Trainmaster5

@ Wallyhorse

 As Lance pointed out in an earlier post your proposal isn't needed in 2014. I don't know if you've ever seen my posts about Chambers St BMT and the unique signage on the n/b platform but I've actually used a variation of your proposal. Way back in the  '64-early'67 days. There were 1 or 2 BMT "banker's specials" in the afternoon that came n/b from the Montague tubes and left Chambers St and headed back to Brooklyn using the south tracks of the Manhattan Bridge. This was back when there was a financial district in lower Manhattan. Even way back then the service had been cut back to a train or two because the ridership wasn't there to justify running more than that. Today much of those financial district jobs have been dispersed to Midtown, Jersey City, Downtown Brooklyn, or even cities like Charlotte or Wilmington, Delaware. I lived through that era and the only complaint I heard when the Chrystie St connection took effect was Brighton line riders looking for more Broadway service. People still had QJ, and part-time RJ service to/from Nassau Street but there was no outcry for Nassau-Bridge service restoration. I really doubt the would replace now severed trackage and add a switch to provide a service that few, if any, really want or need. I enjoy reading your proposals Wallyhorse. Sometimes you appear to be ahead of the game with your ideas but this time you might be almost 50 years too late. Carry on.

Accoridng to joekorner, the is all 46s but heres the thing there are at least 3 sets of 160s on the on everyday basics 

With all respect to joekorner's site it's not the bible. Basically it tells you what equipment is assigned to a line/barn. It doesn't actually tell you what equipment may run on a particular day. For instance I operated an R62A consist on the every day some years ago. The equipment was officially assigned to the line and joekorner's site reflected that. Meanwhile 5 days a week for 6 months these R62A consists ran on the l;ine.  I've run R142A consists on the that were officially assigned to the line. One of those consists also made a trip on the that same day for what it's worth. The needs of the service alway outweigh car assignments or joekorner's site.Just sayin'.

Or they could increase 1-line service from 137 St onward. But whatever.

Let's just ignore the SAS proposal for a minute and focus on 125th St itself. Anyone on the far west side of 125th St who wants downtown service would proceed south from whatever their origin point. I'd venture a guess that 98% of those travelers would take the , , , ,or(D) train or any s/b bus before they would make a trip on the SAS and travel east before heading s/b. Lance, your proposal makes sense while any other option seems to be a waste of time ,IMO. Wallyhorse I didn't mean to upvote you but whatever. Carry on.

Just a quick note on the to 137th St proposal. Look at subway.org or Wikipedia for the reason(s) why the idea is a non-starter. Look at the reason why the Van Cortlandt Park to New Lots Avenue and the 145th St-Lenox Avenue to South Ferry services were eliminated. Short answer. Elimination of the slowdowns due to switching at 96th St and Broadway. No one wants slower service. The proposal ain't gonna happen, period. Carry on.

This sure enough sums it all up, great way to put it. We pretty much all know who the people this is aimed at. "Wink Wink"

There was a saying that it was "better to remain silent and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt " I think that we can include posts in that category.

I'd like to put this out here for myself and my fellow posters. I"ve been on these forums for a few years and I enjoy the back and forth. Having said that there is something that I've been noticing for a few weeks(months). It's also happening to a degree in the bus forums but it's especially prevalent in the subway section. At the risk of becoming a "grammar nazi" there are some threads, like the R188 one, where some posts are basically incoherent. IDK if it's an ESL thing or something else but it's very jarring to come across such a post in an otherwise interesting thread discussion. I'm not talking about people not agreeing with each other but rather posts that obsess over missing stickers on equipment, or new, converted, or SMSed equipment where one has to read and re-read a post to try to decipher the poster's point.. IMO instead of some people worrying about trainsets remaining in numerical order while they're out railfanning perhaps they should spend the same amount of time hitting up those English textbooks they've cast aside for the summer. It just doesn't look right, at least to me, when you can tell subway and bus fleets by number or sound but you can't get your points across clearly in a post. To an oldtimer like me the latter shows more intelligence than any thing else you have to say.I can read a post from SubwayGuy, Lance, VG8, Eric, or B35, for example and I know and understand what they're trying to convey. Same with Wallyhorse, LOL. I may not agree with their thoughts as posted but I know what they're saying. Some of the posts I'm speaking of come across as pure gibberish, as my grandmother might put it. All I'm asking is that we take our time and think about how our posts come across to others. Just my rant. Carry on.

I wonder if anyone on these boards has stock in Genting, a private company?  If I was a stockholder in said company and I wanted to bring business to my Aqueduct casino bus and van service from Manhattan, Brooklyn, and points east would be the way to go. How could any financial officer of the company justify spending money on a public enterprise(subway infrastructure) that would benefit non-casino goers more than any potential patronage I could possibly gain.? I don't believe there's any company around where the primary object isn't to maximize profit. A financial officer who signed off on such a plan would be removed from their position and sued by the stockholders. IF  this pie-in-the-sky scheme were ever enacted what would happen if this private company failed and had to be liquidated? Guess who would be left holding the bag ? The , meaning you, the straphanger. We're talking about a casino paying for this infrastructure improvement while nearby casinos in AC are closing their doors or restructuring their finances. It's my opinion that if any part of this plan comes to pass it would have to be done by NYC, NYS, or the or some combination of those entities with substanstial federal backing. Just my opinion. Carry on.

This goes back to my first question...what is a super express. If you want to be technical, the only TRUE super express is the after Mets games. Everything else you mentioned are just regular express runs.

Reminds me of my favorite super express, the NX,  short-lived but not forgotten.

I tell you, these guys have no clue.

That's what I've been complaining about in the bus random thoughts thread. Construction work on the Gowanus Expressway causing daily delays on the B14 and B15 buses which run in central or eastern Brooklyn. Nowhere near western Brooklyn and the Gowanus. The first time I saw it I gave MTA.info a pass but they've never corrected the service advisory. One would hope a supervisor would catch some of these errors. Heck, I've even asked some forum members if I was overlooking a piece of the information that was causing me to mis-interpret the advisory. Subways, buses (Brooklyn), I wonder how accurate the other bus advisories as well as MNRR/LIRR information is? Carry on.

I have a question for my surface people, especially the older Queens folk. Mom and I were recalling the days(60s-70ish) when we would travel from Brooklyn to visit relatives in Queens. The trip(s) usually started in Bed-Stuy where we would catch the to B'way-ENY and transfer to the #15 Jamaica train, today's . Sometimes we would catch the LIRR at Nostrand Avenue to Union Hall St. Either way we would walk over to the bus terminal at 165th St for our bus. We can't remember if it was the Q4A or Q5A but we took it to Farmers Blvd and Murdock Avenue. The question is which bus was it back then and what bus would I take today if I wanted to make the same trip. I know this goes wayyyyy back in time but I'm old enough to remember when there were fish in Baisley Pond park, there was a New York Boulevard, not Guy Brewer, and Jamaica racetrack was still in operation, LOL. Thanks in advance. Carry on

Okay VG8 and anyone else who wants to tackle my question about the web page. At this very moment if I go to mta.info and click on bus service status for Brooklyn (B1-B84) I come up with a myriad of bus routes supposedly affected by construction on the Gowanus Expressway. The first time I asked about this information VG8 and I came to the conclusion that perhaps an intern in the PR department made a mistake.Perhaps we were wrong about that because the same info is back up at this time. Perhaps someone else has an idea about what's going on on the status page I referenced. As I pointed out the first time I asked many of these routes are not near, do not cross, and there is  nothing that obviously connects said routes to the expressway. Some of these routes are located in eastern Brooklyn. Perhaps there is some other connection with the B14, for example, that I'm missing? Perhaps a B/O or surface fan can clear this question up for me.Do B/Os work multiple routes across Brooklyn where this construction would cause delays on routes in eastern parts of the borough? Help me out folks. Carry on.

Well it's something that I've wrote numerous complaints to them about over the years.  They need to do a better job of listing the correct information.

Someone must have taken this little rant of mine to heart, VG8, because I just checked the Bus status page and all mentions of the Gowanus Expressway construction are gone. It just bothers an old crank like me that something like that can remain posted for so long without anyone inside the agency noticing how incorrect the information was. Maybe I should apply for the position on the PR staff. At least I know where the Gowanus is located. Carry on.

Correct... If there are delays somewhere in Brooklyn or Manhattan or whatever borough you want to use as an example, then on the status page it will say M1 - M116 "Delays". Once you click on the status update, it should show what the specific delays are and the specific routes affected by the delay.  Unfortunately, whoever posts the status updates is "out to lunch" at times, and they post the wrong information.  I've always said that there should be someone that double checks these updates because they're often a mess and almost seem to be posted by people who have no clue about the bus or subway system.

 

I blasted them for a huge blunder during the Metro-North derailment down in Spuyten Duyvil.  They were detouring buses but the detour information was terrible.  Henry Hudson Parkway runs through most of Riverdale and a small part of Spuyten Duyvil.  There is Henry Hudson Parkway East (service road, which runs southbound), and Henry Hudson Parkway West (service road, which runs northbound).  They had "Henry Hudson Parkway North" listed, which doesn't exist, and in addition to that, they gave a detour that wasn't possible, and so we had no idea where the express buses were running.  It turned out that the express buses were running down Henry Hudson Parkway West Southbound until Independence Avenue, then making a right on Independence Avenue, heading Northbound on Independence and going back up to West 239th, making a right on 239th to then going down the hill via Riverdale Avenue, as that was the only way they could go Southbound to get out of the area and not strand the folks down in Spuyten Duyvil.

I agree with you but c'mon the page has correct information interspersed with bus routes that run in Brownsville and East New York. I think that even Stevie Wonder can see that. It seems that the Gowanus construction is being used as a cover for almost every Brooklyn bus delay. I think that you, as a former S.I. express bus rider, BrooklynBus, and B35, can see the problem with the web page. Why can't someone at the see it and correct it, even if it's not their direct responsibility. I used to call the PR people down at 370 Jay to correct them on their subway delay mistakes when warranted. Heck, they even gave me an award for it. Maybe I'm too old school but I took pride in my job because I was taught that way. Obviously things have changed since then. I can see a 1 or 2 hour mistake but not a 1 or 2 week mistake. Carry on.

Maybe someone out here can help me out. Been looking at the website for the last week or so and under the bus section there are reports of delays because of construction on the Gowanus Expressway. If my memory is correct many, if not most, of these bus routes have nothing to do with the expressway. B14, B15, for example. What am I missing here ? Carry on.

It's funny--I was just looking at an old bus map:

 

There used to be a B40 that ran on Ralph av and turned on St. Johns Place  and continued along East NY Avenue then onto Liberty av.

 

It terminated on Pennsylvania av.

 

So there used to be a service along this route.

Years before the B40 went that way the B65/ Bergen St route used that same routing and continued all the way to City Line where the B12 used to terminate before the recent cuts in service. One would think that that there is more potential ridership today than there was back then due to population growth but I'm not a planner so I'll leave that to the "experts" at the . Carry on.

I'm going in a completely direction so please bear with me. There was/is an old saying in RTO that oldtimers can remember, "when the trains were made of wood and the men were made of iron" IDK if that saying is still around but after reading threads about R32's, and R142A/R188 equipment and fans or AC problems, propulsion miscues and the like I really wonder if the "out with the old in, with the new" idea is bogus. It's a fact that I've ridden or operated many types of equipment that some have only seen in the museum fleet. Heck, I was a teenager when the R32 Brightliners hit the BMT. I remember when there were no air conditioned cars in the system. Men wore suits and ties and women wore dresses on the subways and els. There was no such thing as dressing casually on Fridays. My question to the fans of the newer equipment is were those oldtimers( riders and crews) made of sturdier stock than the present generation or what? When I went to M/M and primarily worked the line we sure didn't have A/C equipped cars in our fleet but I don't recall riders or crew crying about it. I do understand the heat problems the A/C equipped cars have brought with them. These cars exhaust heat into the system The older SMEE cars like the redbirds had windows that opened to some degree which the NTT lack. I find it funny to see cars transferred from fleet to fleet because of A/C problems today when those same lines ran okay with no air conditioned cars at all. As for the NTT equipment it's my personal belief that the more electrical components in this equipment means that that they will always be more prone to breakdowns compared to the older, simpler equipment. The newer trains may be more comfortable to ride and operate but each component failure affects the overall reliability in the long run. Someone mentioned the bucking problems in the R142A equipment and that person took the time to explain why the problem exists. Funny thing is that same bucking problem existed on the R62's from Kawasaki way back then. I'm thinking that the R62's will do better than the R142A's as far as reliabilty in due time. Just my opinion. Carry on.

Now that I think about it, How is this possible? when the R142A were first delivered, After some of there motors were taken out because it was running to fast and they tested on the flushing line and it failed because it couldn't make it up the Steinway tube. why would they end removing a WHOLE motored truck from one of the 5 car sets? From ive heard they put most of the motors back but with limiting speed controls for the R188.

Where are you getting this information from ? Do you have a link or source(s) ? I've never heard about this history of the R142A equipment before.

I went back and re-read the chapter on the Burke Avenue-Concourse extension in "The routes not Taken" and I read the Subchat conversations. When I originally read the book I was more focused on the politics and betrayal of the politicians so the Dyre shuttle part I glossed over. I made one phone call to a very knowlegeable person about NYCTA and the Bronx subways. I told him what I'd read in the book, what my fellow posters have written in this thread, and what I was taught by him and his peers.I told him that I was confused about the whole IND-TWU confrontation mentioned elsewhere. Obviously we were taught about the Main St BMT supervision setup in schoolcar with IRT crews piloting the equipment. When I brought up the Dyre Avenue-IND scenario he said to "think it through" using the date(s) given. May 15th, 1940. As Eric B pointed out on that date the city (IND) began operating the shuttle. The IRT was not a party to the transaction at all as they were soon to be taken over anyway. The city could provide the supervision for the line but the line used Ninth Avenue el cars (IRT), and the cars were maintained by the IRT because the IND didn't have the expertise nor experience. How many IND crews were qualified on Manhattan el cars ? As my rabbi pointed out, that's why there was a separate IND,  IRT, and a BMT,  and a "combined" seniority roster that existed until the late sixties. The only people qualified to operate that equipment initially were former Second, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Avenue train crews. Sorry for derailing the thread folks but thanks to you folks I made one phone call and that nagging feeling is gone. The same way I've always considered the line an IRT line, even with it's B-Division supervision, is the same way I've always considered the Dyre Line as IRT. Carry on.

It was staffed by IND crews, and even chained like the IND (Line “Y”, and the tracks as Y1-###, rather than ###1-Y like the rest of the IRT).

 

Back then, it was still set up according to the old companies IRT, BMT, IND, instead of the current subdivisions A and B, and the “districts” or “sections” within them (south, north, etc) and that line was given to the IND, until it was through routed with the IRT mainline.

 

I think they made it IND, because that was the original city system, and they wanted all new expansion to fall into it, but when the existing infrastructure the new line connected to demands it, it becomes the other system.

Thanks for the correction, Eric B. IND crews and supervision but IRT equipment. Sounds like Main St to me.

As part of "The Routes Not Taken", the story of the Dyre Av Line is particularly interesting, since its purchase directly resulted in the canceling of construction of another route, the Burke Av Line. The Burke Av Line would've proceeded past the end of the Concourse Line at Norwood-205th and proceeded east under Burke until hitting the Dyre Av Line, before turning north and following the ROW. However, this never happened because the predecessor railroad to the Dyre failed, and it was deemed more important to rescue it than to build Burke Av.

I've recommended the book since it came out (have it on my NOOK) because of it's stories. I'm welll aware of the Dyre line and it's history. I actually worked it for a quarter century and my mother and my uncle used to ride the railroad itself to New Rochelle. As you point out the nearest IND location was way cross town in Norwood so I can't see the Dyre shuttle line being run by the IND. The size of the rolling stock originally used was IND-BMT sized AFAIK so the p[latforms were shaved back when the line was connected to the rest of the IRT and the new cars were regular IRT types. Living in Brownsville in the late 50's-early 60's I remember the that ran from Dyre to New Lots while the Lex was running Lo-V equipment.

Are all new extensions of lines now considered to be part of the division the line is branching off of. The Dyre Av Line was originally part of the IND and crews switched at 180 St and the Rockaways used to be the 4th division, with crews switching at Euclid Av.

I've never seen or heard of the Dyre line being part of the IND at any point in time. It's true that the City of New York purchased the remnants of  the railroad that formerly ran the line but the operation started up in 1940 or so. By that time the "private" BMT and IRT companies were under the city's control but the BMT and IRT were still separate entities for the most part. The Dyre shuttle service and the operation was an IRT job. If you think about it there were no IND facilities located anywhere near the Dyre line. You are correct about crew changes being made at East 180th St, a practice that continued until the mid-'80s. I'd really like to see a source about the Dyre line and the IND because I've never heard it mentioned. I also remember crew changes at Euclid Avenue on the IND but I've never heard the Rockaways called the 4th division, either. I used to ride to the Rockaways when it was a two fare zone and the last station on the Far Rock line was Wavecrest. Mott Avenue opened a year or two later. Carry on.

No, the signs weren't on that, they were set for the WTC and others. I changed it to 2nd Av and 168th for this weekend's GO.

You do realize that you could be charged by the (nasty) police even if you were trying to correct improper signage ? Sometimes it's best to leave that job to someone who gets paid to do it. I was on a n/b train years ago when a rider was accosted by the police for changing a rollsign from a back to a after some kids messed with it. The kids got off at Utica and left the scene. I was in the car, in uniform, and talked to the police from Kingston-Throop to Lafayette Avenue before they cut her some slack. Be careful. Some officers aren't going to listen to what you have to say even if you have witnesses. Carry on.

Although I will not be attending the Wood, i'll just say this as someone who follows horse racing: you can't comment on the impact the Wood has on the state unless you're a horse racing expert. You really have no idea what it means unless you're a diehard and I suggest not commenting unless you're as such and merely ignore Wally.

I certainly don't consider myself among the "improvers of the breed" but I'm well aware of the Wood Memorial and it's history. I've followed racing, including harness, on and off, for over 40 years. I've also been a New York taxpayer for over 50 years so I think my personal opinion should count for something. My comment was concerning the dump in South Ozone Park and transit. I have visited Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Jamaica racetrack since the '50s but I don't consider myself a diehard or a historian. I do know when I see waste, however, and Aqueduct (not the Wood Memorial) is a waste, IMO, That's why there has been talk about making Belmont Park the sole downstate racecourse. BTW my visits to Jamaica were as a lucky charm for my uncles and not as a bettor. I may have a Medicare card but I'm not that old.  Carry on.

Let's be totally honest here Wallyhorse. You don't want to be inconvenienced by any G.O. that concerns Aqueduct racetrack or the casino. Newsflash....... the State of New York, the , NYCT, and the LIRR don't give a rat's behind about the dump known as Aqueduct. The state has even proposed closing the track and moving the racing calendar to Belmont Park which is 100x better than the pit on Conduit. I'm wondering if you have some sort of financial attachment to the Big A or Genting. No one else defends Aqueduct like you do. Carry on.

It was on the local track though.

Back in the day the would make local stops if there was a delay in service hence the 9 car markers on the local tracks. They would try to avoid using a train for the local whenever possible because of the length of the line and the possibility of major delays at the terminals. On the east side Lex line the was the fill in for the service, especially when the trains were only going to Bowling Green.