zacster

72nd, 86th, and 96th are all completely overbuilt.

From what I've seen of the barriers put in place at 191st St, they are putting the least amount of effort and money as possible, and planning on failure. They don't want to do this so they are doing a half-fast job of it just to say they tried. Those barriers won't stop anything and only even cover half the distance between columns. What about the other half? And why W 8th St? The Q uses 75 footers and the F 60', but there is the occasional R160 on the Q and this would preclude them from using them at all. Shanghai Metro by zacfi2000, on Flickr This is what it should be if they are going to do it at all. (That girl was looking at this grey haired old white guy taking a picture and probably had hardly seen any westerners before.)

I think this is a bunch of nonsense, an excuse to keep them from being successful. Somebody got a bug up their *** and does not want to deal with them. I'm waiting for the order from above to just figure it out and make it work. There is so much inertia that nothing new ever happens.

They may need some spares but they don't likely need them all.

With the R211s coming back in service have they pulled the A-A cars out again? Or are they all still mixed in? If they have 4230-4234 waiting in Lincoln that's 195 cars ready 4040 thru 4234 and I'm sure 4235-9 are also being readied, so 200 cars or 20 trains. Something has to go to make room, even if to some corner of 38th St yard.

Once they get the go-ahead to start shipping again, there'll be another 70 cars coming? Something like that, maybe more. Add in the 2 open gangway sets and they'll be awash in new cars.

Are there any new cars coming again? I would think Lincoln, NE is filling up with cars waiting to come.

When they tore down the 3rd Ave El they left a big hole in the transit up in the Bronx. I've biked the length of the el from Gun Hill all the way down to 149th and you can feel there is something missing there. Why I was biking on 3rd Ave in The Bronx is still something I ask myself, there are a lot better places to ride even in The Bronx. But I did get a slice in Belmont! It would certainly pick the area up if there were direct transit there.

My guess is that will be standard procedure from now on. But I'd have been wrong since I assumed that after Roosevelt Ave that would have already been standard procedure. Not much has changed since then except the train sets got longer, from 2 cars to 4 or 5 cars, only to make matters worse.

There were at least 4 failures in this. 1. Miscommunication. The OOS train was likely told that it was clear to go to 240th St, and they thought they had a clear track. The in service train crew and the tower did not know this and was crossed in front of the OOS train, and the OOS train was not made aware of it. 2. Human error. The OOS train crew did not react to the signals in time to stop the train, especially given they thought they were cleared. Or alternatively, the yellow automatic signals indicated they could proceed but the red home signal was not visible until too late. 3. Operational. The OOS train was being operated from the 6th Car. Not the 2nd or 3rd, the 6th. That is too far back given the experience at Roosevelt. 4. Signals. The signals are not set up to stop a train in time when operated this way. Also see above on human error. I am just speculating here but I'm willing to bet that at least 3 of these played in.

If they had stuck to the original plan and kept the R32, the other 4 sets of R211s would have come within weeks anyway. It wouldn't really matter much if everything was running smoothly. As it turned out, they had just enough R46s to cover the disaster anyway. They saved a few bucks on maintaining the R32s and barely impacted the operation. On top of everything else, ridership is still only 72% of pre-pandemic levels. I'm sure even that factored in.

Are there snowballs in hell? Even winning the next billion dollar lottery has better odds.

The true original crosstown plan was to have the 60th St subway tracks at QB Plaza cross under the entire structure and continue down Jackson Ave. and maybe connect with the Franklin Shuttle. There is a portion of this that was actually built and it is visible under the QB Plaza structure and it dead ends as it faces Jackson. These trackways were eventually used to build the tail track that extends next to the Flushing line all the way up to 33rd. The tail tracks are not the original intent and you can see they were built on top of the trackways and curve off. Queensboro Plaza BMT Crosstown trackways by zacfi2000, on Flickr

I guess the plan was that the first 110 R211s were to replace the remaining R32s kept as spares, then to start replacing the R46, except that they scrapped the R32s before the R211s even started to run. When I see R46s at 38th St I'll know they're done.

Maybe though the end sign has been missing for a while and is never used at the front for that reason? With most of the R211s back in service and more on the way maybe they'll start sidelining some of these cars again. And after the disaster with the R211s, they won't be fully retiring any R46s anytime soon.

A couple of years ago now I went around the city on my bike and photographed all of the abandoned el structures of the subway. This included East New York, the South Bronx, Queens, Bed Stuy, Brownsville. I didn’t give it a thought. The city is not the crime ridden place it was back in the seventies. Go out and enjoy.

When both sides of the Manhattan Bridge were finally reopened the B Brighton Express ended up with the slants and the Q with the R68s. Then as the R160s came in the R68/A went to the B and the Q got the R160s, except those were taken off the Q and replaced with what they have now, the R46s which are in terrible shape. My guess is the next move will be the R160s go on the B and the Q gets the R68 because of 6th Ave CBTC but only when there are enough R211s.

With the route swaps because of the Manhattan Bridge it's hard to remember what ran where. One thing I remember is driving on the Belt Parkway across CI yard and seeing all of the slants signed up for whatever was running on the Brighton Express at the time, when previously it had been R68s the prior week. Sure enough, Monday morning came and it was all slants. Not sure what was switched with what though.

Guessing here, but maybe they took the R179s off because they wanted them back on the A or C, depending on which they used, because the R211s are still not back. There was a promise of new trains but the line was almost all R46.

That's an R10, probably on the way to the scrapper.

It has to do with them needing to replace them anyway as the oldest in the system. It's the reason that the IND was given priority over the Lex even though the Lex needs it more. The Lex signals were already redone but the IND still has the original signals in places.

That's my point. It took a human to mistake a 7 for a 1 or vice versa. The computer doesn't make stupid mistakes like that.

They had already pulled the AA pairs from service when they weren't needed so they'll be the first to be sidelined again when the R211s come back. But I think they'll wait to start cannibalizing them, just in case.

I get what you're saying about the markers and the zebra boards. And they chose option 1 of your other ideas.

I've identified the problem with this. Human intervention. You blame the mistakes on the computer but it is the human running it that makes the mistake. Yea, I know, there is the trope "to err is human, but to really foul things up takes a computer". But the computer doesn't nod off, take a leak, stop for coffee... Coming from IT I saw it everyday. I'd get a call, go to their office, watch them try to do something and not accept the fact that the answer was right all along, or conversely appear at the door and everything worked as it should in the first place. I had this annoying habit of always being right or knowing exactly what they did wrong.