itmaybeokay

On 12/12/2023 at 9:03 PM, Ale188 said:

More like around my B-day (2/13)

Eyyy that's my birthday too.

(Haven't been around here in quite a while, but popped on to see how many of these things are in service after seeing one in the wild on monday. Sounds like that was the only set in service, lucky.) 

14 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Broadway Service is going to go down the drain with these R46's with their ridiculously long dwell times...

4 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Hopefully they continue to complain until they do something. R46's on Broadway. Are. Not. A. Good. Idea.

Considering I moved from the  served part of astoria to the  served part - and was fairly jazzed about moving-on-up from the R46 - I am not to keen on this swap. 

But - in fairness - weren't the vast majority of these R46's already on broadway?  There were like what, 6 trains on the F? 

Sure, now you're pokeying up both the express and the local tracks with them - but I don't know that the overall effect to broadway service will be catastrophic. 

Annoying - assuredly yes. 

3 hours ago, CenSin said:

R46 on track 4 at Coney Island: is this an aberration or something that's going to be a regular appearance?

About the same time you saw that, I saw back to back r46 on the astoria line running as N and W. 

I'd assume they're making the EFMR all NTT for QBL CBTC. (more acronyms anyone?)

Edit: Upon review I realize I'm late to the party on this one and also that the N isn't going to stillwell right now. I haven't been paying attention lately 🙄

If anyone doesn't already know, the schedule this year for whatever reason was posted on the Transit Museum website instead of the general MTA site: 

https://www.nytransitmuseum.org/holidaynostalgiarides/

3 minutes ago, Lex said:

As long as the slope doesn't get in the way...

Fair point

On 5/26/2019 at 11:31 AM, R68OnBroadway said:

Also, could you maybe add some switches to turn some trains at Astoria Blvd’s center track?

You know I really like that idea. Most of the pax along the line still get served by those trains, and even those headed for ditmars - its only a 7 minute walk away, or if they can't/don't want to, the next train won't be far behind. 

Switches really shouldn't be that hard to add...

As has been mentioned 

1. The MTA can't declare bankruptcy 
2. If they could, it would cause more problems than it would solve. 

Specifically, Corporate bankruptcy has two types, lets take a look at how badly either would go if they could: 

Chapter 7 Bankruptcy: 

The corporation is dissolved, the organization ceases to be, and assets are liquidated to repay creditors. 

Just let yourself marinate in the regional implications of that one. 

Chapter 11 Bankruptcy: 

The corporation remains, and either assets liquidated or the company is reorganized to repay creditors according to terms specified in court. 

This one might seem like a good option, but the result here is still being on the hook for all outstanding debt, and the inability to take on additional debts. Reorganization in the case of the MTA would in some cases have to be done legislatively and options available to businesses may not be available. 

Liquidation of assets, even partially, would be problematic as this consists primarily of property and rolling stock which are operationally fundamental to service. 

The best-case-scenario would still be awful, liquidation of the MTA en-masse to a private company to operate the service. I know we have some proponents of privatization here, but mass heavy-rail transit privatization does not have a successful stateside equivalent. You do have some functional models in asia, but that's a very different market. If you look at the UK, you have rail privatization ultimately raising fares 20-30% while *still* receiving public subsidy. 

So, no, I don't think privatization would help overall,  and it being the best outcome of a bankruptcy that isn't a valid legal maneuver anyway - even if bankruptcy were an option, it's not a good one.   

On 6/3/2019 at 8:02 AM, T to Dyre Avenue said:

He shouldn’t have been released on bail. Certainly not for just $10,000 and definitely not in just two days flat. He’s been arrested 17 times. And he showed zero remorse when the reporter asked him about what he did. He’s not going to learn his lesson by being granted bail and released on his own recognizance (ROR). The slashing, assaults and trying to throw the woman off the platform at Halsey should have been plenty of reason to deny him bail/ROR. I wish I knew what the hell this judge was thinking in releasing Thompson so quickly and easily. 

But I will say this: He needs to be locked up. If not prison, then he needs to be in a mental institution. Because he’s definitely a danger to society. Not to mention himself if he’s surfing trains while exposing himself.

I mean, yes, if there's unrepentant criminal behavior especially with such disregard for others the sentence should be substantial. 

But well, some notes: 

1) he wasn't released ROR - that is when someone is released pending trial *without* bail. That happens in 85% of criminal cases. 

2) He was charged with Reckless Endangerment and Crim Tresspass - misdemeanors, NY rules say the judge has to offer bail if the top charge is a misdemeanor, so, maybe it should have been higher. 

Edit: Actually i looked it up and the Times was wrong, top charge is Criminal Tampering, a more appropriate charge, and a D Felony. So, actually yes technically bail could have been denied

3) A distinction without much of a difference: It isn't 17 arrests, it's 17 prior charges, stemming from 7 arrests. All seem to be of this year and still pending trial. 

I haven't spent more than a few minutes looking through court records but I don't actually see that he's been convicted of anything, and the top (prior) pending charge against him is a misdemeanor. The attempted assault felony charge was dismissed - I don't immediately see why so - but the court isn't going to regard a dismissed charge in rendering its decisions. I know it doesn't seem high, and I understand the feeling that bail should be higher, but from a legal perspective, that's actually pretty high for the charge for someone with no convictions - speaking relative to the average case at least. 

He's due in court on June 20 for all the outstanding charges and the part is listed as "APY2" 

Quote

This alternative to incarceration program serves all misdemeanor defendants ages 16-24 boroughwide. Brooklyn Justice Initiative’s young adult alternatives to incarceration program offers a broad range of alternative sentencing options, including on-site services and referrals to community-based services including, but not limited to: mental health, drug treatment, education, employment and job training. The goal of the programs is to increase the availability of social services and community-based programs for adolescent and young adult offenders and reduce the use of traditional cases dispositions.

I'm not gonna argue the pros or cons of programs like this here, nor take a side on it at all, but Proponents will say that programs like this for low level charges can avoid the initial incarceration that begins a cycle of recidivism and reincarceration. Even proponents won't claim it's appropriate for all defendants. 

Edit: Since he's now been charged with a felony, and is showing no remorse and a continued pattern that has made the news, I wouldn't be shocked if those cases are removed to the regular trial calendar. 

Google "webcrim nys courts", navigate through the worlds worst website interface and you too can play along at home. 

Please do not assume that I'm defending anyone, supporting any court decisions, legal precedents or taking any sides here. I have intentionally attempted to express no opinion I'm just explaining what I know about criminal procedure law and what I found in public records. 

The app is so very janky - but whats weird, truly the only reason I'll ever use the thing, it somehow has a more reliable real time data feed than the subwaytime app, or really any 3rd party apps. 

On 2/15/2019 at 8:30 PM, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

many people with such a high level of education and skill aren't overly reliant on public transportation.

🤓 Stunning, then, the number of CS and EE faculty here on the train in the AM

On 2/15/2019 at 8:30 PM, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

Society is more technologically sophisticated than in it was in the past. Someone with a solid understanding of code and encryption could theoretically cheat the MTA out of fares. Multiply such an individual by thousands and now you have another form of fare evasion.

As someone with a reasonable understanding of code and encryption, also network topology and basic electrical engineering:
It's way harder than you think. Nearly impossible. The system is actually quite complex. 

The whole archetecture can be gleaned from this publically available Cubic co patent: 

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6595416.pdf

Both the turnstiles and the MVM are networked - but not in the way that we think about it today. 

Quote

Transit system turnstiles 240, fare card readers 242, and automatic vending machines 244 are also connected to the available serial ports of the communication expansion panel 236. 

Serial connections. Strictly point-to-point. All security is on the physical layer. No penetration without physical access. Not happening. You can't breach an MVM without opening the box, end of story. 

The metrocard itself? I won't link it but the format has been pretty thoroughly explored. It's not a standard magnetic stripe format, so you need to build hardware to read it. Basically, credit cards, and pretty much all other magnetic cards have "timing bits" encoded which are comparable to sprockets in film. The metrocard data is magnetically encoded onto three linear tracks which are read as they pass over a static head in the turnstyle, and as such, the time domain is a key parameter for decoding. Lacking the timing bits, the turnstyle actually has a rotary encoder opposite the head which reports the rate-of-swipe to the magnetic decoding system. 

Bear in mind, in the same swipe its being read, it's also being written. There are some check bits for which I am not sure if the algorithms of encoding have been derived - I'm not interested in looking either - but lets say hypothetically you could write the correct check bits and add money to a metrocard. You wouldn't get far - stunningly, they've thought of that. The area controllers talk to a central database periodically communicating card serial number, swipe index, and value remaining. That data is also written to the card. 

So yeah, theoretically: Lets say I have a card, swipe at a turnstile, and have $5 left on the card. I had copied the magnetic data off the card before swiping and now re-encode the card to it's pre-swipe state. I swipe it again, it says $5 left on the card still, whoo hoo! Except: Now it's been transmitted to the database that the card serial number has had the same swipe index transmitted twice, at two different times at two different locations. One of two things happens: 1) the next time you swipe the card, it encodes the balance the database expects 2) the card is simply blacklisted. Also if you're caught you'll be arrested. 

I guess you could try hacking the central database, but now we're talking felony computer crime for free fares - and nobody outside the agency even knows if that database is connected to the internet. 

Considering the fact that there's no way to add value to a metrocard online - I bet it isn't even networked outside of the private fare collection network. 

TL;DR even mr robot still evades fares the old fashioned way. 

On 2/12/2019 at 5:54 PM, FLX9304 said:

Yesterday, Traveling on the  train bound for Brooklyn, but got off at Chambers St/WTC, I saw two teenage girls sitting next to me. The one sitting in the center was in an argument on the phone, and some guy across the way though that she was saying something to her, and he took it seriously. He flew over to where she was sitting and threatened to beat her. 

I saw something like that on the 1, but this guy is raising his fist at a maybe 14 year old girl. 

My co worker riding with me later told me "you are actually the crazy one" because I got riiight in between that. 

"Hi!" (friendly tone, grinning wide) "you need to get off the train" 

He called me a narc and filmed me on his phone, told me I was going on worldstar - but you know what? He got off the train. 

also - probably don't follow my example on this one. 

yes, mta management sucks. I don't think that invalidates my points. 

And I'm not certain that a single transit system has a contingency plan beyond "clean up the oil and seal the leak" with regard to seepage of underground oil plume into existing subway tunnel. Maybe they should but cursory research seems to suggest that this has never happened prior, other than plumes encountered during initial tunnel construction. Diesel smell is pervasive and persistent, merely cleaning up and sealing the leak will not immediately remove the aroma. 

On 2/6/2019 at 4:22 PM, Around the Horn said:

http://gothamist.com/2019/02/06/the_l_still_smells.php

So theres been a strong fuel smell in the train tunnels in Williamsburg for days now and I'm supposed to believe that the MTA can properly mitigate silica dust in time for morning rush hour? 

Please for the love of god, go back to the old plan.

Wait though, it's not really a valid comparison to say "they couldn't eliminate the fuel oil smell so silica dust will be a problem if they do work on the weekends"

I'm not offering tacit support for the hammered-through cuomo plan in rejecting that logic but, notes: 

1. Dust is inherently easier to mitigate than oil.
   • You're talking about near-macroscopic airborne particles for dust, versus literally molecules for diesel vapour.
   • Due to the larger particle size the dust is less likely to even enter vehicles travelling the tunnel. 
2. The dust is easier to control since the point and time of emission will be known. 
   • Not for nothing, I 3d printed a vaccum attachment for my drill that completely eliminates drywall dust when I drill into the wall. It's not rocket science (actually it's fluid dynamics) 
   • Water jet systems alone can control silica dust whereas water inherently can't effectively mitigate hydrocarbons. 
3. The concentration of silica dust required to be suspended in the air to pose a substantial risk is remarkably high. 
   • Health concerns of silica dust are generally confined to workers exposed for entire shifts for extended periods of time. The concentrations required for point-exposure implications are generally like, volcanic. 

(source: osha guidelines for silica dust. google it i'm not dredging up the link)

I really think that "the dust" ought not to be the boogieman in this boondoggle. The unsustainable off hours service should be the issue. As you were. 

On 2/2/2019 at 1:32 AM, Lawrence St said:

Does anyone know why the M60 was rerouted between Astoria Blvd and Steinway St? They added new SBS machines at Starbucks and said it was temporary , any ideas?

Well for one, they're using columbus triangle (where the normal stop is) as a construction staging area. 

Second, that intersection will be closed for 20 weekends during construction.

More:

https://new.mta.info/sites/default/files/2019-02/Astoria Blvd ADA and Renewal v4- 1-30-19.pdf

On 2/2/2019 at 10:12 PM, East New York said:

 M60+ and Q19 stop is temporarily relocated during construction until Tuesday Feb. 6th.

I think it will be longer than that... Unless we're talking about two different things

23 hours ago, Derrick Tan said:

Just regular station rehabilitation, the MTA is now accepting the "close the whole station" method because renovation will be faster, such as 111th Street on the .

111 is scheduled to take 6 months, Astoria blvd is going to be closed for 9 months with the total work lasting 21 months. 

Not really sure that's better, especially considering the loss of the pedestrian overpasses. 

I really can't overstate the importance of the overpasses. This intersection has had multiple pedestrian accidents every year since at least 2009, and that was WITH the overpasses. MTA presentation indicates there will be crossing guards during work hours even, but it's actually nights I foresee as being the issue. 

38 minutes ago, ABOGbrooklyn said:

What stations will be next on the agenda? 

Also will Ditmars Blvd and Astoria Blvd be fixed?

They're already working on Ditmars and Astoria Blvd. 

Ditmars won't be closed for the duration of the project. 

Astoria Blvd apparently will be closed for 9 months - not sure if that one really falls under ESI because it's actually an ADA upgrade - though, they sure are embracing the "eh just close the whole station" approach. 

The bad part of that one is, the pedestrian overpasses over that incredibly dangerous 31st/Astoria Blvd intersection are already half closed, not sure if they'll be closing in their entirety for the project. Those overpasses arguably are as important as the station itself. Pedestrians are gonna get hurt on this one. 

3 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

How bout this: 

Let's just go with the original plan! Problem solved!

I'm starting to see the merit of this idea. 

14 minutes ago, RR503 said:

At 1st and 3rd, wouldn't it be simpler just to do a temporary overbuild of the OOS track, a la Smith-9th? Makes the door alignment issue easier to handle. 

I don't know if that would be practical to set up every evening and tear down every morning. I assumed that the train-of-trains singletrack concept was still only and overnights/weekends thing.

I had a thought that you could make a consist of flatcars specially configured to be a "platform train" that could rapidly be put in place and moved, but I thought this would be overly complex. 

1 hour ago, Stephen Bauman said:

I would use an empty train on the unused track at Bedford to extend the platform width by 10 feet. It's vital to separate exiting and entering passengers from each other. It might be possible to rope off exiting and entering corridors on the platform. The entering passengers would be waiting on the empty train across the platform for exiting passengers to leave the train.

Not the worst plan in theory - I'd say even better with the "platform-train" - but I would imagine, in practice, getting the masses to perform that shuffle would be like herding cats. In theory people would get used to it, but we can't even get people not to stand in the doorway. 

Could you send 5 trains over, terminting the first at 8th, 2nd at 6th,  and so on so on so you have trains at 1st, 3rd, Union, 6th and 8th, and then start them all back simultaneously not making any additional stops in manhattan? You'd still have the problem at bedford though. 

On 1/20/2019 at 12:56 PM, Stephen Bauman said:

I had worked this out with travel times of 7 minutes from Union Sq to Lorimer and 7.5 minutes the other way. These were the minimum scheduled GTFS running times, when I figured this strategy out back in 2016. I can re-work it with the scheduled travel times from the Jan 15-18 midnight hours. It should not make much of a difference.

The nominal intermediate station service level capacity is 40 tph, including 30 sec dwell time per station. That's independent of signal system and has been achieved in practice by both Moscow and the BOT. The service level capacity is usually limited by the terminal stations. This is true with the 14th St Line. 

If trains are operated 6 at a time in each direction @ 40 tph the time interval between the first and last train will be 5 x 1.5 min or 7.5 min. The total travel time for 6 trains through the tunnel Brooklyn bound would be 14.5 minutes and 15 minutes Manhattan bound. This adds up to 29.5 minutes for 6 trains in each direction 12 tph.

This still leaves the terminals to be considered. Neither 8th Ave nor Rockaway Pkwy can handle 90 sec headways nor direction reversals without delaying followers. The solution is that not all trains would terminate at their respective terminals. Let's assume the Manhattan bound tunnel is operational. On the Manhattan side the first train would terminate at 8th Ave; the second at 6th Ave and the third at Union Sq. The next 3 would do the same but wrong rail to 8th Ave, 6th Ave and Union Sq. respectively. The Brooklyn bound train would be the third train which had terminated at Union Sq. It would be followed by the second, first, sixth, fifth and fourth arriving trains. Each had adequate time to recharge brakes to turn around.

Rockaway Parkway is a bit more complicated because the closest crossover to the Manhattan bound track (Q1 to Q2) is between Bushwick and Bway Jct. There are trailing crossovers north (Q2 to Q1) north of Livonia and Sutter, in addition to the diamond crossovers north of Rockaway Pkwy and Bway Jct. The no construction cost option would be to have the first two trains terminate at Rockaway Pkwy, and the next terminate at E 105, New Lots, Livonia and Sutter on the Brooklyn bound track. The return trip would have the first two Rockaway Pkwy trains depart onto the Manhattan bound track, followed by the train that terminated at Sutter using the trailing  point switch north of Sutter, followed by the trains that terminated at Livonia, New Lots and E 105 using the trailing point switch north of Livonia.

CBTC makes such an out of the box operation feasible because it should be able to wrong rail at maximum service levels. Substantial modification would be needed with a block system which wasn't built with this capability.

This would mean 40 tph operation through the Canarsie Tunnels which the MTA claims it can handle only 20 tph without additional substations. However, the 40 tph operation is in only 1 direction whereas the existing 20 tph operation is in both directions. This would require the same amount of peak amperage that the existing substations currently supply.

As noted above the cycle time is 29.5 minutes. However, it takes 7.5 minutes for the 6 trains to travel past a single station. Therefore, the worst case wait time scenario would be 22 minutes. 

To be honest the only real problem I can see with this plan is the crowding delays on that first train in each direction. 

After that 22 minute wait, the platform crowding would be whatever it would be under the current plan. Despite the fact that 5 more trains are coming down the pipe, I feel like everyone's gonna act like the first train is the last lifeboat on the titanic and pandemonium will ensue to board it. 

Yes the staggered starts from the terminals would help a little bit, but I'm not sure if it would be enough. 

Honestly, I think this is a use case for agent-based-modeling passenger rates and behavior of these situations. (you'd program the agents to basically have a random probability [within range] of trying to board visibly full train and then random [within range] time before giving up and waiting for next, and you could get a more clear picture of what's going on. 

1 hour ago, Enjineer said:

I don't think so. There's a pretty gentle curve that would be the one just outside of Vernon-Jackson, but the one I'm talking about is before that. It's a very small S-curve, and it goes just a slight amount to the right from the tunnel's path up to that point. 

Ah. Perhaps it's this, as quoted from that article I linked earlier:

Quote

Whether due to misalignment or loss of control of the shields, it has not been established, but a slight kink can be observed in the south tube, just east of shaft #3.

(Shaft 3 was on belmont [now u thant] island)

(A reddit post claims the two ends of the tunnel were not aligned due to miscalculation, but also talks about cast iron sections being sunk under the river [no, it was bored] and talks about it originally being built for piano transport [just no] so, not going to trust that on faith)

Though, that may be where the tunneling from the two ends intersected, and it is indeed possible they didn't intersect perfectly. 

Edit: someone asks the same question almost a decade ago on subchat and gets a similar response:

Quote

It was mentioned either on this board, or in sub-talk, or in a Transit Museum tour, that when they were building the tunnel from both ends, when they met they were off my a couple of inches (feet), that's why the bump.

I can't seem to find any document supporting this, though another user notes:

Quote

Look out the front of the train I think the tunnel shifts just a bit so the track has to

which at least anecdotally supports that. 

SO what can be said almost for sure is the track chicanes because the tunnel chicanes. 

On 1/19/2019 at 9:47 PM, RR503 said:

New countdown indication for GT signals is under test right now — idea is that by telling ops when signals will clear, they’ll approach GTs (esp 1 shots) less cautiously. First install is on the n/b express at Barclays. Video:

https://imgur.com/a/W4uKhfX

That is seriously fantastic! 

(I hope they're planning on a slightly more durable housing for full-scale deploy though)

On 1/19/2019 at 9:40 PM, Enjineer said:

Quick question: you all know that little bend in the Steinway Tubes, about 3/4 of the way from Grand Central to Vernon-Jackson? Is there any reason they had to build the tunnel with that little segment, or is it just a weird oddity from construction? I ask because I've noticed now every  seems to take it at 35+ mph, sending the whole car flying from side to side. It's quite the doozy of a bump, that's for sure...

If it's what I'm thinking of, it has to do with the street grids in queens not being aligned with manhattan. 

Sure they could have made the turn a wider radius, but, well, the story of that tunnel is a whole thing. NYCsubway.org has a long article about it from the 1960 issue of electric railroader magazine.

4 hours ago, NYTransitWoe said:

It is not just the aged computer, but anything networked to it could be vulnerable.  There may not even need to have networking involved.  Any activities, offline or on, networked or not, that have some relation with the aged equipment, not necessarily technical activities, could cause problems that would ultimately affect security.  So for all practical purposes (at least in private businesses than I'm in; maybe government agencies are different), age IS a concern for security.  In short, you put an outdated equipment in any environment that has at least some relation to the mission-critical functions in that environment, you have a problem.  And that problem may affect security.  Sure, if you have the technical expertise to make an old computer secure, you can do that.  But nobody is going to do that in all practical purposes.

The complete fare collection system, inclusive of the MVMs, is already slated for replacement.

It's flatly incorrect that a physically old machine is inherently less secure. Most vulnerabilities are in software. Hardware vulnerabilities are fairly rare, and generally difficult to exploit. One could even make the argument that these older machines are more secure because they are too old to fall victim to the Spectre or Meltdown vulnerabilities. 

Yes, outdated operating systems are generally completely insecure. But also, Yes, the software on the MVM's has been updated. 

Besides, hardware that you'd consider outdated already handles roughly 80% of credit card transactions and probably 90% of ATM swipes. So entrenched are the aged systems that the problem is actually finding developers who can write COBOL. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scramble-to-fix-old-systems-as-it-cowboys-ride-into-sunset-idUSKBN17C0D8

A choice quote:

Quote

In the United States, the financial sector, major corporations and parts of the federal government still largely rely on it because it underpins powerful systems that were built in the 70s or 80s and never fully replaced. 

So there you go. Decidedly more outdated equipment performing mission critical functions at the peaks of the economic food chain, and the core problem isn't the machines, isn't the security - it's finding developers who know COBOL. 

But, again. It doesn't matter - the machines, and the whole fare payment system is already slated for replacement. There's just no cybersecurity emergency requiring it be at the top of the list. The crisis just does not exist.

As you were. 

9 minutes ago, NYTransitWoe said:

But keeping old hardware is just a bad idea in general because tech support and maintenance becomes harder and more expensive as the hardware ages.  Of course you can fix anything and make anything secure, but sometimes it is cheaper to just buy new hardware than fix old ones.  E.g. I could replace the broken ISA sound card on my 90s PC, or I could just upgrade to newer tech.  It's always best to quit on a technology at the right time than to have an outdated technology quit on you at the most inopportune time.  So I think this is just another case of MTA keeping their equipment way past its shelf life, just like its 1930-era switching system.

I didn't say the machines shouldn't be replaced. They should be, and they are being replaced as I noted. I just said that the age of the physical hardware is not an indication of it's security. The age of the physical machine is not an attack vector. Literally the only attack vector you reasonably have on an MVM would be if you could somehow maliciously craft a magnetic card to overflow a buffer and deploy a malicious payload. You have 97 bytes to work with. Godspeed. 

As for the signals, Hilariously we've taken inverse positions on the whole topic as I had a different thread. They explain it better than I would. 

4 hours ago, NYTransitWoe said:

This photo was taken in the 42nd St Time Square Station.  It shows a really old computer's start-up screen.  Those who used PCs in the 90s should recognize this.  The screen even says "American Megatrends 1997" on top.  I saw this yesterday and it was still here this morning.  I remember these vending machines were first used in the 90s.  That means the computer inside this vending machine came from the 90s and has probably never been upgraded all this time, which is rather disturbing to say the least.  We have been putting our credit card info into a 20-year-old computer that has probably very little E-security to speak of.  I hope they are in the process of finally upgrading these computers, which may explain the boot-up screen,

 

 

Yes, they have upgraded the software on the machines. It's a little more than an off-the-shelf computer in there. Note the reference to FPGA on that bios screen. That means there's a custom chip involved somewhere. 

As it happens, they're in the process of replacing the metrocard with a whole contactless solution - whether that is good or bad remains to be seen but yeah, they're changing the whole fare collection system, let alone the MVMs. 

But no - just because a machine is physically old doesn't inherently make it insecure. Give me any computer ever made and I'll make it the most secure known to mankind. 

Just unplug it and encase it in concrete. Problem solved. Oh, you want it to work, too? 

MVMs aren't connected to the internet and they're about as physically restrictive to intrusion as an ATM so I think you're fine. If you're worried about the security of your credit card information, make sure there's not a skimmer over the card reader and check your statements carefully. More likely you got skimmed at a restaurant than anything else. 

Hackaday posted a few days ago a little article on the subway signalling systems, it's a pretty cursory rundown but interesting nonetheless. revelatory part for me is the view of the parts that physically interlock in a mechanical interlocking. 

https://hackaday.com/2019/01/11/low-tech-high-safety-and-the-nyc-subway-system/