Collin

Well if they were from Coney Island Yard, they are definitely Siemens sets.

Yet they have no plan as to which phase overnight service returns. Why are politicians so keen on ending it forever?

I would say no , some 8 car R160s on the , and R143s on the . The could borrow R46s from Coney Island Yard, R68s from Concourse Yard, or R160s from Jamaica Yard. Just depends on which yards have stuff available. The spare ratio would be greatly reduced, but it's only a temporary problem. If the R32s are reactivated, I would expect them to run in 10 car trains on the and 8 car trains on the . Since it's summer, I don't anticipate them going on the .

I totally agree. I find it quite repulsive as it's a fancy way of saying that everyone else is worth nothing to society. Second class citizens. Back to discussion of the R179s, there's no reason to keep the R32's in active service once the R179s are back. Keep them in reserve maybe, but their use should be kept to an absolute minimum if at all. Not only is the HVAC bad for summer, but it's considered unsafe during the pandemic where the conductor has to change cars. That might have something to do with why they don't want to reactivate them in the first place.

Not that many people are going to be returning to work in Phase 1. Just construction and manufacturing. It's not like all the office workers are going to be all of a sudden commuting again. That probably won't happen until we have a vaccine, if ever.

Except that the R32s and R42s are not reliable at all. The R32s are especially bad in the summer. It's better than nothing, but they are highly problematic. Railfans who want them to stick around forever need to understand how old those cars are. Some of the oldest rapid transit rolling stock in the world, if not the oldest. They were supposed to be retired a decade ago.

So right now, the has two R160s and the rest are R46s while the is all R46s? Have any R32s been reactivated yet?

If you read the post above, only 110 R32's were planned to be run until 2021-2022. They definitely won't be bringing back all 222. I had speculated that Coney Island has some extra R68(A)s due to the suspension of the . It wouldn't surprise me if some of those show up on the for the time being. Or some R46s could be loaned since they already run on those lines. If the removal of the R179s is going to last a long time, then it would make more sense to reactivate some R32s, but if it's only for a few weeks, I doubt it's worth the effort. Hopefully they are preparing for that possibility.

The R179's were supposed to replace all remaining R32s and R42s. That is why they were retired. The MTA is not just going to keep hundreds of ancient retired cars from the 60's maintained and ready for service for if another fleet fails. I'm not sure their retirement has anything to do with Cuomo either. They had enough cars to run all service without them.

Well it looks hilarious.

My understanding is that Concourse R68's are for the , while the is based at Coney Island Yard. It is possible that the could be using the Coney Island fleet while some of the Concourse fleet goes to the . Hopefully someone is able to get video of the swap if it does in fact happen.

What's wrong with the R179's?

I believe the only thing set in stone is that full service returns when NYC reaches Phase 1. As people return to work, public transit must be fully operational and safe. I assume this means the all return. It should also mean that 24/7 service returns. If not, then it's not full service. While Cuomo's plan is to reopen on June 8th, it might not happen if the city doesn't meet the metrics for it. So far, he has not made any reopening decision that wasn't based on facts and data.

I agree it's not full service unless it's 24/7. It should say full daytime service otherwise. The NY Post article says no overnight service, while the Secret NYC article says 24/7 service returns. If it does not return in Phase 1, then my opinion is it must be included in one of the later phases, and that decision must be made now and publicly announced.

I don' think there will be an uptick, just like there wasn't after the Michigan protests, or spring break in Florida. I'm sure Cuomo will walk back on his commitment to reopen if NYC doesn't meet the metrics.

When R40's were briefly used on the I think in 2009, why did they have to stop at the 10 car marker at the front of the platform?

The QB Express is currently scheduled for 30 tph, 15 each . Everywhere I've seen has said 10% increase, so that brings it up to 32-33 tph.

Bergen Street has a single crossover, but it is not a full diamond crossover.

This is just a guess, but maybe because the is still suspended, they don't need as many sets in ENY temporarily. When skip stop is in effect, the combined run every 5 minutes, but I believe they're only running every 8 minutes now. So for now the can use their extra trains and have a more uniform fleet with 480 foot R179's.

My understanding is that with fixed block signaling, a track must have wayside signals in both directions to allow trains to run in the reverse direction, and that most subway tracks are not bidirectionally signaled, the exception being the center track on 3 track lines. With CBTC, I believe it is much less costly to have the signals allow for reverse running.

There's more that can be done to reduce the impact of track maintenance in the subway. I saw something on twitter that was about the . Service often gets replaced by shuttle buses during construction because it's only a 2 track line and the current signaling system is uni-directional, so single tracking isn't possible on a large scale. CBTC signals can be bi-directional, so with the addition of a full crossover at Bergen Street, the line would have 3 zones where single tracking could be done during overnight 20 minute headways. CBTC alone is not enough though. Flagging rules need to be looked at to allow faster service in the single tracked area, or it just doesn't work. I've mentioned before that physical barriers could be installed in some locations to separate the tracks. I doubt it would go over well in the union to suggest increasing speeds without additional safety measures. This should be implemented on any 2 track line where it isn't already. For 4 track lines, I have a different idea. In this scenario, Track 1 = southbound local, Track 2 = southbound express, Track 3 = northbound express, and Track 4 = southbound local. In normal late night service, 1 and 4 are active, while 2 and 3 are unused. To access 1 or 4 for work, a directional station bypass service change is typically used. If track 1 is out, southbound trains would run express on track 2, and northbound trains would run local on track 4. Track 3 would not be used. This means the active tracks are not adjacent. I think it might be preferable if the active tracks were adjacent, allowing work to take place on two adjacent tracks at once. That means in the same scenario, southbound trains would run express on track 3, even though that's actually the northbound express track. Northbound trains would still run local on track 4. If it's planned to always work on the two adjacent tracks at the same time, then the barriers I mentioned above would only need to be installed between the two express tracks.

I was in favor of the Cuomo train plan. The technology that was used had been successfully deployed elsewhere, and it averted 15 months of chaos that would've been caused by completely closing it. The MTA needs to be open to new ideas (that make service better, not cutting service like ending 24/7 permanently) rather than being so set in their ways, and I'm glad that Cuomo pushed for that. Now if only he could figure out why projects like East Side Access and 2nd Ave get delayed many times over and cost many times what was originally planned, he would really be onto something. My issue with Cuomo's infrastructure plans is that they're often focused on fast and cheap rather than getting it done right. The best example of that is the LGA AirTrain that won't save anyone time. The Mario Cuomo Bridge with no transit is also an example. While one could make that case for the tunnels, I don't think that's a good example.

I would never be in favor of breaking up the state. I've lived here my whole life. I lived in Queens when I was really young, then moved to Orange County to start school, and went to college in the North Country. I don't consider myself any more or less of a New Yorker than someone from a different part of the state. Breaking up the state would also weaken the area that was once New York on a national level.

With the suspended, is the running local in Manhattan at all times?

Since the is still suspended, it makes sense they're running the R68A's on other routes.