Art Vandelay

On 12/2/2018 at 4:36 PM, U-BahnNYC said:

I agree, they are definitely in much worse condition than those used by Jamaica. However, I don't think they're all younger necessarily; weren't the R46s randomly renumbered during their SMS? That means their current numbers are no longer chronological. Except for the A-A two car sets, which are the newest regardless if I'm not mistaken.

 

The R46s were mated as pairs prior to overhaul, then overhauled, and later made into 4 car sets and renumbered. (Disclaimer, I may be confusing them with the R44- All of the same events happened to both fleets, but not in the same order.)



Here's a riddle for you:
Between the Pitkin and 207 R46 fleets: 
Median age is the same.
Mean age is different. 
 

1 hour ago, Union Tpke said:

They are just boarded up, not tiled up?

The whole wall is boarded over- You can't see if there is anything beyond that covering the stairs. 

1 minute ago, Union Tpke said:

What happened to the closed staircases?

The closed staircase was previously behind a tiled wall on the upper level. It remains so, with slightly less of a seam. On the lower level, it is boarded up, much like a sizable portion of the rest of the platform. 

Checked it out today. The work on the IND stations is incredibly shoddy compared to what they did on 4th avenue. Tiles are already falling off the wall on the 72nd end. (The same was true at 110, and they fixed it, but still.)

5 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

You clearly do not ride the LIRR after sporting events or conventions...

Or on either peak or off peak trains. Or weekend trains. Or weekday trains.

1 hour ago, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

I hypothesize that car mileage is dependent on frequency of service; high number of trips = increased mileage.

Closer, but not entirely true- 

Mileage of individual cars is directly related to both span of service, and consistency of service.  Having a high peak frequency but low off peak frequency results in lots of trains sitting around for much of the day getting little use. Having a line with consistent service, regardless of whether it is short and infrequent, or long and frequent, results in trains with high mileage. Short vs long, and frequent vs infrequent both affect the number of trains you need, but not so much the overall usage of those trains. 



 

On 5/10/2018 at 2:22 PM, VIP said:

Mileage is the problem... those cars have to be on short lines like the  or  

Length of lines is not related to car mileage at all. 

An example: In 1987, the C was the longest route in the subway. I believe the C fleet also had the lowest usage rate in the system as well. 

18 minutes ago, Dj Hammers said:

3109-3016 are the next cars to be delivered.

3109-3116?

1 hour ago, thicctrain said:

Don't R179s have provisions? Yes I realize they won't get 179s but could it still work if they will?

Yes, but the Queens Boulevard CBTC contract only converts R160s. 

37 minutes ago, thicctrain said:

I wonder where the R160s on the   will go.. 

please let it be the  

I put diamond symbols b/c why not

They will not go to the B D.

They will almost certainly return from where they came- the J. 
 

If you want to build a stub line through low density areas which will actually serve somebody on an existing right of way, reactivate the SI North Shore. 

 

On 3/22/2018 at 3:05 PM, itmaybeokay said:

Does everyone feel this way? I feel like the B-div countdown clocks are a little more accurate, it's just that there's only one screen usually on a given platform that's not great - but you can always get the data on your phone so, eh. 

 

Even in places with light-centralization - e.g. master towers - I've seen problems where two master towers aren't talking to each other properly or RCC is saying one thing QB master is saying another thing. 

If done right, there can be huge improvements from centralized tower operations, especially in the case or reroutes. Conversely, well, "central point of failure" if not done right. 

The B division system is a LOT less reliable than the A division. The data feed is much more limited- the transponders are only at stations, and it also cannot tell the difference between local and express tracks. Unless somebody reprograms what a train is doing in the system, a local diverted to the express tracks still shows up on the displays on local tracks. An express running local does not show up on the displays, unless somebody tells the system it is local. 

18 minutes ago, Coney Island Av said:

Why did the MTA originally project some R179's to go to the ? Why is it just the  that's getting them now? 

And I also have a question about 3010-3019 and 3050-3057. I know they are test trains, but 3058-3061 entered service already, and it's a test train. How come these two oddballs haven't entered service yet? 

Finally, to answer this discussion from above, the 's R160s will go back to ENY, and not Coney Island. The  needs extra service more than the . 

 

I'd be somewhat surprised if the C ends up getting any R179s. 

Yes, the R160s on the C are almost certainly going to return to the J, but that does not mean that the J is getting more added service than the G. 

The R179s are designed to have CBTC installed, but only R160s are being outfitted for QB CBTC. 

7 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

It's actually quite reverse that, I asked people the day the Q52/53 SBS went online if they would rather take a train to reach either QBL Nassau or Liberty, and 75% of them said yes. While your right, SAS does take tremendous stress off the Lexingtion Avenue line, the benefit for RBB would greatly help the residents of Woodhaven.

Heck, even extending the shuttle up there and providing a free in system transfer between Parkside and 63rd Drive would see a lot of ridership. It may not happen at once, but I guaantee you the results will show up before the end of the year.

Even if ALL of the Q52/Q53 riders were to move to the train, it still wouldn't mean there is a large enough market to run a train. 

And regardless of the size of the market, they would be out of their minds to build an additional connecting service to Queens Boulevard from a line which already connects to another line without such drastic capacity issues. 

There are a number of reasons one would prefer the R32s on the A- 
-The AC issue
-R32s handle crowds better than R46s
-Avoiding 2 lengths of the same equipment on the same line helps with regards to proper positioning at stations. 
 

28 minutes ago, RailRunRob said:

So with that said.  taking cars from the  is there going to be a shortage somewhere?  Is there like an extra train of R32s that there going to use to make 10 car trainsets for the   with the  having 8 car configs on that side of the swap? Is the still using some R68's during rush?

Step 1. 1 train of R179 goes into service on J. 
Step 2. 1 train of R32 moves from J to C
Step 3. 1 train of R160 moves from C to J. 
Step 4. 1 train of R32 moves from J and gets broken up. 
Step 5. 4 C trains get a pair added from the broken up J train move from C to A. 
Step 6. 4 trains of R46 move from A to C. 
Step 7. ???
Step 8. Profit. 

4 hours ago, Fan Railer said:

What's the reason for this again? C/R boards?

In the words of Roy Orbison
"You got it!"

4 hours ago, LGA Link N train said:

They all went to ENY or something 

They've always been at ENY. 

1 hour ago, subwaycommuter1983 said:

The r42s will be retired as well as some r32s, especially now that there's a surplus of trains. Only a few r32s will be preserved for Canarsie tunnel shutdown. 

 There is no surplus of trains yet. Canarsie will provide a significant increase in the number of trains required for service. Almost all of the R32 fleet will have to stay, and unless a reduction in spare factor/shop margin is deemed acceptable, the R42s may have to as well. 

Just now, Lawrence St said:

Apparently there's a rumor going around that the R42's on the shuttle will stay on the for a while after the bushwick cut reopens to allow the R179's to be placed on the and .

 

R42s are not able to run on the full length M. 

23 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

And except for Triboro RX, the projects RR503 mentioned are extensions. From a realistic point of view, they’d have to be. RX would be a completely separate line, but that’s due to its proposed use of existing (and mostly outdoors) right of way. 

I feel like you really can get the most bang for your buck by doing RX. I prefer doing the QB bypass, because then you’d be able to add capacity to the QBL, without actually having to put it on the QBL. But just the 75th Ave connection alone seems like it would be a budget buster, to say nothing about tunneling under LIRR from LIC to Woodside. 

Well, if I’m not mistaken, it was proposed as a bypass some time after the original LIRR Main Line bypass proposal. I read it was met with intense NIMBY resistance in Middle Village and Maspeth, not to mention the MTA’s larger focus on getting the existing system back up to a state of good repair. But even if those weren’t factors, the Montauk Branch is quite a way off from Queens Blvd, so a connection to the QBL would be much longer and a connection to the 63rd St tunnel would be tricky given the location of the branch in LIC, the layout of the streets and all the tunnel it would have to dodge there. And of course, there’s the issue how to cooperate with the NY & A freight trains. And like RBB, Montauk runs mostly through low-density areas and Forest Park.

The Montauk does run through low density areas, but those are areas that could more easily be built up, and there is the giant destination of Jamaica at the end of it. Even if it makes no stops along the way, The service to Jamaica alone guarantees high ridership from day one. 

5 minutes ago, Bosco said:

April 31, 1932.

In all seriousness, even if CBTC installation is complete by 2024 (which I'll take with a grain of salt), people seem to forget that any train can run along the line as long as the system itself is offline.  Also, I think it's safe to say that future CBTC projects will follow the same formula as the Flushing Line CBTC, where the wayside infrastructure is left untouched or at least upgraded, as a failsafe.  Expediting the retirement of the R68s might help expedite the process of installing CBTC, but let's just wait on that.  As it is, when the R211 was initially planned out, the second option order was dedicated for SAS Phases 2 and 3.  Now the R211 has been awarded, and there is precious little information as to when Phase 2 will be online, let alone the introduced.  I will be surprised if Phase 2 is open by 2030, and the last R211 is supposed to be delivered by 2026 (for now).

The wayside system has not been removed from the Flushing line... Yet. While enough signals will remain to allow off hour equipment deadheads and work trains, they will not be capable of full rush hour service. 

When was the last time 8th avenue went a full week without seeing B/D trains? 

3 hours ago, Lance said:

Even if we assume the most generous of service expansions for the and lines, we're still only maxing out at around 75-80 total trains needed for the East and Crosstown lines. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the justification here.

Also, just because the 6th Avenue line is in the 2020-24 budget, that does not mean CBTC will be complete by that point. By the time 6th Avenue CBTC comes online, we may be in the process of replacing the 68s and it would not be necessary to shift them around to non-CBTC lines.

G J L and M require 13, 20, 24 and 23 trains respectively. That is 80 trains without any increase. That would mean 82% of the fleet is required for daily service.

If you want to increase service on any of those lines, you'd need to order more 4 car sets to reliably provide service. 


Also- 6th avenue CBTC does not change the requirements for CBTC equipment. Every trains on 6th avenue will already have to be CBTC equipped for Queens and 8th ave CBTC. 

The Queens Boulevard CBTC contract is for R160s only. 

What is the point in moving the R160s elsewhere if they are just going to have to move back?