R10 2952

"WASHINGTON – Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose call for a liberal agenda galvanized millions of followers, dropped out of the presidential race, giving former Vice President Joe Biden a clean path to the 2020 Democratic nomination. Sanders' exit comes after a string of losses to Biden in the primary election. The intensifying coronavirus pandemic meant he could no longer hold the large rallies that came to define his grassroots movement, though he often pointed to the problems many Americans had getting tested and treated for the virus as evidence that the country needed to adopt his signature 'Medicare for All' proposal." https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/04/08/bernie-sanders-drops-out-2020-presidential-race-joe-biden-surges/4919641002/

I think it's all MTA now. And even if it wasn't, I'm sure their lawyers could find something in the contract to achieve sole tenancy through buyouts, etc. Then again, from all the stories I've heard about the idiotproofing that happened across the system beginning in the '90s, perhaps having the Legal Dept. call too many shots is a bad thing 🙃

Even without what's going on currently, a lot of people were saying Cuomo was pushing for the R32s to be retired by April. Knowing his penchant for micromanagement and how he's basically reduced the MTA into a personal fiefdom run by his sycophantic proxies, he might push to prevent the cars from returning to service for all we know. As to the R42s, even if the they did come back (which would probably be an even bigger stretch at this point), I get the impression it would just make more sense to keep them on the as put-ins (I didn't mention the on account of the infamous platform spacing issues when they ran as 8 cars on that line eleven or twelve years ago). The 8-car R179s could all be sent out to the /. It would be less of a hassle than sending the R42s back out there, probably.

Right-clicked, selected "Open image in new tab", copied the link, then pasted it into the button here on the forums that says "Insert image from URL". The field highlighted red and nothing went through. Huh, this is really weird- only seems to happen with photos; videos and news articles seem to embed fine. @Cait Sith @Deucey Is it a glitch in the Matrix or is the problem on my end?

There was a list somewhere of the old B Division yard stickers, I juts can't remember if it was on nycsubway.org or in an old book somewhere. Also, how are you guys able to get the images from nycsubway.org to embed? Whenever I try embedding photos here on the forums, it won't work for me and only displays as links.

The B Division did have yard stickers back in the late '80s and early '90s, they were just never as widely used as stickers on the A Division. Cases in point: https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?2462 https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4594 https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?50027 As to the R46s, the blue diamonds may have been something else; when they first were pasted on the cars there was talk that it was to denote air compressor modifications done on those cars- don't know the whole story though, an employee would probably know more about this.

Hard to believe the PBLs ended 14 years ago; seems like yesterday- I still remember Triboro Coach and their Orion V CNGs with the soft seats. Best buses I ever rode in this city. Too bad the MTA buses on local routes didn't have those seats.

Good question; only cars I know of that were "accidentally" scrapped were some R1/9s and other cars meant for preservation around '80-81. As to R32s, 3620 had a damaged frame post-GOH or something and I know it sat around for a while in CIY before being sent to scrap in '07. But 3616? Only thing I ever heard was it was relegated to 36th Street Yard, in the '80s apparently, and disappeared after some time without ever being overhauled. I guess that's what I miss about the old NYCT; there were always some odds-and-ends and interesting surprises tucked away in all the various corners of the system- unfortunately, it's a lot more bland now.

Agreed. 63rd was the tunnel to nowhere for many years with a pretty useless terminal at 21st, and even when they did finally connect to 36th, I don't know if 21st was ever considered as a good alternative to Queens Plaza by most passengers- I tried it once years ago and it just wasn't convenient.

Well that's the thing, there doesn't seem to be any easily/readily information available on what happened to those R42s, so who knows. Theoretically it can happen with any car class, I guess. Always wanted to find out what happened to R32 3616, though- that car never made it to GOH and nobody seems to know why, LOL...

Backtracking to/from 71st and 63rd was something me and several people I knew used to do back in the day, basically to avoid all the hassle at Roosevelt- only ever used that station to transfer to/from the . Perhaps the Flushing and Queens Blvd lines are just victims of their own success; sometimes I wonder how things would've turned out if the lines had been routed a bit differently- like if the Flushing el had stayed on Roosevelt/Greenpoint to Hunters Point, and if the Queens Blvd line actually stayed on Queens Blvd and Thomson Ave all the way to Court Sq.... Wishful thinking at this point, but food for thought nonetheless.

Haven't seen a full-length since a G.O. 10-11 years ago; was in the rear of the train and had to get off at Metropolitan/Grand station for the - not fun cause they used the south side of the platforms to expand crew facilities- so narrow it was like walking a gauntlet. On another note, all that graffiti in the station- looks like there's been more trains and stations getting hit recently.

People stuck at home be like:

Probably wouldn't have made a difference; the R44s were one of the last (if not THE last) order of trains built by St Louis Car Co and I doubt quality control was at the top of their list at that point- I suspect their mentality was to just build the things and get them out the door as fast as possible. In fact, for all we know, quality may have already been a problem with their prior orders- with the R42s, for example, six cars (4680-4681, 4714-4715, 4766-4767) were already retired by 1979, meaning a service life of what, 10 years?

Exactly. MBDF is one thing, but towards the end I remember a lot of door issues. Also, the frame deterioration that ultimately forced their retirement was a known issue on certain cars going back several years; GOH didn't make the R44s great cars- it just made them less shitty.

The R44s were never great cars, to be honest. And the R40Ms- I don't know, didn't they get the same crappy rebuild job as the other R40s? As to the R30s, yeah, they probably could have lasted until 2003, but people would probably have complained about the lack of AC. I remember being on Redbirds on the IRT where not only was the air conditioning busted, but opening the window didn't do much to alleviate because some management genius decided to have the original drop-sash windows replaced with those small louvred ones during SMS.

The air-brake package was just the tip of the iceberg; the other components had problems as well from what I used to hear from people in NYCT. And I do remember being stuck on many trains back in the day that had rough braking, broken AC, or straight up got taken out of service (usually electrical problems). Never had those problems on the or , incidentally... Generally, the 's end goal was to get rid of all the old cars, but they were actually organized about it; the order in which car classes (and sub-classes) retired was based in part on mechanical/structural condition, and fleet size (i.e. small and/or worst groups of cars first). Art Vandelay, a fountain of knowledge who used to post here, indicated it also had something to do with a fleet's last scheduled maintenance, apparently.

Been wondering for years; were yard put-ins during rush hours set up to be regularly scheduled for certain departures? I used to take the out of 207th weekday mornings in the mid-to-late 2000s, and the 07:22 departure was always a train of R38s that came in from the yard leads; the trains departing directly before and after that were always R44s coming in from the road (not the yard). It's like they had everything timed and planned down to the smallest detail.

Simply put, the Phase I R32s were in better shape than the rest. By comparison, the CI R42s and Phase II R32s were absolute garbage towards the end...

Hopefully the executive level of the MTA realizes the implications and retains some of the mothballed R32s/R42s just in case.

I know the used to terminate at Atlantic Ave station and that was messy as it was with the track/switch layout, but the coming in and terminating on the local tracks? That must be an even bigger mess...

It wasn't all R33/36, though; the also used some R12/14s, and R15s in the late '70s/early '80s. After those classes retired, it shifted to R17s and R21/22s in the mid-'80s before moving to R62As ('86-'87 I think?). The single units were needed to make 9-car trains. After the late '80s it was likely all R62A through the 1990s- never heard of nor saw any redbirds show up on it. An employee explained it a while back; something to do with Lenox Yard trackage/capacity and/or the station platform there I believe. Shorter trains came in after New York's fiscal crisis in 1975. Many trains on various routes were reduced in length (8 cars, 6, in some cases 4) during mid-day, late-night hours and weekends. By 1985, though, most of the trains had been restored to normal lengths. Most of the "off-hours" signs that are still around came in around the late '80s/early '90s. At that point it wasn't about length anymore; this was the height of the crack epidemic and crime was a major issue- the TA was trying to encourage people traveling during late nights to congregate around the middle of the platform for safety reasons (close to conductor or station agent?). Crack eventually passed, crime went down, but the signs stayed up.

Looks like a pattern, similar thing happened 3 months ago: https://gothamist.com/news/video-explosive-garbage-fire-causes-scare-manhattan-subway-station Same guy possibly?

Agreed on Nassau; Canal-to-Chambers might be the right section for a split. Redo Essex for 4 tracks, Canal to be a stub-end terminal like in old times for the and have tracks from Chambers re-routed to Chrystie St. That way you could have the go into Brooklyn on the cheap (through Broad station, into Montague tunnel). As to the /, long-term perhaps the TA should look at getting trains off the Manhattan Bridge; 4 tracks and 4 lines is maybe just too much of a structural strain for it. Only alternative I can think of is if 6th Avenue express tracks were through-routed: back onto Houston, into a tunnel past 2nd Ave station, under the East River to South 4th station on IND Second System provisions, along Union Avenue, and then maybe tied into Franklin Ave station ? Who knows.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. The has done this before- the R14s, R15s, R21s and R22s were all swept under the rug when they retired essentially... it is what it is.