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Amtrak706

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Posts posted by Amtrak706

  1. 10 minutes ago, R10 2952 said:

    I lived off the (A) all those years; in 2012 it wasn't all 50 R42s assigned to Pitkin; it was 20 at most IINM, and only for 2 months in the summer.

    2015-16 there couldn't have been R42s in revenue service on the (A), or I would have seen them.  So unless you find those videos you're talking about...

    R42s haven't been a regular sight on the (A) since 2009, and even then they weren't the remaining 50- they were the other 335 or so waiting their turn to be scrapped at 207th. 

    I lived off the (A) all those years too, and still do. I am almost positive it was sometime in 2015. This is very bizarre, I vividly remember it but I can't find my videos or any others. I guess I am going nuts. Hopefully someone else eventually remembers it too.

  2. I vividly remember at least one set of R42s operating on the (A) sometime in 2015 or 2016. It was decidedly after and seperate from the period when all 50 were assigned to the (A) in 2012. Not sure how many cars were assigned, and for some reason I can find no information or videos online from this. I took my own videos a couple times but have not been able to find them. Does anyone else remember this or am I going nuts??

  3. I don’t think anything is going to be cancelled as far as new cars. The R46s are 45 years old and unlike the R32s and many other 60’ SMEE cars, they did not receive a full structural rebuild and reinforcement during GOH. Don’t forget that even the almighty stainless steel can experience fatigue and stress cracks. These cars are going to need to be retired in the near future.

  4. 37 minutes ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

    If you barely know what a bus is what makes it possible for an average person to point out a random train?

    Did I ever say they could? Below is what I meant.

    21 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

    If most r/f-ers aren't privy to the different bus types, then it only bolsters the original point.....

     

  5. On 1/15/2020 at 7:07 PM, trainfan22 said:

    The R16 weren't well running cars and yet the lone running car is still used on museum trips.. The arines ran like crap towards the end of their service life but the museum arines run great on museum trips today. I think the TM can make the Phase II cars run great and work well with the other museum SMEE's.

     

    If there was an NYCTF in the 70s I would certainly be pro saving 10+ cars of R1-9s (which was done) those prewar cars have a certain charm to them that newer trains lack IMO. 32s aren't interesting enough to have an entire train worth of them being saved. I think three 32 pairs would suffice. If one want to give an 32 pair to those Trolley museums I would be OK with that (if their interested).

     

    32s lost their color during GOH, lost their front rollsigns, lost their ceiling fans, etc.. an entire museum train of an stale grey train? Meh 32s in the TOMM consist, dope, 32s on their own? meh.

     

     

    Not have my mindset? You act like I said NONE of the 32s should be saved lol. I'm very pro saving Transit vehicles for museum fleets.

    So it’s no longer worth preserving more pairs of R32s in the transit museum because they don’t have ceiling fans and because the doors aren’t blue anymore?? I’m sorry but that’s a stupid reason. Any car that survives 55+ years in revenue service is worth special treatment in preservation IMO, so I maintain that it would be worth preserving another pair or two to represent the prolonged-life fleet. I doubt they’ll do that, but that’s because of lack of space/funds etc., not because someone thinks they “lost their color” and “aren’t interesting.”

  6. 47 minutes ago, trainfan22 said:

    I consider the 32s part of the TOMM, they probably don't use the two TM pairs on TOMM trips because the 32s still have a major presence in the system. I would imagine once the 32s are retired then the museum pairs will be added to the TOMM consist.

     

    Post GOH 32s are too bland to have an entire 8 car train worth of them IMO, especially considering you can't restore them to their pre GOH look. At least with the museum R33ML you can repaint the outside of the cars to different paint schemes. 

     

     

    Well considering they do use the R42s on the TOMM, I don’t think it’s because the type is still in service. The Phase II R32s were not well-running cars, especially with their NYAB brake system.

    And keep in mind the actual point of preservation: what is around today and what may seem “bland” now certainly won’t down the road. All the car types currently in the museum were once plentiful in regular service and otherwise unremarkable. I’m glad not everyone has the mindset you do, otherwise nothing would have been saved and there would be no museum fleet.

  7. 1 hour ago, trainfan22 said:

    What funny is despite the fact that the Phase two R32s were the crappier of the two mechanically, both pairs in the TM fleet are Phase 2. When the rest of the 32s are finally retired, they should save an phase 1 pair as well.

    Absolutely. Once retired they will be among the longest serving cars of all time, and that’s definitely worth preservation. I would even go as far as saying it would be worth having a whole 8-car train of them - there is already a TOMC and TOMM. If two Phase I pairs are saved, this could be done

     

    1 hour ago, trainfan22 said:

    I wish I knew of the GE 32s existence when they was still an active fleet, especially now hearing that they kept some of their original components from pre GOH.  Not sure about the IRT redbirds but from my understanding, most of the R32 - R42 fleets were completely gutted mechanically during GOH. From old timers I read that the cars sounded different pre GOH, described as having "darth vader brakes" and cool sounding compressors like in the video below...
     

    I don’t remember exactly which components were original, but I do remember that they sounded like GOH R38s.

  8. I remember a similar incident riding on the last car of an R38 (A) train (this was towards the end of their lives, around 2007-08). We were plodding along on the express run between 168 and 145, probably passing under 155, when one single door slowly drifted about halfway open on the left side of the car. No loss of the indication light, no loss of power, nothing. About 5-10 seconds later it engaged the door motor and closed. Luckily the car was almost empty and no one was even standing up, let alone leaning on the doors.

  9. 2 hours ago, m2fwannabe said:

    As others revealed, 3878/79 has been out of service already long term.

    3454/55 was sidelined and "supposed" to be processed but evidently was hastily brung back to the rails yesterday.

    The other 16 cars (creating list of 20) were 3404/05, 3410/11, 3424/25, 3452/53, 3484/85, 3496/97, 3698/99, 3900/01.

    None were back in  service as of yesterday's AM lists and would have been shocked to so noted.  Time will tell for the others but at least 12 of those were already being stripped this week.

    So of the 234 surviving Phase I R32s, that means we have 208 in active revenue service (including the 4 work motor cars that were reactivated yesterday), 6 in work motor service, and 20 out of service (the 16 from last week, 3878/79, and 3786/87). Is this right?

     

    3354/3355 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3360/3361 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3376/3377 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3380/3381 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3383/3890 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3384/3385 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3388/3389 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3394/3395 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3396/3397 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3400/3401 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3404/3405 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3406/3407 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3410/3411 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3414/3415 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3416/3417 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3419/3740 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3424/3425 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3426/3427 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3428/3429 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3430/3431 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3432/3433 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3436/3437 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3438/3439 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3440/3441 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3442/3443 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3444/3777 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3445/3468 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3446/3447 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3448/3449 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3452/3453 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3454/3455 - NYCT - Emergency Service 207 (OOS when?)

    3460/3461 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3471/3658 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3472/3473 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3476/3477 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3484/3485 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3488/3489 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3494/3495 - NYCT - Emergency Service 207 (ex-Work Motor 38)

    3496/3497 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3500/3501 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3510/3511 - NYCT - Work Motor 207

    3512/3513 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3514/3515 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3518/3519 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3520/3891 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3522/3523 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3548/3593 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3550/3551 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3552/3553 - NYCT - Work Motor 207

    3574/3575 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3578/3579 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3586/3587 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3590/3591 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3606/3607 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3610/3611 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3614/3615 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3618/3619 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3621/3644 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3624/3625 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3628/3669 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3642/3643 - NYCT - Emergency Service 207 (ex-Work Motor 38)

    3646/3647 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3650/3767 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3654/3655 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3660/3661 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3664/3665 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3670/3671 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3672/3673 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3682/3683 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3688/3689 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3694/3695 - NYCT - Work Motor 38

    3698/3699 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3706/3707 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3708/3709 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3714/3715 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3716/3717 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3718/3719 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3726/3727 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3728/3729 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3730/3731 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3732/3733 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3736/3737 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3738/3739 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3770/3771 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3772/3773 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3774/3775 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3778/3779 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3780/3781 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3782/3783 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3786/3787 - NYCT - Re-Railing Training CIY (OOS when?)

    3792/3793 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3798/3799 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3804/3805 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3806/3807 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3810/3811 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3818/3819 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3820/3821 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3822/3823 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3828/3829 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3834/3835 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3840/3841 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3856/3857 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3864/3865 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3870/3871 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3872/3873 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3876/3877 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3878/3879 - NYCT - OOS (when?)

    3886/3887 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3888/3889 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3894/3895 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3896/3897 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3900/3901 - NYCT - OOS Week of 12/30/19 (which day?)

    3912/3913 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3924/3925 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3928/3929 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3932/3933 - NYCT - In Service 207

    3938/3939 - NYCT - In Service 207

  10. 42 minutes ago, m2fwannabe said:

    Best as I can understand the 16 R-32s removed from the fleet last week have and will not be put back in service.

    Stripping work had already began on Monday.

    3454/55 was in the line to go on the chop shop too but was inn another track then returned to Inspection and the yard then was still available.

    That would get the Brightliner fleet back up to 204.  Probably all there will be but will watch.

    So, it would seem doubt there will be any MORE R-32s retired anytime soon, Mhhhh?!?!?

     

    Do you have car numbers for those 16? And 204+16 is only 220, where are the other 14? I know 240 still exist with 4 Phase II cars held OOS for the transit museum and 2 GE cars off property being used for police training. That leaves 234 Phase I cars.

  11. 7 hours ago, Union Tpke said:

    What was the report referring to when it said there were options to modify car performance to 71% or 100% field strength?

     

    My turn for a dissertation, lol. I’ll try to keep this as succinct as possible though.

    Field “shunting” or “weakening” refers to the use of a resistive load placed in a circuit with the DC traction motors. This is done in order to more finely control the field strength through the motors at slower speeds, and to allow the motors to exceed their “balancing speed” (more on these uses in a bit). The resistive load is provided by resistor banks that hang beneath the car.

    A mechanical cam unit controls the propulsion system by advancing through several stages that progressively increase the motors‘ field strength. From a dead stop, the first few stages place the motors in series, and resistor banks are connected in series to further weaken the field strength and keep acceleration at about 2.5mph/s. As the car picks up speed, these resistor banks are progressively dropped out from the circuit until full series is reached.

    The cam then advances to parallel until the “balancing speed” is reached. This is when the electromagnetic force put out by the motor matches the back-electromagnetic force, or back-EMF, acting on the motor as a function of its rotational velocity. To overcome this, a shunt field is applied to the motor (a parallel resistive load that increases the required current through the motor at a given voltage). Field shunting can also be used to avoid commutator flashover caused by excessively high voltage, instead increasing current to provide more power.

    IIRC the propulsion mods in 1996 only disabled the last stage(s) of field shunting, restricting the motors to less than 100% of maximum attainable field strength with full field shunting available (not aware of the exact numbers, although it’s probably less than 71% given that was one of the suggested values to which the fields strength could be increased). If I am correct about the mods only affecting the last stages, reverting the cars to full or increased field strength should just be a modification of the cam and shunt coils.

    The DC cars also had a switch somewhere in the cab marked “exp/local” or “energy conservation” that when turned on would restrict the cam to enable or disable field shunting completely. I am pretty sure these switches are still in place on all cars except the ex-Corona R62As, on which they have been repurposed to control the side rollsign express/local LEDs. Of course, the cars can still be restored to full field strength - the T/O would just not be able to turn it off. This probably wouldn’t be an issue though, as prior to 1996 the switches would mostly be left on at all times.

    One last thing to clear up any confusion about series/parallel and the master controller. The second and third notches are referred to as series and parallel - not because they directly move the cam to series or parallel, but because they STOP the progression of the cam at series or parallel. If the T/O wraps the controller around to full parallel from a dead stop, the cam will still advance through each stage of series and resistor banks. There is no reason to take off at series position on the controller and then advance to parallel, as the cam will do this regardless, and will do it smoother than the T/O could anyway. The exp/local or energy conservation switch was essentially a cheap TA attempt at a fourth controller notch, as its position on/off would either stop the cam at parallel or allow it to advance to full field shunting. And finally, the first notch on the controller is often called “shunt” (referring to its use for a slow-speed shunting move in the yard, not field shunting). This notch stops the advancement of the cam before full series, keeping some resistor banks cut in. That is why T/Os are told not to stay in this notch, as leaving the resistor banks cut in could burn them out.

    Congrats if you read this whole thing - now get ready to have it all be completely irrelevant in 10-15 years once the fleet is fully AC propulsion. Lol...

  12. @RR503 Awesome writeup, thanks! I do have a couple nitpicks, though - I am pretty sure the horsepower increase during GOH on the 60’ SMEEs was to offset the weight of added equipment like AC, and that the cars’ performance was more or less the same as pre-GOH. Also, the NTSB found that if the striking (J) train had compliant brakes providing 3.0 mphps deceleration, it would have stopped 48 feet short of impact, as @Union Tpke stated.

  13. 16 hours ago, RR503 said:

    It invalidates it because the TA didn’t make mod decisions off of degraded brake performance. They made it after having restored brake function, a point at which (as you’ll see in the reports attached to my above post) there still existed significant numbers of safety deficiencies in the system.

    Oh ok, I see what you mean.

    16 hours ago, RR503 said:

    As I understand it, the changeover was rationalized in two ways. 1) operators were expected to be competent and not dead/sleeping/suicidal, and 2) acceleration increases ate into but did not generally surpass the margin of safety provided by the signal system. Both assumptions held true, and were not generally put to test because a LOT has to go wrong for these deficiencies to get discovered heuristically (somebody operating a train in exactly the way that gets you to MAS, doing so facing a red signal with a train at a specific location ahead, etc). The brake mods just made it _that_ much easier for these things to be laid bare. Again, recommend you read the reports I linked because they a lot of these issues and lay out how safety issues went beyond just brake degradation.

    For sure there are some redundancies (ex: assuming worst possible brake rate while also providing 35% safety margin), but there really isn’t much overlap between assumptions otherwise. Switch approaches, operator behavior and acceleration performance all determine interrelated but not overlapping bits of signal design.

    IND engineers allowed 35% outside stations, 10% inside. This is basically what saved the system from the R10s, but again it was a design that relied on a lot of assumptions about operator performance that didn’t stand in reality.

    The fact remains, though, that this type of wreck did not occur prior to the 90s. If this was just due to a lower probability of it happening before the brake mods were added to the situation, then that probability was low enough to meaningfully change the risk/reward involved in running the system that way. I still think it's worth an analysis (which is not in the two sources you provided, although those were very interesting - thanks for the links).

    16 hours ago, RR503 said:

    When I’m back in NYC, I will do a more proper write up of the history here. It’s worth understanding fully.

    I'll be interested to read that. I do appreciate your detailed and thoughtful responses.

  14. 33 minutes ago, MHV9218 said:

    Hey, the R143 screens have, as far as I can tell, never been updated since introduction. The credit card-Metrocard option has been around for a decade and a half plus, I think, same with Request-a-Stop. Paper ads were easier!

    Lol. Those R143 screens are so old that they’ve come full circle for me and are almost cool. It seems like these screens become little preserved snapshots of whatever the MTA was going on about when the trains were new.

  15. 1 hour ago, RR503 said:

    No, it’s the other way around. Setting aside  its inaccuracies and spurious details, that post tells about half of the true story — ie the mods that led to the brake degradation which in turn caused the collision. It does not cover, however, the actions taken by the authority after the crash to restore brake performance.

    Can you elaborate on these inaccuracies and spurious details? And how would a lack of coverage of the TA’s post-crash decisions somehow invalidate a write-up of the pre-crash events?

    1 hour ago, RR503 said:

    Generally, the premise that GT/control lines mods are just a function of braking distances is itself flawed. Numerous other assumptions about train operator performance (ex: whether or not it was safe to allow sub-100% safety margins on signals which would only be last before a train ahead if a TO had proved their awareness by clearing a ST, whether trains actually slow to 15mph, whether they obey posted limits at switches, etc) and train performance (1.75mphps starting acceleration of an R1 vs 2.5 for R10 and onwards) changed over time, all of which required corrective action for signal systems designed by legacy standards. Those risks were unknown and then ignored until the Williamsburg Bridge crash finally prompted action. 

    Is there any evidence the IND (then BOT or TA) did not take this into account when designing the R10 and up and their compatibility with the existing system? How come this type of crash hadn’t happened prior to the brake mods? There were plenty of crashes, but as far as I know, none were due to insufficient emergency braking performance after hitting a tripper.

    1 hour ago, RR503 said:

    [Edit]: Another key point: there isn't a 1:1 relationship between brake rates observed in stopping distance tests and those used in signal design. Today, we assume trains brake at 1.4 mphps for the purpose of signal design as that was the value arrived at in a 1999 test of absolute worst case braking conditions. Not all signal designs assume worst case braking, however, which in turn causes even more design variance.

    That sounds reasonable, but at some point there are so many different safety margins and allowances designed into various parts of the system that they begin to have a serious impact on everything else. Didn’t the IND engineers allow for a 35% safety margin on the control lines to mitigate this sort of thing?

  16. Next time you’re on an R179, take a look at the LCD screen in the FIND module. It’s a bit wider than those on the R160, and is clearly a newer, sharper model of screen. But of course, this being the MTA, they decided to literally copy and paste the shitty 2005 video loop from the R160s, complete with off center black borders to cover up the aspect ratio difference, a slogan the MTA doesn’t even use anymore (Going Your Way) and graphics straight out of the dark ages such as the slide featuring the “new” Coney Island Station as a backdrop while an animation about litter catching fire plays at about 5 frames per second. Am I the only one bothered by this?

    The only newer graphic is the EasyPay MetroCard ad (probably not too helpful to the OMNY campaign), which is copied over from those newer screens retrofitted onto some R160s in the windowsill a few years ago. Even the route bullet screens are slightly stupid. You can tell on most of them that they have been stretched quite severely to fit the new screen, resulting in some weird looking route descriptor text. Come on guys, it can’t be that hard...

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