Trainmaster5

5 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Listen I don’t need your sarcasm. Brooklyn Bridge is a complex with Chambers St and collectively known as Brooklyn Bridge-Chambers St. 

 Collectively known by whom ? Not in the real world. What BMT train stops at Brooklyn Bridge ? Back when I was a RR Porter I cleaned the Chambers St BMT station overnight. The work program was in a booth on the BMT side. My neighbor cleaned the IRT Brooklyn Bridge station that same night. 8 PM-4AM . His work program was in the booth at the south end of the IRT station. 

17 minutes ago, ab174 said:

Can a person be DQ for being on federal probation when starting phase 1 of paperwork? Then getting off early?

Try posting your questions in the Employment section.

2 hours ago, zacster said:

Does anybody know what work is being done on the Brighton Line this weekend that they shut the line down?  I know they are doing station work at Cortelyou Road but they don' t need to shut the whole 4 track line down to do station work on a side platform.   I walked home in the rain last night from the F because of it.

I thought it was track work being done on the line. There were shuttle buses running from Atlantic Avenue to the south. Carry on.

On 3/28/2023 at 6:55 AM, Lawrence St said:

It worked back then, why wouldn’t it be able to work now?

Because it never ran to Manhattan. It only ran down to Willis Avenue and ended at the waterfront next to the El, which did enter Manhattan. BTW are you suggesting replacing the Dyre line with a more expensive railroad line ? I don’t think that’s going to go over well with the current ridership. My take. Carry on.

47 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

I was thinking if it would be beneficial to eliminate  service between 180th St & Dyre Ave, and restore that section back to railroad specifications and incorporate it into the Metro-North Network. Specifically, the line would be rebuilt to Mount Vernon East as a new branch line, which would have a new Island platform. Then, it would follow the original routing of the NYWB down to 180th St, eventually connecting with the NEC down to Penn Station. 
 

The  would become a rush hour only route, running from Nereid Ave to Flatbush Ave, and 149th St-Flatbush Ave during middays.

I’m going to give you a quick heads up on this idea. The Dyre line is owned and operated by NYCT and connected only to the subway system at East 180th St station in the Bronx. There are no connections between the subway and the  operated MNCR. The section north of Dyre Avenue was severed over 80 years ago. The section south of East 180 St was abandoned before 1980 and sat unused until it was demolished and the land sold. You better rethink your plan. Carry on.

9 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Ah that kinda sucks. In an ideal world, I think it would be most optimal and would provide a lot clearer benefit than skip-stop.

In an ideal world, many years ago, the Jamaica line ran skip-stop service from 168th St to Eastern Parkway and then express to Manhattan during the rush hours. Carry on.

46 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Honestly, I feel like the  gets an unfair bad rep by NYers. The line serves a distinct and clear purpose, statically has good on-time performance, runs relatively frequently, and lacks merges with other lines (meaning less delays and more even trains). Also, it has had CBTC for the longest now, and was the first to get NTTs (the R143s are literally designed for the ). It's basically a B-division version of the  which everyone seems to like.

I seem to recall R142 cars in the A Division. I believe that they were NTT cars too. Thank you. Carry on.

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Nope. Someone asked them on twitter and they have no clue when it goes out or when it leaves.

You'd think they want as much publicity with "brand new generation cars" and would be a little more transparent like they were with the M9's.

“ Brand new generation “ ?  . Where I come from it’s R46, R62-R68 SMEE class and NTT class. I doubt that the folks who touted GC Madison would want any more publicity than they already have 😁. Carry on.

On 3/17/2023 at 2:27 PM, Trainmaster5 said:

On paper it probably would. Of course if you were to look at the previous four or five trains I doubt that KO could handle that many arrivals in a row. You have a point of course but I’ve seen the backups eastbound from the station on an almost daily basis. My home station is Brentwood these days. Carry on.

I should point out that I’m looking at this from a subway perspective. Layups, turned trains and what have you. Friday evening I was caught in traffic by the eastbound trains , 2, and 1 westbound train at the Brentwood station for about 10 minutes. The Brentwood dropout and its follower who creeped into the station. Later on I checked the schedule and noticed that the Greenport Scoot was part of the mix at Ronkonkoma during the period that the poster I responded to mentioned.as well as the westbound train I saw. My guess is that the additional trains from GCM added to more congestion at the terminal. This is purely speculation on my part. Carry on.

1 hour ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Ronkonkoma.

You have the 5:04pm out of Penn getting there at 6:20pm. Then the 5:25pm out of Penn only goes to Brentwood, and then the 5:39pm out of Grand Central gets to Ronkonkoma at 6:57pm, hence the 37 minute gap. If they extended the 5:25pm from Brentwood to Ronkonkoma, that would fill the gap.

On paper it probably would. Of course if you were to look at the previous four or five trains I doubt that KO could handle that many arrivals in a row. You have a point of course but I’ve seen the backups eastbound from the station on an almost daily basis. My home station is Brentwood these days. Carry on.

2 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

I mean that is the definition of a reverse commuter...a traditional commuter goes from the suburbs to Manhattan in the morning, and from Manhattan to the suburbs in the afternoon.

That being said, I think we agree that all classes of commuter should receive decent service. That includes peak, reverse-peak, off-peak, intra-island, and intra-NYC. I get that with limited infrastructure and limited resources, you can't serve everybody to the precise extent that they necessarily should (e.g. single-track areas), but no one group should be completely shafted.

That being said, while somewhat better, Metro-North still has issues with random stopping patterns making intra-suburban trips difficult. (There is definitely a need for express service, but it should be consistent, similar to the Babylon Branch local/express split at Wantagh, where intra-island riders can transfer). 

It depends on which part of their shift they arrive late in. If it's at the end of their shift (and there's no "boost" built in to get them to the minimum 8 hours) then yes, they will get overtime, but if it's in the middle of their shift, they'll just have a shorter break before their next trip.

Most of the people go to Manhattan because the service patterns are oriented around getting people to Manhattan. You don't estimate the need for a bridge based on the amount of people swimming across the river.

I mean look at the Ronkonkoma Branch schedule. Mineola is one of the largest (if not the largest) job centers on the island, and there's a whole bunch of trains in a row that bypass Mineola and don't even stop at Hicksville for a cross-platform transfer. (After the 5:06am from Ronkonkoma, the next train that stops at Hicksville is the 6:29am, and the next train that actually stops at Mineola is the 6:50am). We have trains that kick people out at Jamaica and deadhead to Hunterspoint Avenue/LIC for a peak direction trip, rather than letting the passengers ride. We have a 37 minute gap to the busiest station in Suffolk County in the middle of the PM rush hour, which affects both intra-island riders and those coming from NYC.

And when most Manhattan workers are working remote/hybrid schedules, and ridership is still way below pre-COVID levels, we can all scratch our heads and wonder why that is.

Where, exactly, is the busiest railroad station in Suffolk County ? I’ve been traveling out there since 1981 and in my experience Babylon and Ronkonkoma have always been the top priority. Mineola and the surrounding area do have many different workplaces in Nassau but so does the strip in Melville in Suffolk along Broadhollow Road from Huntington southward towards Sunrise Highway. Is there actually that large a gap eastward towards the terminals on either the Babylon or KO branch ? Just curious. Carry on.

6 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

 

 

Also this is a bit of a weird tangent, but how did the 6-track set up work at Atlantic Avenue? Ik one platform (2 tracks) was for the Fulton St El which is now torn down, and one platform is for Canarsie now  trains, but what was the other platform for?

The layout was as follows 

An island platform on the southbound side with the Canarsie line on the outside and the Fulton local on the inside.

An island platform with tracks for the north and south Fulton express service which joined together where they would cross over the Canarsie line tracks south of the station.

An island platform with the northbound Canarsie line on the inside and the Fulton local on the other side.

North of the station was trackage and switches leading to the Fulton, Canarsie, Broadway-Brooklyn lines and East New York Yard.
Hope this helps. I’m old enough to remember when all those tracks were in use. Carry on.

3 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Huh that's interesting. It's particularly the section between Euclid Avenue and Howard Beach JFK where I'm confused cause it literally lacks express tracks and that's like 10 stations it's skipping. Also  headways during rush-hour are pretty frequent so I'd imagine it'd be hard to not just get stuck between 2 s.

Actually it's about 5 stops and Euclid Avenue gives the  the option to get ahead of the regular  service. The train to the Plane was more about exclusiveness compared to the regular  . Even those of us who were employees, even on duty, had to pay the fare to ride that train. Transit PD enforced that rule. i always remember a basic rule from RTO school car. the only difference between an express and a local train in RTO is that the express makes less stops. I've never forgotten that maxim. Carry on.

On 3/4/2023 at 5:35 PM, B35 via Church said:

Oh, and ole girl has a Go Fund Me also..... $19,000 strong before she decided to close it for further donations

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-send-zackery-off

Yes, help "send Zackery off"

Wonder how that "Obvious" lawsuit will end up panning out.....

Damn, the subway system has operated for almost 120 years with all types of equipment. Some dumb ass does something stupid and someone's supposed to feel sorry for him and mom ? I've been around for a long time but I don't recall someone doing something this stupid with people seemingly defending this type of action. Must be a generational thing I guess. My opinion. Carry on.

3 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Serious question; how did the JFK express even operate; it seems to skip an impossible number of stops on the Fulton Line as the  still ran as a normal express. Wouldn't it have issues with bunching up behind an ?

When I recall the  I'm sure that it ran ahead of the  service along the Fulton St corridor from Hoyt- Schermerhorn. I don't recall any complaints about delays. Just my memories. Carry on.

45 minutes ago, Lex said:

That's not right. You have to go up in order to reach the shuttle at all from the IRT, only heading down any stairs if you're trying to reach Brighton. Perhaps things are a little different in relation to the line further east, but that doesn't change anything.

As for flattening the IRT ROW, I'm not seeing how the topography is an issue that would severely complicate construction. Eastern Parkway itself doesn't have a significant grade shift between the northern and southern sides, unlike everything past it on either side.

You’re right about going up for the shuttle as the subway came along after the shuttle. The point was trying to convey is the difference between the grades on the underside of the Parkway itself..From Franklin to the east there’s a noticeable rise as you get to Bedford Avenue which starts to drop down from Rogers Avenue as you approach Nostrand Avenue. The significant difference we were taught in school was the Franklin-Bedford-Rogers-Nostrand stretch under the Parkway itself. That’s what our geology/ Earth Science was focused on. I’ve walked the stretch underground from Franklin Avenue to Nostrand, especially the southern side as a miscellaneous work train operator installing signal cables from the old tower at the junction to the present location at the Utica Avenue station. My  road job during cold weather plans was the Nostrand 1  layup located on the n/b express track adjacent to the Nostrand Avenue  station where the Flatbush line joins Eastern Parkway. Right at the switch. What I’m trying to convey is that underground it’s a completely different thing that even though we once had rail fan windows most people had no idea what they were passing through. Signal Maintainers quarters, storage rooms, staircases between the n/b and s/b trackage and the like. That’s why I think the time and expense of construction will be a hindrance to any project in that area. I’m not saying that it can’t be done but there will probably be some fierce opposition. My take. Carry on

1 hour ago, engineerboy6561 said:

So basically Eastern Parkway is a big enough thoroughfare for traffic going across Brooklyn in that area that trying to rip it up and rebuild the subway underneath it would provoke World War III with everyone who drives on Eastern (which sounds like a fair number of people, given that both Empire Blvd and Atlantic Ave are already full, and Empire Blvd just dumps out onto Flatbush Av at Prospect Park); just out of curiosity, what's the geological issue with the Parkway? I know that farther south in Brooklyn the soil gets sufficiently difficult to tunnel through that planned lines along Nostrand and Utica would need to surface somewhere around Avenue S or so.

Excuse me if I'm forgetful with the name (s) of the rock underpinning the south side of the Parkway ( Junior High  was over 60 years ago ) but the sediment that remained was due to the fusion of the remnants of the Ice Age we were taught. If you know the topography of the area the line rises from the southern end (Empire Blvd) up to the Parkway and then it recedes as you head farther north toward Atlantic Avenue. That's why the Franklin Shuttle runs below the IRT and Eastern Parkway. It's why Mount Prospect stands out behind the Museum and into the Botanical Gardens. Head eastward along the Parkway past Utica toward Lincoln Terrace Park where the Livonia Avenue line rises to become an El and you can get an idea of the below ground situation. As an aside to the poster who asked about the IRT and Pitkin Avenue due east along that avenue were 2 major obstacles, namely the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch and the BMT Fulton Street El. Note in my first post I mentioned the " original " Eastern Parkway on the eastern end. Thats because it ended at the slope to Pitkin. Everything past that point to Bushwick Avenue is/was Eastern Parkway Extension.  I went to grade school in the area in those ancient days and our teachers stressed certain things. Even my old school instructors in school car stressed certain points like that and the fact that DeKalb Avenue station in downtown Brooklyn is NOT  located on Flatbush Avenue and neither was the abandoned Myrtle Avenue station. The street from the Manhattan Bridge to Fulton St is Flatbush Avenue Extension. I know I went off topic there but I was trying to point out how much we were taught back then. The big piece of the puzzle IMO is $$$ and politics. Carry on.

3 hours ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Honestly I'd agree that it would be better to just rebuild Rogers as part of a flattening of Eastern Parkway west of Utica Av. I'm tempted to suggest that we leave Utica Av as a two-level station, add tail tracks to the lower level, set the lower level up with tail tracks, and add an additional interlocking to allow trains to either terminate on the lower level island platform or switch to and from the local tracks just west of the station. I personally would have Utica Av run off a rebuilt Jamaica trunk; the downside is that making that work would likely require six tracks between Essex St and Myrtle Av to handle combined loading (15tph to Metropolitan Av, 30 express tph to Jamaica and beyond, 15 local tph to Jamaica, 15 or 30 tph to Utica Av. The original Second System proposal had a crosstown line running along Worth St that would have taken 8 Av local trains and brought them over to join the South 4th St trunk; if you brought that back you could in theory send the down Utica Av to Kings Plaza. The downside is that the only way to do that is to rebuild Jamaica, and then build a Worth St line.

You and Lex are both missing the bigger issue, IMO. Eastern Parkway is the major east-west thoroughfare in that part of Brooklyn. The section from Grand Army Plaza to the original end at Pitkin Avenue wasn’t built with a subway line in mind. Think Prospect Park and Ocean Parkway and you’ll understand where I’m coming from. Those of us who were raised and educated in the area were also taught about the geology of the Parkway, especially the area where the subway was constructed. I foresee open warfare between the reconstruction plans and the residents and the drivers who travel along the Parkway. The only other east-west routes are Empire Boulevard to the south and Atlantic Avenue to the north which is always congested with commercial traffic. I’m not forgetting about the bus traffic on the B44, B48, and B49 which also run across the Parkway. I’d love to see how things unfold between the competing sides. Carry on.

2 minutes ago, Missabassie said:

And all of this can be yours for the low low price of 30 Billion dollars & thirty years of construction.

Now you understand why some old time RTO posters left the forums completely. They called some present day posters “ Little Lionels “because of the unrealistic proposals that were prevalent back then. I’ve learned to live with them or ignore them on a case by case level.

1 hour ago, 4 via Mosholu said:

The train used to only end at Bowling Green during much of the weekdays as the rush hour usually went to the Bush. The mainly uses Utica and there are select trains that run to/from Utica and Bowling Green, with the run to New Lots being a rush hour only run like select trains. That is similar to what the runs to 238 Street and Gun Hill Road are. Most of the train goes to the Bush out of Dyre (many of the trains out of 238 Street in the morning also go to the Bush).

I'm just beating around the bush with what I said earlier, but with most of the train usually ending at Utica and the mainly running to/from the Bush during the weekdays, it would just be spreading the train more thin than it needs to be. Sure, the can be everywhere and everything all at once (it even stepped in for the years ago because of weekend track replacement via Mosholu that sent much of the train crew via Bronx Park and Dyre due to it not running at all because of the aforementioned track replacement, and it even stepped in for the train during the weekend long Clark Street tube reconstruction, though both crews went to each other's branches during that time).

Your suggestion that the Bronx Park/Dyre express goes to Utica with every other train going to Bowling Green is brilliant. But there's just barely enough throughput for that to happen since the train mainly has the layup at Utica and the South Ferry loop track south of Bowling Green is not classified as a revenue track (there have been trains that would use the South Ferry loop track in revenue service, as well as possibly the train as well).

Because of the South Ferry loop track's classification as a storage track, the train would more than likely be backed up between Brooklyn Bridge and Bowling Green on weekdays, as it used to before the train's midday extension to the Bush that was initially done on a test basis.

Time out for a little history lesson. All trains can access Crown Heights-Utica and onward to New Lots. The  was the main line running from Utica Avenue on weekdays during the rush hours when I was a C/R and when I got promoted. Mid day  and  trains terminated at Atlantic Avenue at first. We laid up  trains between Utica and Franklin on the express tracks during those hours. In 1984 the southbound.destinations changed in Brooklyn with the  and  swapping terminals among other things. The  went to Atlantic at first and all  service looped at Bowling Green mid days. My first picked job as a M/M on the started at Utica Avenue. It used to be  and  trains through Utica Avenue and  and  trains to Flatbush. It used to frustrate my colleagues when I first started posting on the forums because we couldn’t get it through that the trains at the junction weren’t late because they were scheduled that way to line up n/b Lexington Avenue service. To some people a train that isn’t moving means that there’s a delay. The trick is to creep up to the junction but never stop. Riders only notice when the train makes a complete stop. When slotted correctly my  from Utica, New Lots or Bowling Green will ride my leaders tail to 125th Street. I’ve posted many times that the  from the Bridge would arrive at Grand Central with me when we both left the station at the same time. Supervision knew that we were both on schedule. Heck, my mentor, who wrote the  schedules , and another supervisor would ride with me n/b every day. It’s frustrating to lose some of my fellow posters but RTOMAN and Kamen Rider are still here to correct me and explain to you how RTO works. As someone who’s experienced wrote in another thread get a job in RTO, rise through the ranks and maybe you can get enough clout to make your own changes. Carry on.

9 minutes ago, N6 Limited said:

What if they installed CBTC? Do you know what the speed restriction is on that curve?

Definitely less than 10 mph IIRC 

9 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

I wasn’t sure what section you wanted me to elaborate, but I assume it was my last point.

The  should switch platforms at Prospect Park depending on the rush hour in effect. For example, during the AM rush it should end/begin on the northbound platform, and during the PM rush it should end/begin on the southbound platform.

And in my honest opinion, they need to decide what they want to do. Having the B48 parallel a subway line is a waste of money. Rebuild the shuttle - CORRECTLY, with two tracks the whole way, and four car platforms. On weekends, the  can be extended to Brighton Beach to provide additional service.

The reason for the shuttle not using the southbound local track is because of the “S” curve entering Prospect Park. The BMT 7 service and subsequent shuttle service used to creep into the station because of the risk of derailment. The B48 bus service has always paralleled the elevated shuttle tracks even when the Brighton Line was connected to the Fulton Street Elevated . The Franklin shuttle does NOT operate on Franklin Avenue but midway between Franklin and Classon Avenues. The Franklin name actually refers to the Franklin Avenue station on the BMT Fulton Street El. The section of the line that is called the shuttle was going to be demolished completely by the  and the remnant you have today was built because of political reasons . I can assure you that anyone with authority in the  would be fired or allowed to retire if he/she proposed either extending the platforms on the north end of the shuttle or extending a 4 car consist south of Prospect Park with the additional costs of equipment, and payroll for train crews and the dispatchers and tower operators. My take. Carry on.

4 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Franklin can barely fit a 3 car train.

Platform extensions won’t cost that much (except at Park Place). 
 

I do however also still think that the boarding platform at Prospect Park should change based on the rush hour.

Care to elaborate? I remember Brighton-Franklin service when it was downgraded to full time shuttle service. When I was in school car and asked about the shuttle operation my motor instructors asked me if I knew about the “S” curve entering the s/b local track at Prospect Park. Since it was my home station for many years I said “yes “and they said that I answered my own question. The only time they used that track was for special operations. There used to be a crew room, dispatchers office and an active tower at the south end of the northbound track when I lived in the neighborhood and when I worked as a Railroad Porter in the late sixties. Last time I looked the tower operation had moved to DeKalb as well as the main dispatcher. I personally think that after the shuttle reconstruction the  has washed it’s hands of the Franklin shuttle. Remember that they were forced into the rehabilitation by the politicians. I think the Brooklyn bus redesign proposal has the parallel B48 bus service running south of Prospect Park for a distance. They’re gonna use that as a service upgrade for shuttle riders. Watch for it. Just my thoughts. Carry on.

20 hours ago, Vulturious said:

Yes, the LIRR isn't the same as the subway and they don't run service as frequent as metro trains normally would. Except, that's exactly issue, your argument is a double-edged sword. You'd end up having to make sure  trains are FRA compliant. Actually scratch that, if I'm not mistaken the entire system at that point needs to be converted to be FRA compliant. There's also the issue of the voltage output the 3rd rails have as well between the LIRR and the subway. Let's also not forget how wide the subway cars are compared to LIRR cars, they're narrower. LIRR trains are too wide for the subway to be able to stop at, last I checked, they're 6 inches wider on both sides. That'll be one hell of a gap for passengers and a huge issue for both NYCT and LIRR.

I honestly couldn't care whether or not it's got high or low ridership from the extension, direct service would be provided to an already developed ROW. I doubt anyone would complain as it gives them quite the huge alternative and cheaper option accessing Manhattan. The only thing I can think of is making it so the extension is separate from the LIRR, meaning it'll operate on a separate level, either underground or elevated above. This makes it more difficult as people are already stubborn when it comes to making ELs even if it meant trains will run quieter, plus the MTA and underground aren't good combos. They'll inflate the price to an unreasonable scale the same way they did with the RBB.

I'm glad that someone pointed out the obvious problems with this " pie in the sky " dream of a plan. If you add Locust Manor, Laurelton, and Rosedale to this plan where, exactly, does this spur terminate ? It sure as hell can't run to or through Jamaica as you've correctly pointed out the FRA and equipment requirements. Damn sure can't run through/to Valley Stream for the same reason and Valley Stream is located in Nassau County and not Queens. The subway is the property of the City of New York and not the  .I can't believe how many folks are not aware of the distinction. I've noticed the same type of confusion with the old Rockaway Beach Branch. Even when the City took over the southern section of the line they allowed the section from Ozone Park station to be operated by the LIRR from the mainline to Ozone Park station. There's still evidence of the severed connection between the  and the LIRR at Liberty Junction and that remaining trackage was never connected for a reason. Legalities. Look no further than the  between East 180 St and Dyre and the cutoff north of the station. The next stop was in Westchester County. Just wanted to add some background to the conversation. Carry on.

8 hours ago, Andres1226 said:

Hello so I have applied for a few positions so far. Conductor, assistant conductor, signal maintainer trainee, coach cleaner. All my applications have been blank under pre-screening results. Has anyone else experienced this? What am I doing wrong? 

First thing you're doing wrong is not posting this question in the transit Employment subforum.