Trainmaster5

Quick Observations; So I'm riding the LIRR westbound this am and between Bethpage and Hicksville I noticed some buses parked at some facility. The buses were painted in NYCT colors, blue and white, so was this some repair facility ? As we approached the junction at Hicksville divide I thought I saw another blue and white bus, N73. I thought NICE painted their buses a different color. After a transfer at Jamaica to a Brooklyn train leaving the Nostrand Ave station I noticed major roadwork on Nostrand Ave around Fulton St which had traffic screwed up. What was that about? Thanks in advance. I remember the old folks telling me "you learn something new every day". Now I'm the old folk and still curious. Carry on.

I've always thought there was an old tower located up there. Looks similar to the old setup and 149th St-Grand Concourse on the lower level ( ,,( ), and both were constructed in the same era. Just a guess. Carry on.

I don't recall traveling that part of Brooklyn except by car on the Gowanus. The only time my crew traveled in that general direction was to go to Sunset Pool as teens, mid-60's era.

I look back at the Broadway of my childhood, teen years, and adulthood as different phases of Bed-Stuy, Ocean Hill, and Bushwick. The one constant thing throughout is the train in my memories. From Chauncey St to Flushing Ave from the mid-50's to the mid-60's Broadway had many commercial establishments that ranged from "cheap, bargain" places to the more expensive items. That included furniture and jewelry as well as clothing. Heck, there were even two movie theaters, Loew's Gates and the RKO Bushwick on that stretch. The closest comparison I'd make is Piitkin Avenue or parts of Jamaica Avenue back in that era. Broadway never had the Downtown Brooklyn aura but it wasn't a wasteland, either. I do recall the area of Broadway from Reid Avenue to Flushing/ Graham and Graham Avenue itself as being a big destination for shoppers. Unfortunately the big blackout of the 70's ended up destroying Broadway's commercial district, especially the eastern end around Chauncey, Halsey, Rockaway. That stretch of Broadway resembled a wasteland to me. IMO that's when the B22, today's Q24 route, lost most of it's usefullness. The B7, B20, B26, B52, B60, as well as the old B40 (Ralph) became routes that passed by, rather than a route where Broadway itself was a major destination. There was a reason the B46s had Broadway as a destination even back then. Broadway was a long commercial strip but the eastern end is pretty much history. Carry on.

I can say without a doubt that B20 or B83 riders have little or no desire to transfer to either the B26, B38, or B52 routes, especially toward Downtown Brooklyn. The B25 bus or the , , lines are the only routes 99% of the people coming from the Spring Creek area use to reach Downtown Brooklyn if they choose to bypass the IRT at Livonia Avenue.. For the infrequent riders looking to head toward the Ridgewood area that's what the B20 is there for. I lived in the Spring Creek/ENY area for 30 years and anyone who was heading on Broadway toward the Patchen/Lafayette area would take the train unless the B22/Q24 was waiting at the B'way Jct stop and those instances were very few in my experience. If the Q24(B22) runs toward Patchen/ Lafayette at all it's probably only to offer redundancy for the train. Since I was a child, way back in the 1950's, I've always looked at the B22/Q24 bus routes under Broadway and the one on Jamaica Ave Q56/B56 as backups for the line to Queens.via Broadway/Brooklyn and Jamaica and Atlantic Avenues. IDK that a few years ago there were short turn Q24s that didn't even travel on Broadway because the ridership wasn't enough to justify it. Perhaps our resident route planner should leave the B7, B20, B83 and East New York and Brownsville alone. Carry on.

I was hoping you let it play out for another 12 hours or so. It always amazes me how some people bite on any type of "inside" info. Well played.

Depends on where the problem was located. The post said there was no service between Nereid and 241 St. If that was the case Nereid Ave would be the terminal and trains would relay on the yard leads. If there was no service at Nereid Avenue itself the northern terminal would have been posted as Gun Hill Road by the with no service north of that point. Carry on.

To make it as simple as I can a railroad uses 5:59+ as a measure of lateness whereas a subway is considered late if it's 5:00 late. A MNRR or LIRR train running on the Harlem ,Hudson, Mainline, or Babylon Branch also isn't interlining with other trains to the same extent as a , , , trains do. It's my opinion that the amount of interlining in the subway system, coupled with the sheer amount of subway train intervals compared to the railroads, has a lot to do with the OTP of the subways and railroads. Even comparing MNRR with LIRR is misleading because the LIRR's main destination, Penn Station, is Amtrak trackage and controlled by Amtrak, not LIRR. No matter how one looks at it it's not an apples to oranges comparison by any means. I've never used MNRR during peak hours but I have used the LIRR during peak hours and I've been impressed with the LIRR's performance considering the bottleneck at Jamaica. I'm not sure if MNRR has the same problems as the LIRR does or the BMT does at DeKalb Ave. The more choke points you have on a railroad or subway the greater the potential for lateness and MNRR doesn't appear to suffer as much.

So says the man who has never "seen the man" or had to provide a written report pertaining to lateness. BTW I can attest that a subway crew will be questioned enroute, by radio, if a train is operating over 2 minutes late as per schedule. There are standards for railroads and subways just not the same exact ones. We all have to answer for late trains.

That's the truth, RTOman. I don't know what they teach in schoolcar these days, maybe some of the current classes can tell me. I do know that back in the day we were specifically warned not to work OT, especially while on probation. The specific wording was on the order of " you'd be a dumb a** to blow your job and pension" on a day you had no reason to be on the property. With the way I've heard Labor Relations works these days I'd stay as far away from the job as I could. Back then they weren't as cutthroat as they appear to be today as far as discipline is concerned so I doubt the risk is worth the short term monetary reward. Just my opinion. Carry on.

Just an observation about the government sequester and it's relationship with airport delays in the NYC area. I had to make a quick two day trip to NC on Monday. I arrived at LGA for my flight on US Air. Flight scheduled for 11:30 am. We pulled away from the gate exactly on time. So far so good, right ? Let me point out that I've flown this exact flight at least 20 times in the past. I've been aboard this flight when the wings had to be de-iced at the gate before it pulled out.. Monday, because of the air traffic controller furloughs, we were delayed on the take-off line for 58 minutes before actually taking off. When we finally arrived in Charlotte where I had to make a connection an active duty soldier and I made a 12 minute run and just made our connecting flight to Fayetteville. We laughed and thought we lucked out. Wrong. When the baggage carousel came on in Fayetteville we found that our baggage didn't make our connection on time so we had to wait almost two hours before our bags finally arrived on the next flight from Charlotte. Wednesday, on my trip back north, I was ready for anything. Good thing I was. My flight from Fayetteville to Charlotte took off 25 minutes late which cut into my 1:47 layover time in Charlotte. We started boarding the flight to LGA and some people were on board when an announcement was made to stop boarding all flights destined for NYC area, Charlotte to LGA, JFK, and EWR(Newark), because of control tower staffing issues in the metro NY area. The flight, scheduled for a 6:49 departure, resumed boarding at 7:15. We pulled away from the gate at 7:35 and taxied toward the runway. Before we got on the take-off line the pilot announced that NY ATC (air traffic control) wanted all flights to remain on the ground further notice so we waited on a plane, on the ground, until we finally took off at 8:32 for LGA. Mind you this flight was scheduled to arrive at LGA at 8:38 but at least we were finally in the air. It wasn't the end though. 60 miles south of LGA the pilot announced that NY ATC wanted us to fly in a holding pattern for a while. We flew in a wide circle over the Pennsylvania/South Jersey area for another 45 minutes before we proceeded to LGA and landed. The airport usually isn't that crowded that late on a Wednesday night but it was packed inside and out. Most of the airline slots were as full as if it was a Monday morning "rush". The terminals were packed inside as well with passengers waiting for connections and out-going flights from LGA. There were long lines outside with people waiting for buses, taxis, rental car shuttles, and cars waiting to pick up arriving travelers. I saw 2 crush loaded M60s. When you think about it many of those non-travelers may have driven to the airport from Long Island, Brooklyn or Queens, the Bronx or Westchester to pick up people and had to wait as long as we travelers did. It wouldn't make sense for them to go home and come back later with the constantly changing flight times. To sum up. Only in New York.

Looking at the most simplistic scenario... loop station=1(actually1/2) train... new station=2 trains which doesn't take dwell time into account in either case. I also don't believe the same "driver" is walking back to the other end of the train during peak hours but I could be mistaken. From a personal perspective, working the line infrequently early in my career, the new station would have been a god-send. Nothing worse than operating a crappy from 137th St or 242nd St and having to operate from the same end around the ferry loop and back north. I'd rather change ends at the south terminal and take my chances. Carry on.

It's funny you bring up the USPS "Express Mail" vs "Priority Mail" problem. If I'm in Brooklyn or on Lomg Island and I want to send a package to my home in NC I must stop and think if it's worth it. My family has a P.O. Box in NC. If I'm traveling down there and have something I may need ASAP when I arrive I have a choice. If possible I can pack it in my luggage if I fly or I can mail it if I can't pack the item(s). Express Mail is guaranteed for 2nd day delivery to that town. I have tested the system and mailed one package Express Mail and the other by Priority Mail. Same size packages from the same post office in New York at the same time. Guess what ? Both packages arrive at my NC post office at the same time on the same truck driven by a neighbor of mine who works for USPS.. Using the post office tracking system I can see that they leave the NY sorting facility at the same time and arrive at the facility down there at the same time. The difference is that the Express Mail is "guaranteed", except for weather or an act of God. I've also had my Express Mail payment refunded when they've missed their delivery time. I order many things from Newegg and Amazon and I've noticed that USPS is better at delivering iin NC than UPS is in NY. If I have a choice in the matter I'd go USPS, FedEx, UPS wherever I'm at.

Maybe the first train was running so late that there were a few trains bunched up behind it. In a case like this the procedure was to skip the first train from 103-137-168-Dyckman and then see how much time the train made up. If necessary the train might continue making limited stops to the terminal so there wouldn't be a gap in scheduled southbound service from 242nd St. There's a greater need for s/b service at that time of the day. This is all speculation of course but this event falls under what we used to call "dispatching 101". It inconveniences the lesser amount of people in the long run. Carry on.

Gotta agree with you there RTOMan. There were many times I'd report in at Dyre or NLY after 1 pm and there would still be students from the am tour waiting for someone to take them. I agree that there are/were too many issues between schoolcar and RTO that negatively impacted the students through no fault of the students. You would think that it would be in everyones interest to have the best training for student T/Os and C/Rs. Instead it seems to have broken down into a numbers game between different parts of RTO, schoolcar and the road, with "so-called" on-time performance trumping the proper training necessary for optimal employee performance. It's one of the reasons there seem to be so many re-assignments of supervisors. I'm of the opinion that good training of students leads to better line performance so the two, schoolcar and line performance, go hand in hand in the long run. Unfortunately it seems the road supervisors use Labor Relations to cover their own behinds leaving the road employees to bear the brunt of everyone else's incompetence. Carry on.

@mediccjh and others in his position. I'm not sure what the procedure for taking students is at present but I'll throw in some history if you don't mind. When I came out we students were assigned to a job. The M/M or C/R on that job was usually glad to have a student and we had no problems unless the trainer was a probationary employee himself. In that case the T/D would make the call if the probie was nervous. Yard or road posting it was the same procedure. Some M/M, T/Os, and C/Rs would put in a G2 stating they would take students or not. I never put in a G2 but there were instructors in schoolcar who, in conjunction with the Crew Office, would always assign students to me. For about a 7 year period every student T/O in the IRT came through me on the in the pms. I never turned a student down nor did my C/R and I never complained. Since I never made more that a trip and a half, and usually worked one trippers,the students never complained either. Toward the end of that period I mentioned earlier things started to change in the field. During the pm rush the deputy supt. for the used to sit in the tower at Mott Ave-149th St. Every time I had a student he would get on the radio with me and say that I was running 2 minutes late by him and for me to take over the operation for the rest of the trip. He once sent a TSS down to me and the T/D tagged along to give me some mail. When the TSS relayed the message from the supt I turned to the T/D present and asked him how long did they give me to go from Dyre to Mott when I broke him, the T/D in. He replied ,27 minutes, and now, with the trains slowed down, the schedule gave me 25 minutes. The whole conversation was heard over the radio by control center and my supt. and I was left alone for a while. The student reported the incident to schoolcar and the next day I got a call from the supt of schoolcar, who had a retirement dinner a few weeks ago, and they covered me. I actually had a student overrun the gap fillers at Union Square a while later and school car backed me on that one too. My argument was that if I was to teach route familiarization to a student he or she had to know things like fast stations, punch boxes, gap fillers and interlocking locations. In other words the student had to operate. My deputy didn't want the students to operate in Manhattan during the rush, period. It appears to me from reading some of your posts and those of the others in your position that some of these people who turn you guys down are afraid for some reason. If that is truly the case then tell those trainers who do take you thank you. Reaaly, "cause in my opinion there is nothing worse than to be trained by someone so fearful who lacks the confidence to do his/her job properly. I've trained T/Os who are present day T/Ds, TSSs and Superintendents and I'm proud of it. To you and the other students out there, hang in there and keep in contact with schoolcar if you're having problems. There are still some people out there who haven't forgotten where they came from. Sorry for the long post. Carry on.

Car inspector changing fittings on truck. Trapped. Cry for help ??? Sorry, it was too tempting to leave alone. Carry on.

Land whales. I know an old time EMS guy who used that term when we were shooting the breeze at New Lots Yard about 15 years ago. He used to park the ambulance by the playground over there while taking a break. I used to try to get him and his partner to come over to the TA but they had too much time in EMS. Some of the stories they used to tell us would have us in stitches. When we told them about the things we encountered in RTO with the riders they would shake their heads in amazement. Mediccjh, you've got the best of both worlds to look back on. Keep posting. You bring back good memories.

So I'm sitting here watching TV and reading the BBC and CNN homepages on the PC. Basketball is my favorite sport but I can't get into it tonight. That's because I'm reading about North Korea threatening the US with nuclear warfare. They have cancelled the truce they signed that "ended" the Korean War so technically they are at war with South Korea, the US, and the other UN countries that supported the South Korean government during the war. I was a child when the war was fought but I watch the Military and History channels almost every night. From what I've seen, read, and heard from the vets in my family, the North Koreans would have lost that war decisively if not for the intervention of the Chinese Army and the Soviet pilots who flew aircraft in North Korean airspace. With China and Russia supporting the latest UN sanctions against North Korea does anyone think their leadership is delusional enough to declare war on us? Remember, the US still has troops stationed in South Korea acting as a "tripwire" in case Kim Jung Fruitcake does the "unthinkable" and crosses the 38th parallel. Where do you think this latest move from North Korea is headed? Carry on.

There are four trains to New Lots every weekday night around this time as per schedule.

I honestly don't know the answer. We've got to find a seasoned IND person to find out the 411. I'm an old time IND rider but I'm clueless on this one.

Can someone explain to me the fascination with Linden Blvd and bus routes in Brooklyn? I lived on or near Linden Blvd in Flatbush and East New York and I've personally never seen the need for such a route. In Flatbush the B35 and B12 bracket the street until Albany Ave where the B35 takes over. On the ENY end the B15 and B20 provide the coverage going east toward the Conduit. IIRC the B20 used to run on Linden Blvd from Pennsylvania Ave out toward the Conduit/Lindenwood area. I believe it was moved south of Linden Blvd to provide coverage for the housing developments located east of Pennsylvania Ave instead of running on the perimeter of those houses. Perhaps B35 or Brooklyn Bus can help me out here. Before the postal facility and the multiplex were built the only trip generator out there was the housing developments and Times Square Stores which was located on the site of the present multiplex. As far as I can see most of the people out there use the B13, B14, B15, and B20 to reach the IRT or IND stations for the most part. Throw in the fact that Linden Blvd (RT 27) is the major east- west truck route in the southern part of Brooklyn and it can become very congested at times. Why propose a bus route that would use this street for a large part of it's route? I really don't recall too many people making that east-west trip on a regular basis to justify such a route, especially since there's now an option to connect to the B6 to make the same trip. Just curious. Carry on.

Sat down with a childhood friend and found ourselves talking about "the good old days", especially subways and buses. He reminded me that we never built our model of the BMT Atlantic Avenue-Fulton Street-Broadway Junction complex which we thought was the greatest piece of transit design in the world at the time. I told him that through the years I'd discovered a few other gems in the system that have intrigued me with their complexity even to this day. Some he and I have used, some are only remnants, and some we've only seen in historical photos. In no order we have The aforementioned complex Myrtle-Broadway The original Queensboro Bridge station DeKalb Ave complex Ninth Avenue complex The original Chambers St BMT complex and the one we both agree(and never saw) as the greatest transit feat in NYC..... the Sands St BMT complex to Park Row and the ferry. BTW we're still trying to figure out the location of the Franklin Avenue station of the BMT Fulton El and it's connection to the Brighton line. From all we've read it's not the present day shuttle station. The reports of the Malbone Street wreck make that clear. One thing became clear to us. The BRT/BMT designers were visionaries. What do you folks think of our list? Carry on.