Bosco

IIMN, the reason for the change in the planned layout at Grand St in the first place was to avoid the underpinning of the park in the area. In another discussion here, someone mentioned that avoiding the underpinning of Central Park was the reason for the double-level layout of CPW south of 110 St. That said, I think there is a little bit of flexibility since there are no plans to use the existing tunnels in Chinatown for revenue service. Either way, we have to remember that we're still aways from this happening, especially given the current political climate. Optimistically we are 10 years away from Phase 2. At the current rate of things, many of us probably won't even see this part of SAS open.

I don't think there's much of a need to do that. The R160s were a bigger deal at the time than the R179s are now in terms of technology.

Speaking of the R62 , are there plans for the R62s to go back to the once the gives up the last of its R62As?

There are clocks at DeKalb Ave (although I don't know if they're online yet). AFAIK, only 4th Avenue in Brooklyn has these for now; Brighton, Sea Beach, West End, and Culver will see them sooner or later.

Any word yet on what went wrong this time or is it still too early? At this rate, there is a snowball's chance in hell that the bulk of the order will be here before the Canarsie shutdown ...

Probably just bunching. I've seen two trains in that time frame at 125 St, and sometimes in that situation the first train (the one that's late) will skip 135 St.

Is there any reason for bringing back the shortened announcements? I thought, as did many others here, that it was another failed test program.

I thought I heard similar announcements along the Brighton when Q trains were express in one direction. It's hilarious how outdated many of these announcements are--even if most of them were recorded in the late '90s-early 2000s, there's no excuse for them having a K train announcement. Edit: I don't mind Hopkins' voice, but they really need to resplice the clips to get rid of the long pauses (as it's done on the IRT).

I can't speak about the ones in Brooklyn that just went online, but the Broadway Line ones are decent--I have noticed though that like the IRT countdown clocks, sometimes the wait time stays at 3 min for some time, then jumps down to 1. Part of that is the station also, since I frequent Herald and Times Squares. Much of Central Park West has them, but they're not online ATM.

Car drivers are absolutely crazy and selfish. I was on an M100 a few months ago and we got into an accident because some idiot abruptly cut us off and we were unable to stop in time.

Same story at 59 St-Columbus Circle with the . Of course those clocks will be obsolete soon (they've started installing the new clocks along CPW, though none of them are powered).

More minor aesthetic differences for anyone who's interested. • The speaker configuration on the R179s is more like that of the R142s. The R160s speakers are in the same configuration as the R142As/R143s. • The door leafs are hidden behind the ads on the R179; on the R160, they're placed above the ads. • The door indicator lights are slightly different on the two cars. • All R179s have four stanchions per car; on the R160s, the A cars have five stanchions and the B cars have four. • The interior electronic sign cover on the R179s is rounded on the top like the R142s, but square on the R160s. • The ceiling loop pole has less mounting screws on the R179s than on the R160s. • The roof HVAC grille is smaller and thinner on the R179s than on the R160s. The heating ducts are also thinner on the R179s. • The R179s have additional grab bars on the blind ends that are identical to the ones found on the cab walls; the R160s do not have these. While exhaustive, there are other minor differences that I may have missed.

That's not entirely true. It has to do with electrical incompatibilities between the car types more than the propulsion. While rare, an R160 Alstom/Siemens set could run together if absolutely necessary, but the Siemens sets accelerate and brake slightly faster, causing the "pushing/pulling" you mentioned.

While I could understand the use for more transfers, many of them would be redundancies. I think the money should be used to upgrade Canal St in the same way Fulton St was. Improved flow, more mezzanines, etc.

That set has had those plates on the car ends for a long time now. It has nothing to do with the LED displays--the module for those is inside the windows on the car ends. I'm not sure what those plates are for though.

1. More service is needed for Broadway Local, 4 Avenue, and Astoria (though the rolling stock won't be available probably until the R211s come in). This would help out the and , the latter of which is notoriously unreliable. 2. Even if the MTA had more trains, Whitehall does not have the capacity to turn more trains per hour. Terminating the at 9 Avenue solves this problem.