zacster

I've been getting off at W4th St this week every day and I have yet to see an R211 when I'm on the upper level.  It has been all R179s, and the two times I took the A a few stops it was an R46.  Just luck I guess if there are so many R211s on the line.  I did ride one a few months ago, and I rode the pilot set when it was still just a pilot.  I have yet to see the R211T in service.  I took a few pics of it when it was on the delivery track by Costco.

9 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

technically, the B does not. 

How is that?  If CBTC will be installed on CPW/6th Ave how would it operate without compatible cars?

Isn't it already bad enough having the N crossover at 34th St?  You'd be having all the trains cross in front of each other and the whole line would come to a standstill.  And that would also leave no train on Brighton. 

6 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

The spare factor is too low. All the R46s are needed right now, just to hold down service. Otherwise you’d be seeing daily R160 stints on the Broadway Line for the  during the morning rush since the R46s are barely holding on.

They have 15 more trains now than they did before displacing R46s on the A/C.  How is the spare factor too low?  The spare factor was low before the R211s arrived because they retired the last 11 R32 trains early, but they were able to get by.  Now they have 15 trains to make up for the 11, with more coming each week.  2 more sets are doing burn in testing, another set was just delivered.  I'm assuming too that the new trains are much more reliable.  That would lower the need for spares. 

I remember back in the 60s as the R32s came in first the triplexes, then the standards all disappeared really fast.  I remember railfanning as a kid on the Sea Beach and then changing at 62nd/New Utrect for the West End and an old train came rumbling in, can't remember whether standard or triplex, and that was the last time I saw one on the BMT southern.  The standards continued running on the Eastern for another 4 or 5 years until the last of the R9s replaced them.  One day you'll have thought all the R46s are gone and one will come rumbling into the station, and the next day you'll read here that it was the last regularly scheduled run.

After reading through the latest on the R211 I can't understand how they haven't pulled cars for retirement or at least tranfer.

5 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

No, they couldn’t have. The training for 211 qualification for an RTO T/O is two days. A conductor, it’s one day… because our training is only in how these cars differ from the other NTT cars we’re already familiar with.

the SIR crews don’t have that familiarity to go off of. 
 

they would need at least a full week, if not longer, and when you only have X number of people you can spare for an entire week to maintain service… this gets to be a drawn out process.

The alternative is to have those same people needing the training anyway while the cars sit idle.  That is poor project planning.  Pay me now or pay me later.

18 hours ago, Elkeeper said:

I look forward to posting here, now that SubChat has apparently closed down. From what i have been able to ascertain, SubChat was shut due to vicious accusations from a Chicago poster against another member of the site. Sadly, the original SubTalk was closed down for the same reasons. My specialty is information, especially dates, about subway and elevated lines prior to the MTA takeover. Hope to meet new people here, as well as to chat with former members of SubChat!

I just assumed the database had crashed again and he couldn't get it to work again.  The software was ancient and the hardware probably was too.

I find that on this site they mostly talk about current operations.  There is limited historical discussion.  I was always more interested in the historical myself.

I get that.  But I was an IT project manager before I retired and we would have had that all lined up, training, announcements, logistics, before the first cars were even delivered.  They could've been learning all that along with the crews from Pitkin.  The mechanics could've been at CI watching final prep.  There should have been crews all ready to go. 

Project management has never been MTA's strong suit. 

What's obvious?  That they are dragging their feet on this?  They've had 50 years to figure out the replacements.  Why is this taking so long? 

It just seems crazy that the subway cars get trucked one way across the Verrazano, and the SI cars go the other way.

5 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

The magical Kawasaki fairy comes, spreads some pixie dust and floats them over to SI! It’s very cool! /s

 

by truck, how else would they get there?

Via rail and car float, or is that long past?

Yea, but it looks like they don't want these gates to work and no thought went into them.  They were forced to do something.

How do they get from Yonkers to SI?

That's the background sound of eating hot dogs.  They wouldn't taste as good without it.

43 minutes ago, Metro CSW said:

To add to the 4150 consist update, It is actively testing along QBL between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. for the time being.

Is it testing so it can be used on QBL or is it testing its own CBTC internal system?

There has barely been any Q through service from Brooklyn since January on weekends.  We need a break.

While I know you are being facetious, what really irks me is when I see some well dressed guy (always guy) jumping the gates.  Clearly can afford the expensive clothes but still too much of a jerk to pay the fare.

Yesterday I got on at W4th St and there were 5 cops and 2 national guard guys standing in the narrow area in front of the turnstiles.

We are ALL paying for you to run services. 

I rode two of them yesterday.  I'm on the Q and I'm always riding them.  Sometimes they are smooth and sometimes they are not.  Sometimes they have working signs, sometimes not.  They all look old and tired. 

Maybe they are doing it for the auto show this time, but Hudson Yards is completely built up now, on the assumption that there would be subway service there.  To treat that station as just a tourist spot is selling them short.

They are all in bad shape.

I was at the upper level of W4th St today and a couple of R46 trains came through, one an A the other a C, and they really are in rough condition even compared to the CI ones that I regularly ride.  If an R211T C train happened to come I was going to take it, but I wasn't going to wait around for it so I just went and did my regular business.  My Q train home was an R46 and didn't pay much attention otherwise.

Are the Pitkin cars in any better shape than the CI cars?  Or are they equally bad.  Are they any different, or are they all completely the same and it was just the assignment?

I saw them at 38th St on the track that goes out to Ft. Hamilton Pkwy at street level just last week.

How many more R68s will go back to Concourse?  There will be plenty of R46s to replace them.