Trainmaster5

Should have seen the line back then. Variety in a nine car consist every day.

I have a completely different perspective on this topic. My experience as a rider and as an employee are different than 98% of my fellow posters and the riding public.. Been riding the system alone since 1959 and have seen many changes since then. Was first employed by NYCTA as a RR Porter provisionally 9 years later thanks to some family contacts. I have cleaned stations as varied as Church Avenue on the Nostrand line, Gun Hill upper and lower on the WPR line, Chambers Street Nassau Loop, and the Myrtle Avenue El from Bridge-Jay to Sumner Avenue ( for a whole week ) and Prospect Park on my home line the Brighton. I primarily worked from 8pm to 4am as an extra filling in for the highest seniority guys. No females back then. The Myrtle job was the number one job in the BMT and Prospect Park was the number three job in the BMT. They had three separate seniority lists back then. What I’m getting at is that each station was covered by RR Porters on two shifts daily. Bathrooms, turnstiles, platforms, token booths, stairways. Two shifts ,24/7/365 , and it was the rule and not the exception. Junkies, Gays, whatever. No problemo for us back then. Left the job and came back to Transit a decade later. The motor instructors who knew my history told me what was happening behind the scenes. Bathrooms were being closed for “safety “ reasons they told the public. Actually they were pruning the entire workforce. They kept Times Square, Grand Central, Broadway-East New York and some other big ones open but that was it. Same thing is happening with the RR Clerks, aka “Station Agents” today. The latest announcement is pure manure to someone from my generation. A few bottles of the disinfectant that was used in my day is/was guaranteed to have the homeless on the move. They would never set up camp in the stations or the bathrooms. Your eyes would water and burn. One motor instructor and a trainmaster told me that some advocacy group protested that the chemicals were dangerous and harmful to the public so they stopped using them and that fed into the reduction in porters in the system. I’m approaching my mid seventies now so I guess they can make this announcement and most folks won’t know the backstory. My take. I remember a meeting where someone said “ blind them with BS “ and the people will never know. I’m not too sure about that because a shiny new subway car in a station that smells like feces ain’t gonna fool everybody. Carry on.

I’m aware of equipment swaps at Flatbush Avenue but crew swaps? Must be something new. Carry on.

You seem to be suggesting that instead of the city buying and rebuilding the bridges over the bay they should have kicked the local residents to the curb. Are you saying that the residents of the peninsula would have been better served by taking the LIRR the roundabout way from Rockaway Park eastward to Far Rock and then through Cedarhurst and Valley Stream to Jamaica ? Do you not understand that the LIRR parent built the entire stretch across Broad Channel to avoid your idea and save time ? Does it make sense to you that taking the bus from Beach 116th westbound to Brooklyn to the Nostrand-Flatbush subway is faster than the train from that same LIRR station via Cedarhurst is faster heading towards Manhattan ? The reason why the impacted portion across the Bay was built by the LIRR and its parent Pennsylvania RR was because of the time savings compared to what you could get via Far Rockaway. One stop past today’s connection with the was the Ozone Park LIRR station. Trains leaving there could continue n/b towards Rego Park and the mainline or take the diversion to East New York, Nostrand Avenue and Flatbush Avenue at today’s Atlantic terminal. The bankruptcy of the Pennsylvania RR and it’s orphan LIRR is the primary reason for the connection and the formation of today’s . The elimination of stops in the city limits is a result of the and it’s LIRR and MNRR agenda. Leave the competition between the two railroads and the subway system by the wayside. This is public policy. Your proposals will never see the light of day. I think that Lex and many other members understand what I’m trying to say. My opinion. Feel free to disagree. No hard feelings on my part. I will say that I’ve never read a single post on the forum where someone would say screw another neighborhood. Carry on.

I agree with you 100% .I am going to be very careful about this. I’m old enough to remember when the City of New York purchased the RBB property from the bankrupt LIRR. The line was rebuilt across Jamaica Bay by the city and a more convenient connection was built at Liberty Junction with the line. The City did not abandon the residents of Rockaway peninsula nor the Hamilton Beach/ Cross Bay Area. The Rockaway residents gained a line with cheaper, more frequent service than anything the railroad could offer. There was no comparison between the new connection and the old line connecting to the LIRR at Rego Park. The City allowed the railroad to continue operating service between White Pot and the station at Ozone Park but the ridership numbers declined significantly. In my opinion the takeover of the RBB between the and the peninsula south of there was a success in every way possible. Meanwhile the northern section of the RBB couldn’t justify itself as a component of the railroad or part of the NYCTA. My opinion. Carry on.

Neither the LIRR nor the can retake anything concerning the present day subway service. It, like the NYCTA subway system, belongs to the City of New York. Just letting everyone know. Carry on.

You do realize that the LIRR was bankrupt and had no intention of running service on the line from Hammels Wye northward, period ? Or the riders from Rockaway Park could travel eastward via Far Rockaway and then northward to Jamaica station paying the LIRR fare ? Time wise and money wise only a total waste of both, IMO. Carry on.

Okay I’ll play along. You’ve mentioned Rego Park a few times. Did you know that the Rockaway Beach Branch from Rego Park to Rockaways was severed from the LIRR and the station demolished ? Where is your H line supposed to terminate ? It definitely can’t run via the LIRR. It can’t connect with the NYCT Queens Blvd line without undergoing extensive environmental studies and obtaining access to the funding if such a project were to be approved. What I’m trying to point out is that the rehab costs of this project along with the absence of any clamor from the local community would seem to rule out the need for the project. My opinion. Carry on.

With this Rockaway Line idea you seem like someone who’s never given a thought to the majority of the ridership who are headed for Brooklyn and Manhattan. There’s a reason why the connection was made to the at Liberty junction.I missing something here ? Carry on.

I’m going to side with you on this but not for the obvious reasons. Most, if not all, jobs start at VC on the midnight tour. If I’m lucky maybe my job calls for trips down to Dyckman St. If I’m unlucky I have to ride down to Dyckman and then change to a bus down to 137 St. If the n/b train arrives at 137 St with a finishing crew there’s no one to make a s/b trip. Use a crew to head south until help arrives. I’m just guessing here but I doubt that a finishing can be ordered to make an extra trip. Times have changed but that’s my experience. Carry on.

RIF, aka “do more with less “ was a phrase my mother used when she was working for the Defense Department. I had a high school teacher who would tell us about the dangers of widespread automation. His example was the CitiCard. He said that widespread use of the technology would lead to the loss of bank teller jobs for many female graduates . He also added sales department jobs in department stores to the list as well as technology jobs ( computers ) as a reason to add to his list of disappearing jobs. It’s taken 60 years but his warning is finally being taken seriously. I’m fascinated by some of the posts I see in the subway forums about ridership levels and jobs coming back to pre-covid levels. The long term scenario is less rush hour riders will be using the transit system in the future. WFH in general is the future. After 9/11 many jobs left lower Manhattan for the outer boroughs, the Jersey side of the Hudson and out toward Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The subsidized WTC was the glue that kept lower Manhattan alive. It’s a vicious cycle being played out long term but many people refuse to see it. Look at the ancillary businesses in Midtown shopping areas, and even the major retailers who have given up the ghost and shuttered their doors for good. I don’t think the remaining businesses and tourism can stop the downward spiral. Just my opinion. I could be totally wrong but long term it appears that my elders were on to something. Something to think about. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you. Carry on.

It was explained to some of my colleagues many years ago. RIF, aka reduction in the workforce, was one way to reduce costs for the . OPTO on the subways. ATO ( automated train operations) .on the subway. Eliminate the station agents. Money train is history. On the LIRR there used to be ticket agents at every station. Then it dropped to limited hours. Now it looks like Ronkonkoma, Babylon, Hicksville, Jamaica, Atlantic Terminal and Pennsylvania Station are all that’s left. The day after the last blackout I told some of my supervisor friends that they were warned about the potential dangers awaiting us. Evacuation of a railroad train or subway is cumbersome and dangerous for a train crew, depending on the circumstances,. Like we were told the safest position in NYCT to be in was the surface B/O position. My experience. Carry on.

I’m gonna be straightforward about this. The Dyre line wants the Lexington line service,period. When the line was connected at East 180th Street years ago the line ran from Dyre Avenue to New Lots with shuttle service late nights and the ran along WPR to 241st Street. That pattern was reversed with the and swapping terminals uptown. That’s what the ridership wanted back then. I was trying to make sense of the proposal suggesting that the be replaced with the service. Is someone suggesting that there be 2 Seventh Avenue services up there with no Lexington Avenue service . Instead they want everyone desiring East side service to transfer at the Concourse station. Wow. Carry on.

How do you count those farebeaters? Most ridership information comes from the metrocard users on the subways IIRC. Just asking. Carry on.

I remember that some people in the know told us that they were guessing 40 years for full implementation of the CBTC system in both divisions. Meanwhile John Q Public, including many posters, believe the press releases the agency puts out. Obviously many new projects have glitches at the beginning but this whole project is a big joke IMO. Carry on.

I think it’s a little bit more complicated than that. A pre-planned cross honoring is one thing. An emergency situation is another thing altogether. That authorization has to come from the LIRR supervision via the itself. The Conductor cannot take it upon themselves to make that decision. Even if it seems to be obvious to all involved you’d have to be one dumb person to put your job on the line before you get the proper authorization. Just my opinion though. Carry on.

If you have the opportunity I’d advise folks to check out today’s editorial page in today’s Daily News. It’s informative.

Just look at the DC Metro system right now. The same problems plaguing it too. Funding and equipment problems. There’s a stopgap funding mechanism for this year only and then it’s the scenario for them. The government has always funded airports and highways to the detriment of public commuter systems. Those who live in the metropolitan areas like Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, DC, and Atlanta and use the systems are pitted against the highway users who don’t normally use the transit system and who resent being taxed for services they don’t use. New Yorkers know the game now.Being told that they must pay congestion pricing fees to fund a system that they don’t use. There’s gotta be a fairer, more equitable solution to the problem plaguing transit systems in the cities. I don’t know how this gets solved except for direct government funding and that’s never happened before in the past. Money is the problem, period. It’s always been the problem even when the private companies ran the system. Perhaps the public school funding mechanism is the way forward. My opinion. Carry on.

Let me add this to my previous post before I forget. Weekday intervals leaving Dyre to Brooklyn in the PMs. The last 6 trips were the 6:52, 7:02, 7:12, 7:22, 7:31, and the 7:42. The: 6:52, the 7:31 and the 7:42 terminated at Utica and they went to Livonia yard to lay up. The 7:02 and the 7:12 went to Utica and then returned northbound to Dyre. The 7:22 went from Dyre in service to New Lots and laid up in the yard. The point I’m trying to make is that the headways were 10 minutes on the weekdays on average from 2:51 PM to the last Brooklyn train. Maybe the and the ran more frequently, especially on the weekends I’m guessing. Just my recollection from my work programs. Carry on.

I'm not sure about every line's headway since I retired in 2010. in the IRT the headways on the , , and were 10 minutes on Saturdays and 12 minutes on Sundays for the preceding 30 years. This I know because I worked those lines exclusively from the start to the end of my time in RTO. Carry on.

Been kicking it for the last month with my coworkers and some family and friends about the election results and NYC transit issues. A few caveats though. This is a personal viewpoint and includes some other folks insights. We all knew that the couldn’t handle it’s financial situation and this has gone on for a generation at least. I know that many of you consider the and the NYCTA synonymous but many of us don’t. We feel that Transit, LIRR, and MNRR people know their jobs. I don’t think the folks have the same knowledge. The agency has been overly reliant on consultants for years. I’m still teased about my response to the ATS/ CBTC idea when it was first proposed for the IRT. I said that whoever agreed with the idea, as described to a few people, should have been investigated by the Village Voice and proper District Attorney’s office. It basically boiled down to some consultants saying that they could squeeze a 16 oz Pepsi into a 12 oz can. Took me the length of the Joralemon tube to make my decision and my rabbi and his associate nodded in agreement.. Next point is about fleet “expansion “ as it’s been bandied about by some people. The is broke with subway ridership expected to reach 60% of pre-pandemic numbers by 2026. Meanwhile there are folks who want to ditch the R68/ 68A class of equipment and replace them with something new ? The money train is drying up in a year or so. Does anyone think that the Feds will look at this seriously? Final point for now. How many posters know what White Pot junction is ? This is a reference to the Rockaway Beach Branch and the possibility of extending it. The City of New York owns the right of way. The NYCTA uses the southern portion of the line up to Liberty Junction and the IND. The northern section was leased to the LIRR by the City to provide service for the section from the LIRR mainline to Ozone Park station after the city purchased the line until 1962. I mentioned White Pot because there’s no legal way to get across the LIRR mainline from the Branch to the IND line on Queens Blvd. How can a broke agency get money and probably a Federal waiver of some sort for a project like this ? Short answer is this isn’t happening. My personal opinion is that any Federal money coming into the area is going towards the Hudson and the East River tunnels projects. These are my opinions and those of my closest associates. You are free to disagree or not. Nothing is taken personally by us. Carry on.

Thanks for the train correction ✌🏾. Don’t know how I missed that one.

I’m not sure what you’re attempting to accomplish here but if you want to close 145th Street on the where is the great savings coming from ? You do realize that the closed stations on the Seventh Avenue and Lexington Avenue lines still use electricity, right ? Are you advocating for the closure of the Transit Museum with your Hoyt- Schermerhorn idea ? Electricity still flows through the 3rd rail to and from Court Street. My colleagues foresaw this financial crisis a few years ago. Back then they, through my posting, advocated for a return to pre-1982 service levels on the IRT. No express service in Brooklyn non rush hours. Pelham trains between PB Park and 125 midnights. Less service during the same time frame in the BMT and the IND. Spread the pain around so to speak. Sound fair to you ? What I’m getting at is that you seem to want to screw over some people while you ignore others. The only thing that I and my colleagues are advocating is any service cuts that might be needed should be done system wide rather than piecemeal. The person who enters at Parsons-Archer is paying the same fare as someone who enters at Pennsylvania Station or New Lots. Just a few opinions from some oldtimers. Carry on.

12-9 radio code has always meant “ man under “ according to the Rule books predating 1980. If a person is pushed into the side of the train, moving or not, by rule, it cannot be a 12-9. Perhaps there is a written update to this definition somewhere? Carry on.

You beat me to the punch . As Mtatransit pointed out the only special thing that might happen is if the Belmont Stakes was to be a Triple Crown event. My opinion. Carry on.