Trainmaster5

1 hour ago, darkstar8983 said:

Yep it did. A friend of mine was on his way to meet up with me and showed me the videos of literally being stuck on the train for two hours, and they couldn’t get out. No AC, no lights. At least it was above ground so that way they had sunlight but the train lost power on the curve entering Queensboro Plaza 

I actually got a text after my post saying that I had overlooked the obvious. Loss of third rail power in that location. I was reminded of the frequent radio announcements from the Command Center about power outages around the Gold Street/ DeKalb area and how we IRT folks from Brooklyn would give folks alternate directions to reach their BMT south destinations. Nevins, Atlantic, Bergen, Grand Army Plaza were all good for bus service and Franklin had bus service and the Shuttle. Sorry for overlooking the obvious last night. My apologies. Carry on. 

8 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

Wonderful! Clap for yourself MTA and car maintenance! Another R46 has bit the dust. No  between Times Sq-42 St and Astoria-Ditmars Blvd since a Manhattan-bound  train (obviously an R46) lost power on the curve approaching Queensboro Plaza. People trapped on the train since 3PM and still have not been moved off the train, no A/C, in this weather. Reminiscent of the R46  train that lost power a few summers ago around Broadway-Lafayette St. These cars have GOT to go ASAP.

There’s obviously something missing in this situation. I’m no expert on R46 equipment but when you say that a train lost power where I come from that means traction power. I can’t see how that affects the AC in the car(s) on the train. I’ve been involved with other than head end operations maybe 5 times in 30 years but I have never heard of a whole consist losing power. That calls for second car operation. I’ve done it with experienced Motor Instructors without any problems. That’s why I don’t like the NTT equipment compared to the SMEE stuff. When I was a Conductor in school car we were taught how to read the signals and the iron so technically we could move the train without supervision on the scene. Be aware that any type of equipment can die at any time. The R46 is old and is being replaced but there’s no guarantee that the new equipment will be far superior than the old model. Just my thoughts. YMMV. Carry on.

6 hours ago, Jchambers2120 said:

I really wonder where some of you are getting this “info” from that train crews can refuse to undergo qualifications training. With the way this agency itches to discipline people over the slightest thing I promise you’re being fed bad info. 

Finally, a post with some common sense. That's my personal opinion. They've got maybe four or five test trains  running around now ? If you're a relatively new employee perhaps you've been trained on this equipment and feel comfortable operating it. I was on the road when the R62 class of cars were introduced to the IRT. I was more comfortable with the older pre-Redbird cars because that's what I trained on. Through my various job assignments , transfers, utility, extra list and such I decided that I'd rather work the  line rather than the  solely because of the equipment. I had the seniority plus, to me, the Kawasaki cars sucked. Some of my classmates felt the opposite way and they went the  route. Another group of us never worked a road job and stayed on work trains and transfers. When the R142 cars came to the IRT it was still a personal choice. We all trained on the equipment but those of us with seniority pretty much stayed with what we were comfortable with. I listened to the radio chatter between supervision, local and division wide, I was apprehensive when the R142 cars came to the  line but I personally stuck with it to the end of my career. Things like the train computer saying that I overshot a station by 80 feet after a perfect 10 car stop with 2 TSS's. standing next to me. How about the announcements and the side sign displays vanishing enroute ?  That happened to me a few times when the cars were introduced. Things like announcement not synching up with the train's actual location. Some of these folks should read Kamen Rider's posts or those of RTOman.and understand what they're trying to convey to everyone. I understand that many posters can't wait for the new cars to enter service. Thing is I read the  website, forums and such but most of the train troubles seem to be related to switch problems, disruptive riders, debris on the tracks, dirty cars and door problems. If you believe that the introduction of these new cars will make these problems vanish I've got a bridge to sell you. I don't think the cameras have anything to do with the cars themselves.  My opinions. Carry on.

3 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

IIRC the northbound local and express tracks are signed up for 15 mph leaving Nevins and the resume sign is about 1 car length from Hoyt Street on both tracks. Heading southbound on the express track I can slow down where the opening on the local track leads to the ramp to the lower level. The local track is speed restricted entering Nevins at approximately 10 mph. In the ancient times when I was being road qualified if we had to take an excessive brake to enter Nevins we would be told to take a seat after making the station stop. You were admonished for not having your train under control. That applied to both southbound local tracks. When I broke in someone for the road I stressed that very thing. I’ve had supervisors approach me and give me the thumbs up sign when I never even knew they were onboard. They were judging their school car students. Back then we never knew where or when they would show up. My main man came up to me at 9: pm on a Sunday night with his wife and I never saw him get on the train. Simply put if a T/O has to take an excessive brake or come to a stop before entering a station or an interlocking location that person doesn’t have the train under control IMO. Carry on.

Both southbound tracks, local and express. Correction 

2 hours ago, Jemorie said:

 

 

Southbound  trains apply the brakes midway through Hoyt St in my experience most of the time, while northbound  go at a faster speed leaving Nevins Street, also in my experience most of the time as well.

IIRC the northbound local and express tracks are signed up for 15 mph leaving Nevins and the resume sign is about 1 car length from Hoyt Street on both tracks. Heading southbound on the express track I can slow down where the opening on the local track leads to the ramp to the lower level. The local track is speed restricted entering Nevins at approximately 10 mph. In the ancient times when I was being road qualified if we had to take an excessive brake to enter Nevins we would be told to take a seat after making the station stop. You were admonished for not having your train under control. That applied to both southbound local tracks. When I broke in someone for the road I stressed that very thing. I’ve had supervisors approach me and give me the thumbs up sign when I never even knew they were onboard. They were judging their school car students. Back then we never knew where or when they would show up. My main man came up to me at 9: pm on a Sunday night with his wife and I never saw him get on the train. Simply put if a T/O has to take an excessive brake or come to a stop before entering a station or an interlocking location that person doesn’t have the train under control IMO. Carry on.

11 hours ago, habbyy said:

I observe it everyday, it might not be "slow" compared to usual traffic, but compared to the speed at which the train moves in manhattan, it ended up with me noticing this behavior well into not even a year of riding this line , idk what it is  exactly ,but like I said, the trains suddenly move slow when traversing between borough hall and nevins, i will start recording daily just to show haha but yeah idk what causes it, they are always very very slow going between these two stops compared to the previous speed between the other stations in manhattan

Let me enlighten you. There are speed restrictions between Borough Hall or Hoyt Street and Nevins Street in both directions on all tracks as poster Lex has pointed out . Carry on.

8 hours ago, bulk88 said:

A no clearance zone still has enough clearance to walk around a STOPPED train. Its just not safe to let a train pass a standing track worker. If the the tunnel was really "no clearance", the train body's suspension would swing, hit the wall or catwalk, and cause a derailment, and I dont see any daily! derailments happening and wrecked cars being towed to the yard with body damage.

Would you consider a river tube a “no clearance zone “ ? I can assure you that you cannot walk around a stopped train in the Joralemon tube in the IRT. If your train goes BIE in the tube you will have to climb up and down between each car in the consist to find the cause of the problem. The catwalks are crumbling even without making contact with a train. Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying? Carry on.

12 hours ago, Lex said:

At that hour?

I worked the pm tour on the  for over 20 years and never had this problem. I was normally on-time at Nevins, Franklin and Utica/ or New Lots so I'm wondering what could be the cause of this perceived delay. My experience though. Carry on.

1 hour ago, jon2305 said:

Alright.... so I guess I'll be the good messenger boy and try to put things into perspective.

YES, today (R211 4090-4094) has been delivered and at SBK. I know cause I actually saw a pic of it, unless its a really good photoshop. No I won't share the pic cause it's not mine. (R211 4110-4114) were delivered earlier this week so those could be at Coney by now.

So now, that makes (50 R211A trains) and counting.

4060-64/65-4069
4070-74/75-4079
4080-84/85-4089
4090-94/95-4099

4110-4114

4120-4124

And of course 20 R211T & 5 R211S.

Let's keep this show rollin.

??? 50 trains or 50 cars. Just asking.

21 hours ago, TMC said:

The PANYNJ is an institution that needs to be dissolved and destroyed entirely. My take. Carry on.

Would you care to elaborate on why you feel this way ?

27 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Then how were they gonna send the  to Fort Lee over the GWB?

That’s why there was never any connection built across the bridge into NJ. The IND was a NY based creation that had no authority to build on the bridge and, until the tradeoff of the building of the WTC and the PA having to absorb the PATH system, the Port Authority wanted nothing to do with any rail project. I liken it to a pipe dream like South 4th Street in Brooklyn. Carry on.

If it’s not a PANY&NJ project any proposal concerning the GWB and the  is automatically pure fantasy besides being illegal. PATH has a legal right to cross the Hudson River because of the interstate covenant that governs the parent Port Authority which the railroad preceded. The  does not have that right. My take. Carry on.

2 hours ago, subwaycommuter1983 said:

There needs to be more vigilance in subway yards. It is a huge safety hazard for someone to trespass a subway yard for whatever reason. God forbid someone could very easily trespass a subway yard to put bombs on trains.

The MTA and NYPD need to stop this before it's too late.

With all the clamor about fleet expansion perhaps someone should explain where the new cars are going to be stored. I’m not familiar with the area leading to 179 st but aren’t some trains laid up on the tracks between stations ? It seems to be an invitation to the perps, IMO. Carry on.

4 minutes ago, Bill from Maspeth said:

Before you posted here and when the R179's got taken out of service following the pull apart at a link bar, I said NYCT and the vendor would get those cars running again and not only that, they would become quite dependable.  I was disagreed with by many.  Well, I was right, but all my detractors have remained silent to this day!  As you say, they are no longer lemons.

I am surprised that you said you haven't ridden any SMEES yet.  There is a misconception that SMEES's are only R10 to R42.  But we still have SMEES: R62/62A/68/68A.  I respectfully disagree with you about the R160.  They are my personal favorite out of all the New Techs.

This misconception seems to be rather common in the railfan community. I’ve tried to point out many times that the R46 equipment is a class by itself while the R62-68 class is SMEE, and the newer equipment is NTT. Carry on.

7 hours ago, Lex said:

That's a level of NIMBYism I wasn't expecting to see.

It certainly doesn't instill confidence in continuing to use human labor in revenue subway operations...

Until the power goes out and you’re stuck in a river tube somewhere. Then no equipment of any type is gonna help you. Humans can.

16 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

If I say what I am ACTUALLY thinking…

people are actually refusing to get qualified on these trains. It makes running service with them difficult.

some people have said “well, just set them aside till you have enough people”… but that’s not an option.

all that is going to do is prolong the maintenance headache of keeping the R46s running as more and more people stall learning them. It’s giving in to their resistance to change. A LOT of qualified people picked off the A. 
 

folks just need to bite the bullet and learn them. They are not going anywhere.

”you won’t catch me driving that thing…” needs to stop.

Things never change. I watched the same thing happen when the R62 and the R142 classes were introduced to the IRT. Eventually they became accepted by most of the crews. I’m sure that nobody wants to be the Guinea pig /aka / crash test dummy. I was working on the  when the R142a cars were introduced to the  . The radio transmissions between the  crews and local supervisors and those of the RCC in the beginning were enough for crews to transfer to other lines. When the R142 was introduced to the  I told a TSS that the equipment was not up to snuff, IMO, but eventually things would work out. When I made a station stop at the 10 car marker at Morris Park s/b I showed the TSS that TOD showed that it overran the station by 80 feet and that would be recorded in the black box . Eventually the glitches were corrected. I somewhat understand the reluctance of some folks to deal with the new features. I’ve had coworkers who hated R62 and R142a equipment because they were manufactured by Kawasaki. I was always in the Bombardier camp because I was more comfortable in their cars. I was more qualified on the R62 cars than most road crews on the  at the start. I remember the exodus of the senior M/M on the line when the first line pick happened. Eventually things will get better. You learn to adjust. My first road experience was pre- Redbird and I learned to adapt to whatever was assigned to me. To my crew it’s R46, R60s, and NTT. Once you learn the differences between NTT i assume it wouldn’t be a major problem. As far as the camera goes just look at the LIRR. My take. Carry on and be safe out there.

4 hours ago, CenSin said:

This human performance variability is probably the biggest reason for moving to CBTC from a passenger perspective. The average performance drags down what could have been a much faster system. With computers at the control, the variability is down to the environment and the equipment, and the system can operate safely with much tighter margins.

You seem to be one of the few people who can get the big picture. Left unsaid is the total automation of the subway system. I remember laughing when someone posted about running more service. Theoretically that might be true but  no one in authority is claiming that. Just my opinion. Carry on.

8 hours ago, TheNewYorkElevated said:

 

In Fantasy Land, maybe. Get back to us while I’m waiting for my connection at South Fourth Street. It’s running late ⏰.

Greetings to all my fellow posters. I hope you had a safe and wonderful holiday. I personally touched base with 5 of my colleagues from RTO and a retired MS 1 from Car Equipment. My RTO folks are still teasing me about the posters that they call my “ little Lionel’s”. It’s been 15 years of my time on this site and I have some questions for my fellow posters. The questions came in regards to some posts in different threads but I was asked to consolidate them.

1- What is the most important thing down to the least important thing in train operations ?

We were taught that the plant was the most important thing. The plant is track, third rail power, signal system, and switches. The least important component is the equipment. In other words R9-R11 so this obsession with car types is really silly, in our opinion.

2- Two of us had the same motor instructor in our conductor’s class and he taught my motorman class as well. He was a Marine Corps drill instructor before coming to Transit. He emphasized that he saw a decline in general intelligence over the years. To him it didn’t matter where we came from or what race we were. He was fair and tolerant to a certain point. He tried to distinguish between ignorant questions and flat out stupid ones. My friends say that’s why the school car instructors started assigning students to me for road instruction. I never asked for them but a friend who was a school car instructor and later a Superintendent told me when I told him that I was going to retire. He was there when the motor instructor told our conductor class that we were going to be doing extra work. He pointed out to us that trains had been running for years with no announcements from the conductor. Most of my youth was spent on that equipment so I understood what he meant. The next thing he said to us about the conductor position was both sad and funny. He said that the general public would find excuses for trains with no announcements and that eventually the conductor would have to walk people to their front doors. 😂 Heck the trains weren’t even air conditioned back then.

B

3- Someone pointed out to me that they’ve seen some particularly bad rerouting proposals and after reading them I wonder if the people who come up with these ideas even ride the system or look at Google Maps or something similar and then post these ideas. The one that was pointed out to me was a proposal to run the  to the Bronx and have it run up Third Avenue. As my friend pointed out that is grounds for an immediate drug test if any  RTO employees suggested that. Heading n/b Third Avenue, the street, is about 4 car lengths from the 10 car marker IIRC. There used to be an underpass to cross under the s/b track and it led to the street exit and the Third Avenue El. I know that for a fact because I was a provisional Railroad Porter back in’ 68 and cleaned that station a few times before the underpass was sealed up.

3- what my contemporaries have noticed is that people are blaming delays and such on the R46 and the R60 class of cars. We look at the  website and see delays caused by vandalism, disruptive people, switch or signal problems, brakes activated or the occasional “ network communications issues. Seems like some people want to get rid of the older equipment not realizing that the new equipment will probably have the same problems. Meanwhile my colleagues are waiting for all the new equipment to get here. They want to know if Central or Prospect Parks are being eyed for new storage facilities and maintenance barns. Don’t take my posts as pro or anti positions but as questions I’ve been asked. Be safe and carry on.

Before I leave my friends and I would like to thank RTOMan and Kamen Rider for their updates.

23 minutes ago, Daniel The Cool said:

Few corrections: The  started Full Length right after 9/11 and the R62s didn't start transferring from the to the  until 2003. The first day a set ran on the  was May 9 2003.

Correct. Right after 9/11 the line ran ten car trains as  New Lots to Van Cortlandt Park , iirc.

37 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

It'll always be limited now because the Northern part was rebuilt to be single-tracked. The point of a shuttle is to either offer a short connection between 2 (or theoretically more) main hubs like the 42nd St Shuttle, or offer as the primary service of a branch line when one branch is more dominant like the Rockaway Shuttle. Franklin Shuttle is actually a somewhat useful connector in theory, but just the fact you know you might have to wait 10-20 minutes for the shuttle sort of eliminates the benefit it might if you have a rider say on the  comijng from Euclid who wants to transfer to the  and go down to Brighton. 

Think about what you just said. I think one would have to be pretty stupid to ride the  to downtown Brooklyn to backtrack for service to Brighton. The present day shuttle is/was the Brighton line. When it was severed from the Fulton St. El it was single tracked into the revised terminal. In my youth the trains ran from Franklin Avenue to Brighton or Coney Island from the single-tracked terminal on some weekends. My opinion.

2 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

One thing that is interesting is that the Franklin Shuttle survived despite barely adding any coverage to the existing system; it actually does have some value given it connects the IRT, BMT, and IND parts of the Brooklyn network together (as many of us know all too well, Brooklyn IND lines connectivity is terrible. The issue is in practice, the headways are so long, and some of the transfers inefficient, it isn't particularly reliable and hence helpful to many on their daily commutes.

Why do you think that the headways are long ? They are the same as they were decades ago. When the trains were running to Coney Island. My home station from 1961 was Prospect Park. The transfers between Prospect Park and Fulton Street are still the same and the IRT transfer is now free. As far as reliability goes it runs 24/7, and doesn’t have bridge openings compared to the other two shuttle lines. I’m not sure what you’re talking about. My take. Carry on.

Seems to me that everyone posting about the  line equipment, or any equipment, should realize that the cars are connected by link bars. The bars replaced the original couplers. They can be removed by CED at any time. There’s nothing permanent about the link bars so they can reconfigure the consists of the trains any time they want. Link bars are semi permanent. Carry on.

3 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Also  is basically separate from the rest of the subway system. It doesn't have any direct track connections to the rest of the IRT, and while it does have a connection to the 60th St tunnel, it's trains are too narrow to run revenue service through it. In a lot of subway systems worldwide where each line is Independent, different lines will have different specs and different rolling stocks based on when the line was built and it's busyness level. For all intents and purposes, the  is it's own separate thing and MTA should prioritize doing what's best for the , even if it makes it incompatible with the rest of the IRT.

Correct me if I’m missing something here. Are you suggesting that the  run a specialized fleet of equipment ? You do realize that every piece of equipment on the  has historically been used on other lines ? What it appears that you are proposing is to create a fleet of doorstops, IMO.

17 minutes ago, Kamen Rider said:

Actually, all that is not automatically actually a problem. 

My first ride as a passenger, three days after the first came online, they had to change the program multiple times because not all the proper GO programs are loaded into the darn thing. That is an NTT wide issue.

For example, for the F via Broadway for Fastrack the last two weeks, every time I had that job, I had to turn off the AAS at Prince Street going southbound and Atlantic going northbound, because the F via Broadway routes in the computer are all written on the assumption the train is being sent over the bridge. I then had to make fully manual announcements through lower manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn before I could turn the system back on and reset it for the proper station. 

the announcement might have "doubled" because they reloaded the AAS because there was a mistake to correct. that happens. Often the crew forgot a reroute is on and had to make an adjustment. 

 

My C/R and I fully understand what you’re saying. train,R142, brand new, via Lexington Avenue with  no Utica or New Lots program south of Bowling Green. Flatbush was okay via Lexington Avenue or the Seventh Avenue re-route. We would make manual announcements from Borough Hall southbound. Sad part was that the train had a  to New Lots program already installed but supervision didn’t want us to use it. Quirky stuff as I look back. Carry on.