Eric B

Funny, just yesterday I saw a 7500 pulling out of the plaza signed B91 Marcy Ave. II take it that's a test, or they just signed it wrong? (It's not running yet, right?)

How come Church ave.-Jay and Hoyt isn't even on the radar? I thought that was the next to be done after the (7), along with the QBL, and especially since the Culver Viaduct had been rebuilt and completely re-signaled.

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Q38 - The Q38 from 63rd Drive to Metropolitan Avenue Station on the M line have a good ridership level. Once the Q38 passes Metropolitan Avenue on the M, buses tend to be empty. As a result, the Q38 should be split into separate routes to keep ridership numbers high. The Eliot Avenue Portion of the Q38 route will be taken over by a new bus route.

The Q58 Limited shall be converted into an SBS route. As part of the conversion, this Q58+ will be rerouted onto Different Streets in order to make this Service Fast and Reliable. Q58+ Service will Slightly Differ in Comparison to Q58 Local Service.

So Eliot would be the best choice for a Q58 alternate! (And then, continue on the Horace Harding service road to the turnoff to Flushing. I'm sure the long, winding Grand and Corona route would render any SBS useless; and not even sure how LTD does, as I'll hard;y even use it).

I don't quite get what this is we're looking at. This is looking in the ceiling?

21 hours ago, Union Tpke said:

Do you know anything more about this electrical room?

Never been able to find anything else about it. (Now, forgot where I heard it from. No one else seems to know anything about it).

If you're talking about connecting 63rd with 59th/Lex; I've always heard there was actually an electrical room connecting them somewhere!  So it might be a matter of relocating that.

5 hours ago, Wallyhorse said:

I thought they moved the  to the tunnel late nights a few years ago. 

You're probably thinking of them making it local nights. But that's only after Prince.

4 hours ago, RR503 said:

Meant to say keep the  on J1. My bad.

The thought with J1 and J4 is that you're not gonna need two pockets to turn this Bay Ridge service, so may as well consolidate your tracks in a way that allows trains turning on J3 easier access to South Brooklyn-bound tracks when it comes time to install a properly placed switch Then you'd have the  on J1 and J4 and turning trains on J3, which'd save you the difficulty of crossing in front north of Chambers. 

All this said, I still don't follow why we shouldn't be just sending this to Essex middle. Yeah,  loses cross platform, but Bay Ridge/Lower Manhattan gains xfers/consistent xfers, and we don't have to spend so much money in the near term. 

I think two pockets is better, as for when trains are delayed and coming in one behind the other. This is not a complementary line like the (W), and I think when that half used Court St. it hat the two pockets, so I figured it would need the same wherever it went.

What you're suggesting there is basically the same as the original idea I mentioned, with running the through on J1, except that I used existing through track J4 as the pocket (so you wouldn't have to break J3 through), while the in the other direction (downtown) stays on 2 track. What is 2 track (the one against the wall) used for in your idea? (or did you mean J2?)

8 hours ago, RR503 said:

If you're running J1-4 all through, then you could just use J1 and J4 for , turn the new Bay Ridge service at Bowery or Canal, and then scoot J1 trains over to J4 for Essex. 

In the long run, I think a rebuild along the lines you present will be necessary -- if only because crowding at Canal and Essex is bad. But until then, I think that just moving the  to J1 and installing a new switch may be the way to go. Cheaper, faster, and while it kills the cross platform from the  to , it allows these Bay Ridge/Lower Manhattan trains to connect more easily with trains up 6th and over the bridge. 

Don't understand that. (For one thing, the is already on J1, which is the only track it can come out on at Essex).

Keep in mind, that the track numberings appear reversed on this line, because it's really a northbound extension of the original line whose northern terminal was Bway ferry or Essex St. but then curved back southward when extended past Essex and Bowery, so that it's chained so that on Centre St. J1 is actually the northbound local (not southbound), and J4 is the southbound "express" (not northbound). J4 is what the currently uses Queens boud from Canal to Essex, and J1 is the "bypass" through the closed half of Canal. J2 is what the Manhattan bound uses. So why would the use 1 and 4? You would keep the on the same platform (2 and 4) where it is now, and then use 1 and 3 for the new service.

I had originally thought running the all the way on J1, and then putting the old switch back, so it can still access the middle (J4) at  Essex to not have to share J1 with the (M), but  think this other idea is better.

So they're really pitching for this splitting of the R (the Daily News is now covering it)!

Taking away Essex middle (J4) for that will just eliminate flexibility as the J and M will have to merge before the station, rather than allowing transfers in the station.

What you could do is reopen the other side of Canal St. station as the terminal for a new 4th Ave. replacement line. Currently, leaving Chambers St. J1 and 3 head to the former "loop" to the Manhattan Bridge and end, and are replaced by a "new" J1 branching off of J4, the new through track, and a now empty "new" J3 trackbed starting at Canal. 
So you remove the wall blocking J3, along with the branchoff to the new J1, and just run J1 and J3 straight through, with the former "loop" tracks branching off of J1 as J1A and J3A. A new crossover between them will be before the station, and you would have a two pocket terminal for that service. J1 would still continue to Essex. (So you would still have the snowbird layup area around Bowery, and the emergency run around if J4 is tied up for some reason, like they do now using the branchoff). 

It would have the problem of having to cross over the through J, which goes from J1 to J4 leaving Chambers.

Still leaves the problem of where the Queens R would go. Might have to use City Hall lower (which I think would need lengthening). This is then cutting Queens riders off from the last three stations, but to swap with the W, the busier R would get stuck with the single track pocket at Whitehall.

8 hours ago, RR503 said:

If the choice was between the  and the  without any other variables, you'd be right, but that wasn't the choice. There was a wee little financial crisis, and they had a deficit to fill. The original proposal to that end was cutting the  to Chambers and leaving the  alone, meaning that SBK was getting shafted either way.

Actually, the was already planned to be extended to Church Ave. whenever the Culver Viaduct work was finished. That would have helped that area of SBK, as they would have a full fledged service serving the local stations, with the from further south, going express, instead of having to use every other    which is now the idea they've had to fall back on, but is apparently in limbo because of some opposition from the locals.

Oh, OK. Because with cars, "plug-in" is used to specify hybrids (being that all-electrics all have plugs as you pointed out). So I guess for you, "plug-in type" meant plug-in ONLY.

11 hours ago, East New York said:

All electric is less expensive in the long run. Buses require much less maintenance. As of right now no one has tested electric buses other than Quill in Manhattan and Grand in Queens (Brooklyn Division). As of right now the buses have been testing for quite sometime and the New Flyer models have received favorable results. There’s no reason it won’t work here as it’s already been proven successful. The only major issue with the Preterras have been brakes not passing MTA’s testing. 

Mad far as hybrids go, I mentioned over a decade ago that it was a mistake u less they were Allison powered because of wide range our duty cycles. This proved to be corrects and they had to be tuned to keep up with NYC demands. We have good hybrids, they just weren’t made for high speeds. Any new tech or bus is going to have teaching problems. When the RTS was introduced it failed and had major rear door problems and a few other minor issues. 

At one time MTA was considering the testing of hydrogen-electric hybrid, (XHE40 or XHE60) buses, however they made the decision to go diesel-hybrid, then all-electric across the board. 

College Point has plans for articulated operations in the future with routes such as the Q25. But if and when this happens it will likely be XE60’s. 

MTA is no longer interested in long term investments in any buses other than all-electric. It is likely that last diesel and CNG orders have been awarded. MTA Bus will have the next standard procurement for 25 buses with options for an additional 16 options. This is ok the books as a diesel award but will likely change to hybrid and follow the 275 additional buses we have coming starting next year. It could also be converted to electric as well to support the conversion. 

This is the wave of the future. If the tech hasn’t failed by now, I don’t see it happening in the future. Our leased test buses have been performing quite well, and our first production order is only for 15 buses, so it’s not like the MTA is jumping out the window like they did with hybrids. Then next is 45 standard buses. If they were to somehow fail, MTA has cushion to move to another platform or go back to hybrids.

Please note this includes express buses and I’m also getting word that MTA may also opt for a few test buses in the upcoming order which is pending for later this year.  NFI is aggressively working on the new D45 CRTe (high-floor) and CRTe LE (low-entry) all-electric versions with tech based off the Xcelsior Charge. 

Effectively know as the D45 CRTe Charge and D45 CRTe LE Charge, these will be plug-in types and will not have en-route charging capabilities to my understanding. MCI (NFI) is currently in the test phase and want the buses (including the J4500e)  to be commercially available next year in 2020. The J4500e prototype is complete and as many may know, the new D45 is essentially a classic D merged with a J. All my sources are telling me that as soon as the first bus is ready, and Altoona certified, it will make its way to NYC. 

 

You say “plug-in”; that means tmis is still a hybrid? (I thought you were describing all-electrics).

NFI is Flyer, right? They own MCI now?

They're not going to block the center tracks.

(Does look nice with those LED ropelights illuminating the center platform).

That's on the 160 also.

If it was going slow and honking, then there must have been track workers; and they can be extensive on a line like that. I agree, there's way too much of it and nhe rules have gotten even more restrictive and extensive.

What they need for that is more FasTrack, but I think they're letting that program run out, as it's a money expenditure that's not always financed. (Don't know why. It should be just a matter of consolidating many work projects in an area, and not running service, so it can all be done safels and with less disruption of running service).

"Someone" involved with the actual design of cars, or just some fan imagining what it might be like?

I wonder if it's even really the same number series. The full number is actually R34xxx, and it didn't start out that way. It looks like this was a whole new series (including many other things besides rolling stock, which is what the original series was; hence so many consecutive numbers), and they just fixed it so that it appeared to pick up with the old R series, but it's really the "34000" series..

Me too! Just saw it on a Facebook group and at first didn't think it could be real!

Wow, they've been doing a lot of renumbering in recent years. They only used to do it in major fleet remans, such as Blitz and the RTS 7000's. 

I guess it's since they acquired the PBL's, with hundreds of additional buses, that it became harder to work around the existing fleet numbers when new buses are added? (Glad they didn't take the easy route and go with a five digit system, which they once tried briefly with the first Orion V's).

There was one back in service on the  today. 

It also isn't tall enough to be a route sign. It's not square; it's a flat rectangle, for text.

Yeah, that has to be a 211. The sign is not added to the window until much later; when the electrical stuff is done. This is just the bare shell now, and so the window without the sign will look like a window, but the fact that it's a window, and not a blank wall like previous NTT's, is proof that the space is reserved for the sign (and the sign on top, as stated, is for destination text).

11 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

I don’t doubt it, but I still wonder if Transit ever did any sort of survey to confirm the Brighton lean towards Broadway and the South Brooklyn lean towards Grand/6th Ave. I definitely recall seeing posts about Brighton Line riders preferring Broadway on the Forums in the past, as well as on SubChat, on the late SubTalk, and on Second Avenue Sagas. So I’m guessing there must’ve been some kind of surveying done in the year or two before the Manhattan Bridge North tracks reopened, and the current South Brooklyn Bridge service patterns were implemented.

Yes, they did do extensive surveying, in those years leading up to the final pattern, when the 6th Av. side was closed.

I remember when it was wooden, then they replaced it with the concrete in the mid-70's. Don't know why they didn't just rebuild it. Went to the aquarium the first time since way back then, this summer, and wished it was still there.