RR503

6 hours ago, Deucey said:

I always thought it shortsighted that the Franklin Shuttle rebuild reduced station length to 4 cars and a single track, and eliminated this as an option.

The amount of $$$ the agency would save by avoiding busing for Brighton tunnel shutdowns alone would make this a worthwhile investment. But alas, that's too much brain. 

56 minutes ago, R68OnBroadway said:

Has there ever been some sort of plan where the  terminates at Burnside and the  runs local north of Burnside? (Not advocating for this, just wondering if this was ever proposed out of pure curiosity.) 

You'd end up with Parkchester disease, or a f**kton of ugly crossing moves on a high-volume core corridor. The switches are also not at all set up for it -- PM rush northbound expresses continuing to Woodlawn and PM rush locals relaying south would essentially be single-tracking through Burnside unless you long relayed to north of Kingsbridge. 

8 hours ago, CenSin said:

In Manhattan, they serve totally different markets. There is no shared station between the and at any point in Manhattan. There are 2 opportunities for a transfer: one is in the Bronx; and the other is in Brooklyn.

They're much more similar than one would think. Between the  transfer at 7/53 and the fact that Lex and 6th are only about 2,000 feet apart south of 42, the  can compete for a lot of the s markets if it had the frequency and reliability. Even today, someone travelling from Kingsbridge  to 51 St  is equally well off doing  ->59 ->  as they are walking to the , taking to the  and walking down to 51.

2 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

If there was a better way to turn trains at Queens Plaza and connect it with Queensboro Plaza , then that would be the only extension of the  that I think would be worthwhile.

I've always been partial to some route that hits Queensboro or 21 and then heads up 21 to serve that side of Astoria. There was also a map I saw that had it doing QBP-21 and then 86 St in Manhattan to complete a just-outside-the-core loop, which would be....super amazing, especially if paired with a Franklin Shuttle connection. 

Transfers should absolutely be the first priority though.

2 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

President St was used more frequently than Church Avenue in my experience, especially up until the mid nineties or so. There's a functioning tower at the south end of the station beyond the platform and a crossover located just beyond that. Trains would relay just north of Sterling St for n/b service. Power could then be removed on the s/b track from Sterling to Church or all the way into Flatbush if need be. I don't recall Church Avenue being used as a terminal on a regular G.O. but it was possible to use it in an emergency situation. Once again the tower is located at the south end of the station just past the platform end. The President St G.O.'s were gradually moved over to Utica Avenue because it was more convenient operationally. Run shuttle buses from Franklin s/b on Nostrand and n/b on New York Avenues to and from Flatbush. It also eliminates the need for a shuttle train crews, dispatcher(s) and a dedicated tower operator for the G.O.. It's easier to have Utica tower to have full control of the situation. That's my recollection. Carry on.

This is fascinating, thanks much. Am curious as to what you mean by shuttle train crews -- was the President op something that ran via shuttle from Franklin or as the end of the ? Or do you mean the dead time necessitated by relay+back-riding to a recrew at Atlantic (does Franklin have a crew room?). Also, how exactly do the power blocks in that area work -- ie can I turn a train at Church or President but still have power off on both tracks down to Flatbush. 

A question for the old timers here (looking at you @Trainmaster5) : have President St or Church Ave on Nostrand ever been used for GO operation as a terminal? Maybe during one of the flooding projects for Flatbush/Brooklyn College? Is there anything that would stop their use today? 

(also @mods could you perhaps merge my three replies to myself? Poor organization -- sorry)

1 hour ago, brakethrow said:

I have to start riding in the last car to see how severe it is ripping through Astor Pl on the express tracks n/b.

Sometimes you can see the "I'm tired and just want to get home" look on some of the t/o's faces..slight slouch with their heads tilted to the side..

Slightly off topic but I noticed the 142As are a little more stable and quieter when going through curves at speed compared to the 142s.

My experience would seem to indicate that Astor is generally okay. Operators generally enter that curve having taken a slight brake application as the signals beyond the curve are closely spaced and frequently are restrictive. 

19 minutes ago, CenSin said:

Wow! 158 signal locations on the West End versus 81 on Sea Beach. That would explain the speed difference between the two lines.

These charts are pre-resignalling; the speed differences you observe are enforced by agency efforts to respond to these issues (though WE certainly is a more GT-heavy route than SB, for obvious reasons).

22 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

I'm gonna agree with your point about system safety but I seem to remember that same group of people responding to safety problems instead of being pro-active when they should have been.  IIRC it took an outside Federal agency to point out longstanding signal deficiencies in the subway system.  Just something that shouldn't be overlooked when attesting to the professional qualities of the system safety department. The MTA has always been a reactive agency IMO, whether it's the subways,  buses or the railroads we're discussing.  A prime example of the CYA mindset.  Just my opinion.  Carry on. 

The events leading up to the Williamsburg Bridge crash were a bit more murky than just negligence. OSS had been pushing DCE since '91 to look carefully at the emergency brake systems, and in fact had put together a course of remedial action to increase cylinder pressures as early as '93. Somewhere between the top of DCE and the actual implementation end of things (ie the pneumatic shops), the memo had got lost -- no timetable for cylinder pressure increases had been set, and the people on the front lines didn't even know the mods were in the work order pipeline. On the signal deficiencies end, the IG report puts April of '93 as being the earliest that NYCT could have been fully aware of control line deficiencies in the signal system thanks to a fender-bender at 103/CPW, the receipt of the TTCL report on Lex's signal system in March (a follow-up on the USQ derailment in '91), and an internal analysis using braking curves from the slow-stopping cars that had been tested over at DCE at the time. And then there was, of course, the infamous PB report on the signal system, a summary of whose data I've excerpted below (from a board presentation post-WillyB h/t @Stephen Bauman)

All of this IMO would seem to indicate a breakdown of communication in DCE and Signals, which to some degree may be indicative of OSS not pushing hard enough, but it's my impression that OSS didn't have nearly the internal pull that it gained after the collision. The agency is absolutely reactive, but its brand of reactivity has changed over the years -- before '95, it was piecemeal effort on safety, after '95 it was an all out safety blitz, and now, after having value engineered and disciplined the system to within an inch of its life, it's whatever you'd call this managerial dynamic. 

7 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

I wouldn’t increase my speed leaving Nevins St. if the posted speed signs were increased because no matter what is posted the laws of gravity and physics haven’t changed. Let a rider lose their balance, get injured and sue, and I can guarantee that my last sentence will be used against the  by the lawyers of the plaintiff who will win the lawsuit. I would also bet that no one will take sole ownership of the speed increase.

System safety signs off on all the speed increases — this isn’t something happing via an obfuscated chain of command. While I understand that there are some areas that are, shall we say, fun-prone, I don’t think that sign compliant operation actually feels all that rough. Remember, the point of the sign effort is to find areas where limits are set below NYCT standards, which dictate a maximum of 4 inches of unbalanced force around curves — or, frankly, not all that much. As far as I can tell, areas such as Nevins on tracks 3 and 4 and GC on 4 suffer not so much from overly aggressive sign speeds as they do from operation that either exceeds sign when rounding the curve or resuming speed before the R sign. All of which is to say I think you’d be fine if you increase and just stay within delineated bounds.

They changed the speed signs leaving the station. 10 became 15 or 20 (can't remember which).

14 minutes ago, Jsunflyguy said:

Lafayette is an example of this.

My fingers and toes are crossed that that area gets revamped as a part of Fulton CBTC so we can single track Hoyt-Jay instead of doing those godawful Utica bustitutions. 

2 hours ago, subway4832 said:

One thing that I've started to notice recently with the   is that once it gets south of Church Ave, it leaves a pretty nasty gap behind it, and is always hot at West 8th Street so it sits there for about 5-10 minutes. Did NYCT thoroughly plan the scheduling out for this? 

Look at the purple line. Median  arrives at Kings Highway about 4 mins behind, but then end of line padding is such that it gets to Neptune nearly 5 mins early. Then terminal holdouts (holdouts that exist in no small part because trains approach the terminal so extremely early) mean median arrival at Stillwell is only a few seconds ahead. 

Just now, P3F said:

SIR does single tracking for a decent portion of their G/Os; they can get away with it due to their 30 minute headways (except during rush hours, when you're not scheduling any G/Os anyway). Also, the cab signalling certainly helps.

Absolutely. One of the more exciting features of CBTC installation will be its facilitation of creative reroutes on 4-track lines. We could, for example, run all QB service on D1 and D3 (the southbound local and exp tracks) for a few weekends to install a crossover in the provision by Forest Hills...

On 11/17/2019 at 2:40 PM, JeremiahC99 said:

For this to work, you would have to rebuild Essex Street so that the middle track could access both platforms. This should be done by having the westbound platform and track swapped, with the station configuration turning into that of Whitehall  and other 3-track express stops elsewhere in the system.

Also, is it possible to turn 12 trains per hour on a single pocket track (the middle track in this case)?

You _can_ do 12 on a pocket, but your ops resiliency would be low. I'd look to have relay capability at Bowery and/or a 4 track Essex St that allows high(er) cap terminal ops.

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

Because CTA can run a single-track system because they have full reverse signaling and much better dispatching operations.

@RR503, wanna give specifics here about why we can’t have nice things?

Single tracking isn't inherently superior to suspension -- depends on the sort of GO you're doing, what the frequency impact of single tracking is, etc. CTA is undoubtably better at GO planning than we are, though. The thing CTA has going for it is the fact that its maintenance workforce is something like twice as productive per unit worker time as NYCT's, and that's with structures less amenable to work under traffic, loads of complex trackwork and shitty weather.

16 minutes ago, Jsunflyguy said:

Currently the Red and Blue Line are posting to expect delays due to single tracking, despite having a crossover every 2-3 stations on almost the entire route. The  posts late night trains are single tracking for signal work, but next week will be out due to track replacement which is an entirely different task. CTA has more flexibility even in that regard since most of the system is above ground and on relatively level ground.

It isn't like we _can't_ single track, we just choose not to in many cases. Especially with work involving river tunnels, we've become much more reroute-happy over the years, and generally do not leverage crossovers to the extent they could be. 

8 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Dosen't that mean that there will be no downtown trains that skip 138th St as well?

Yes, though the lack of advisory on that makes me think I may have wrong info.

Edit: seems I do. My apologies!

1 minute ago, RestrictOnTheHanger said:

 

What is the rationale for taking the track at 138 OOS?

https://new.mta.info/system_modernization/138stnorth

Structural stuff, in short. 

7 hours ago, Jemorie said:

Really? So the N/B outer track is out of service full-time until 138-GC reopens?

There might be delays to Burnside/Woodlawn  service during the PM peak if there are two s back to back ahead of it.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what happens. I for one am not optimistic about this GO's performance. 

4 minutes ago, S78 via Hylan said:

They also made Manhattan bound  service start running local in Queens a bit earlier than before. 

Before they did this, they had a 30 min gap in Manhattan-bound service between the last  and the first  because the  -- which used to reduce that gap to 20 -- is at 96 now. Somehow wasn't caught when they did the original schedule. Glad to see they're fixing it.

3 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

When the uptown platform at 138th St closes, does that mean and trains will use the center track at all times or during non-rush hours?

There are switches north of 138 that allow s to use the connection to the LL while skipping 138. So yes, it'll be a two track op there for a while -- first time this has been the case in a long, long time.

I mean, you can easily accomplish the same approximate connectivity by making the Bay Ridge service be Essex Middle-95 via Nassau, Montague, 4th local. Or by transferring to Culver. 

53 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

The one big (actually lets change that to huge) impediment to 10 car trains on the Eastern Division is Metropolitan Avenue on the  which can't be extended in either direction due to the location of the station house at one end and the tower at the other end and the crossover and the grade of the tracks which makes moving that crossover a major pain in the ass.

Dunno if this is as true as railfan lore would suggest it is. There’s a considerable distance where the grade is constant beyond the crossover, and as I’m sure you know installation on a curve isn’t an issue. If you just move the tower and/or the crossover, you’re golden.

In a similar vein to @Trainmaster5’s post above, I’d suggest that yards may be where we face the most complexity in a 10 car plan. ENY, Canarsie and FPY are all quite space constrained, and with everything running in 5 car links these days, moving away from the train lengths for which those yards are optimized would likely increase operational complexity while also reducing yard capacity. These issues aren’t necessarily insurmountable (I’m very much of the opinion that NYCT should at the very least option the land around ENY before its too late), but are certainly worth thinking about. 

9 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Perhaps you're right but sections of the West End, as well as Broadway-Brooklyn, have been known to shower "gifts" down to unsuspecting motorists and passerby from time to time. I was more concerned about the street to structure supports (those concrete encased pillars) rather than welds extending from the current platforms. Knowing the history of the as opposed to it's predecessors I can see them trying to do this on the cheap as a retrofit and having to come back later and then do the correct thing. Color me a skeptic. Carry on.

The metal rain, though, is much more a function of maintenance than it is of viaduct design. I don't think platform extensions would have much of an impact on the issue. As you know, I generally share your skepticism on the quality of MTA work, but on the structural stuff they seem to have gone in the opposite direction from skimping: literally everything they've done these days has been overbuilt or overcomplicated to some degree. 

4 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

There is another impediment to extending the platforms along the Eastern Division, especially the  and lines from Marcy eastward. Any Bus Operator, truck or car driver who has traversed any distance under the Broadway Brooklyn el can point out that the street grid was never considered during construction.  There are pillars along the underside which block the existing intersections at many points and I wonder if platform extensions would make the situation worse with new supports installed in newer locations.  I haven't made many trips under the Myrtle Avenue segment recently and I don't remember the street grid from there up to Fresh Pond so maybe someone else can comment on that situation. Same question for the B/O and Surface fans who travel under the el including those who travel toward Sutphin or on the to Canarsie. Just something to ponder. We are talking about heavy concrete platform installation  here,  not lightweight walkways replacing rotted wood ones. Carry on.

I don't think I agree. Portions of West End are perhaps more awkwardly positioned relative to the grid than is Broadway, and they lengthened platforms no problem there. Same goes for the IRT els in the Bronx, and the portions of Culver where McDonald forms a barrier between different grid orientations. I really don't think this would be nearly the lift that is suggested here, not just because we've done it before, but also because we're generally talking about less than 100' of extension in most cases -- remember that E div platforms were built for 8x67' sets of BMT standards.

11 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

Isn't the BMT Eastern Division limited to 8 cars? Are the platforms even long enough?

Yes, the idea is that you'd spend the $$$ to extend them. Certainly would be less than a new tunnel.

16 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

However many trains you can't turn at Canarsie can short turn at Atlantic Av or Myrtle-Wyckoff.

On the Manhattan end create tail tracks at 8th Avenue and/or modify the middle track between 6th and 8th to a pocket track allowing some trains to short turn at 6th Avenue and have personnel on the platform to help relay trains.

Would be a good time to extend the  up 10th to at least 42 to help spread the coming HY crowds. Midtown  platforms are packed as is, and adding people doing contraflow will be a...lovely time.