other lines which, in the future, will have cbtc eventually?

The logic of transferring 4-car set to the C may indicate no plans to extend C train consists to 605' or 600' with 75' cars. And with the oldest fleet of NTTs also being 4-car consists, why not "rotate them". Theyve done it with other fleets.

 

Aside from 64 R160's, the R143 is the only fleet equipped with the unique Canarsie CBTC system. Until the R143's are retired, there is no reason to ever equip any other cars with the Canarsie CBTC system (unless more cars are needed for service expansion, in which case only those cars need to be equipped).

Moving the R143's to any other line would be a waste of money, serving no purpose whatsoever. There's no reason to run 4-car sets of R143's on the C when 4-car sets of R179's would do the same job.

How does NJT cross-honor PATH tickets if you pay for PATH with MetroCard or Smartlink and not cash? Do you like go to the PATH station agent and get a ticket or something?

 

PATH doesn't have station agents.

You probably just show your MetroCard or Smartlink card on NJT, and the conductor takes your word that you were planning to ride PATH.