T to Dyre Avenue

They were lemons in their early years, though. I remember in 3rd Grade (c. 1986-87) seeing on the cover of Newsday (which had an NYC edition back then, with remarkably good subway coverage) a photo of a lemon with two tokens on top of a subway map next to the headline. Also remember seeing a story on Channel 2 News about their unreliability at the time when they were running exclusively on the Brighton Line trains - then the Broadway and . I didn't get to ride them until the Manhattan Bridge north tracks reopened in December 1988 when they began running on the full route then, sending the R40M and R42 trains that previously ran on the Bronx-34th St off to GOH and eventually onto the Eastern Division trains. Clearly, the MTA found a way to make lemonade from those lemons. I rode R68s on the and 6th Ave to and from high school frequently (1992-96). During those four years, I don't ever recall having a mechanical problem while riding them. But with the MTA pushing hard on CBTC, they are eventually going have to go to the big train depot in the sky. No, but they can start planning for the replacement of the R68/As now. It was 10 years from the time they started planning for the R211s to the time the first ten cars were delivered. They started planning for the R142/As and the R143s in the 90s. Surely, the MTA brain can start planning for the replacement of both the R62/As and the R68/As at the same time, no? And like I mentioned in response to VG8, the MTA seem to be heavily committed to CBTC signal replacement. They determined years ago that it would be too expensive to retrofit the SMEE-era cars like the R62s and R68s with CBTC technology. That's why the MTA retrofitted CBTC kits into the 's R142A cars and moved them to the (in addition to the factory-new R188s they ordered), while moving the 's R62A's back to the . I do seem to recall quite a few posters on here who were very upset about the losing its new tech cars, even though Westchester Yard shop forces were doing a shitty job of maintaining them. The MTA are going to opt for replacing the R62s and R68s once the CBTC program goes into high gear. It's more expensive not to.

What context was your quote in?

If you run the local to/from 71st Avenue via 53rd Tunnel and the express to from Hillside/Jamaica Center via 63rd Tunnel, then you can still have a QBL-Broadway service. And though you'd be bringing in a new merge at Lex & 63rd between the and ( and southbound), the three close-together merges in LIC ( / at 36th, / at Queens Plaza and at the 60th Tunnel) would all be eliminated. What would "shifting some N/Q to the B/D" accomplish?

This one, too… https://mobile.twitter.com/dmtrubman/status/1463495844485808150 But still, the MTA should at least be trying to bring down the cost of the Lex/125 station. Phase 2 shouldn’t be costing more than Phase 1 with all that existing tunnel already dug in the 70s.

Well, if you leave QBL as is or simply swap the and ‘s tunnels and deinterline CPW with express / local, then the becomes the sole 8th Ave local. But it would have to run on the same frequency (15 tph) as now because it would still be sharing with the . With the moved over to the express tracks, that would result in a cut to 8th Avenue Local service. Perhaps a deinterlined QBL could possibly mitigate the loss of 8th Ave local service with a express in Manhattan. Maybe by running all 53 St Tunnel-bound trains local and all 63rd St Tunnel-bound trains express in Queens, it might be possible to run a more frequent and with the on the same 8-9 tph as now. Depends how well Transit can turn trains at 71st Ave, of course.

It seems like the consensus on the Forums favors running the local and the express. I guess it’s not too big of a concern if the CPW local stations are served by a different train () than the 8th Ave local stations ( ). I didn’t realize that myself until one time I took the home from high school and found my train waiting outside Bedford Park Blvd for the previous to turn back to Manhattan. I could tell that they used flyover (or “flyunder”) tracks instead of switches between Kingsbridge and Bedford. Pretty much. Yes, I guess the would extend to 205 when the doesn’t run. Interestingly, the was the first train to serve 205th St. That’s because the Concourse Line opened up years before the 6th Ave Line did.

What a huge mess. A real triple whammy (signal problem in 60th, disruptive passenger at Times Sq, person struck by train on Manny B). Yet somehow I was able to get a train at Canal St just after 5 pm today, with another one just two minutes behind (according to the countdown clock, anyway). But the clock said the following trains, an and another , were 15 and 19 minutes away.

I liked your earlier proposal better. In this one, you’re preserving all three of the merges that plague the QBL with delays. QBL is basically the same as now except for the M via 8th Ave Local. That’s not a good solution to QBL’s consistent delays (not all of which is due to MTA’s poor service planning and crappy infrastructure). Since this topic is about untangling the CPW line, I’ll be brief about how to untangle QBL while keeping a Broadway connection. I’ve previously suggested running the and local to/from 71st Avenue via the 53rd St Tunnel while running the and express to/from Jamaica via the 63rd St Tunnel. However, that would require either the to run express in Manhattan (if the and are the CPW locals) or for the 50th/8th upper level to be left unused if the stays local in Manhattan (and the run as CPW expresses).

But the and trains were not bifurcated services like the is. Yes, the had different northern terminals at that time. But it didn't serve them at the same time like the . The served 168th St (later BPB) on weekdays and Queensbridge on weekends; that's the difference between it and the . I just looked up the schedule. Wow...I did not realize the ran on such garbage headways (4-6 tph apiece on Lefferts and Far Rock during rush?) past Rockaway Blvd. But even so, when you add the three branches together, isn't that roughly 15 tph on the in peak direction rush? Plus the 8-9 tph of the . I guess we'd be leaving the on the same garbage headways (6, maybe 7 tph in rush) it has now. Still think that's going to be a tight squeeze on the CPW express. Maybe CBTC will let the trains run closer together, but the merging at 145 and 59 still isn't helping. The don't have to go express. I agree doing that screws over CPW local riders who need to ride straight down to get to 50th/8th.

But then you'd have to reduce service on the three branches severely. At the very least, Rock Park service would have to be sacrificed. How else can you run the current forked service, plus the and on the CPW express tracks without reducing service, even with the on its current miserable headways? This is why I suggest either do local / express or local / express for deinterlining CPW.

In this case you probably could. But the would likely have to replace either the Lefferts or Far Rockaway and the Rockaway Park branch would have to be service only.

So the and would operate simultaneously, unlike in the past when the / (AA) ran whenever the / didn’t? That would certainly help out at Canal, but would CPW be able to handle the , and simultaneously. And you’d still have the and merging at Columbus Circle.

In fairness, I think most posters on this forum do want the 2nd Ave Subway to go north to The Bronx instead of west along 125. Myself included. The MTA bigwigs, for the most part, are the ones who wanted it to go to 125/Lex. They wanted to leave in provisions to go north, but defer going north to “sometime down the road.” I’m sure they know that the quickest route from East Harlem to Midtown East and West is south, yet the MTA decision makers are the ones who seem to believe that the transfer at 125 somehow will be good enough to pull substantial riders off the and Metro North. And for less money than tunneling to The Bronx. Or so they say, because that deep-tunnel platform they want to build at Lex - not to mention the tail tracks that extend almost to Lenox Ave without a connection to the - are causing SAS Phase 2 to cost way more than Phase 1 did. This, in spite of how Phase 2 has substantial existing tunnels dug in the 1970s, while Phase 1 was built entirely from scratch. Sounds to me like the MTA’s bigwigs are the ones who are playing with their “little Lionels.” Point it out to the MTA, because they made the decision to go to Lex/125 and add super-long tail tracks that go halfway across Harlem. For less value, not more. Then you’re going to be disappointed. Because London’s subsurface Underground lines and Amsterdam’s metro are the only European examples of interlined subways I can think of right off the top of my head. Nearly every multi-line subway/metro system in Europe has self-contained lines with few, if any, track connections between the lines. Surface rail systems, i.e., trams, are a different story. And to be honest here, “Lionel” is an accurate term for all the crazy proposals we’ve had over the years in the Proposals thread that call for more interlining and one-seat rides, not less. “Deinterlining” is the opposite of all those crazy proposals.

I don't...at least not 100 percent. I don't disagree that there are areas where deinterlining might not work, like the in The Bronx. If CPW is deinterlined below 145th, they shouldn't send just 6th Ave trains to Concourse and just 8th Ave trains to Wash Heights. But Broadway (Manhattan), Astoria, DeKalb and QBL are shitshows damn near every day. We can blame it on the signals, the old tracks and switches. Or the slow work trains that don't (or can't) return back to 38th St Yard in time for the morning rush. We can blame it on riders who don't let the doors close so the trains can leave when they're supposed to. But what are the solutions, then? Every option we brainstorm will require both money and enforcement (especially door holding), so we’ll need both of those no matter what solutions are chosen for dealing with the problems. It's not necessarily "wild ideas" or "change just for the sake of change." It's regular riders, like me, who are tired of missing trains only to have wait 10+ minutes in rush hour because the train I missed at Canal or 34th came just two minutes after its leader left. You get trains coming in bunches of two and then long gaps before the next two. It shouldn't be that way, at least not always like it is. If you didn't have so many trains switching, like at DeKalb, 34th and 36th/Queens Plaza, service could be a bit more predictable, and it will result in less wear and tear on the signals and switches. It will also permit trains to run more frequently. I fail to see the negative in that. And they didn't exactly deinterline the and uptown in 1998. Deinterlining them would have been switching them south of 145th. What they did do was cut back on deadheading trains from Concourse to 174th Yard and made it easier to switch cars between the and since the also ran with R32/38 "salad trains" at the time. As well as made it easier for the and to use each other's similar equipment if need be (shortly before the B/C terminal swap, the had its R40s swapped out for the R68As on the ). But, then as now, the and still merged at 59th and delayed each other or delayed northbound and trains while diverging. So it wasn't exactly a complete deinterlining. I'll agree with you that running the to 179th and keeping the on the express tracks was a flop. But I've seen posters on here and other message boards theorize that it's because Hillside riders already had fairly long commutes (including their connecting bus trips) and because it was the , which let's be honest, is a very unreliable long local train. In fact, it seems like many of the proposed deinterlinings on here and in other forums are trying to address the long local problem that is the . I give them a lot of credit for trying. The "cost-benefit ratio" that the MTA uses may be why they don't entertain deinterlining solutions. Not to mention good old, "This is the way we've always done it!" showing its ugly head.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is. I don't think it's been a thing for at least the past two years now (or at least since Andy Byford was forced out of Transit by Prince Andy). Since then, Max Rose was unseated from Congress by Nicole Maliotakis last November (though Rose is considering running for his old seat next year) and it appears that Justin Brannan is close to being unseated from the City Council by Brian Fox. Maliotakis seems far more focused on the Staten Island side of her district and I have yet to hear Fox discuss anything related to the actual operation of the subway, let alone poor service on the . At least State Sen. Andrew Gounardes put out a report about the poor state of subway and bus transit in South Brooklyn, but it dates back to December 2019 ( https://www.nysenate.gov/sites/default/files/article/attachment/gounardes_transit_report_final.pdf ). Maybe Gounardes will continue to take up the mantle of fixing subway service in his district without Rose and Brannan in office. Who knows? But does the really have to move to Nassau when there's another, potentially much better, option? Provisions connecting the Nassau St Line to lower 2nd Ave can be made independent of a hypothetic train rerouted to Nassau. It is not necessary to do them together and the MTA will almost certainly not care to do them together. The pros and cons of connecting Nassau to 2nd Ave are for a different discussion.

Agreed. 60th St is stuck with three lines unless both the and go to 2nd Ave or the is removed from the QBL. And yes, the won’t be a better substitute for the in South Brooklyn. I second that riders will dump it at the first express stop.

No disagreement with this, especially since running a 4th Avenue local service into the Nassau St Line may not be a real improvement over the current service. Indeed that is a possibility. It’s also probably not worth doing if you have to build or rebuild infrastructure to make it possible to run such a service.

I’m not sure they even did that when they switched the and . I read the reason for the switch was because they wanted to cut back on the extra miles put on the R32s and R38s on the deadheading to 207th St Yard. It also made it easier to store and do minor repairs on the R68As that had been assigned to the months earlier (previously, the had used R40s since the mid-1980s). FWIW, my preference has been to run the and express on CPW. This way the trains that run local on CPW also run local on 8th Ave (since CPW is a northern extension of 8th) and local riders would be able to ride straight down and not have to change trains at 53rd/7th.

TBH, I liked your Pelham / (8) skip-stop proposal better, though I'd consider making Westchester Square and the local stops in Manhattan between 125 and 59 as all stop stations - unless possibly we get SAS Phase 2 operational, and even then, the local stops between 86 and 59 should be all stop stations. That way, you double train service at Pelham Bay Park and Westchester Square, a very busy transfer point. PBP and Westchester Sq only get half the rush hour trains under the current zoned peak express service, not to mention that every local stop in The Bronx between Parkchester and 3rd Ave gets twice as much service in the reverse-peak direction. And fully local because you can't run an express in both directions at the same time with only three tracks. A line up 3rd Avenue in The Bronx is fine, but I don't think the branch up 138th, the Bruckner, and piggybacking onto the between East 180 and Pelham Parkway is really needed. Plus, it would hamper service and require your entire proposed 3rd Ave line to run with A-Division size trains (not sure if you wanted it to).

Glad to see a passenger train pulling in there, even if it’s not with paying passengers. Good to have some real progress with ESA.

One side destination sign per car side. So two in total per car. It's always been that way.

Ah, more Queens Plaza drama. Does the fun ever stop? At least LIRR are accepting MetroCard and OMNY between Jamaica and Penn. trains are delayed and rerouted in Queens while we address a network communication issue near Queens Plaza. Trains are running on the local track between Forest Hills-71 Av and Queens Plaza Trains are running on the local track between Forest Hills-71 Av and 21 St-Queensbridge. To alleviate congestion, the last stop on some northbound trains will be 4 Av-9 St, Jay St-MetroTech or 34 St-Herald Sq. Trains are running between Middle Village-Metropolitan Av and Chambers St on the For service to Forest Hills, take the . Expect delays in train service as they share the same track with rerouted trains. LIRR is accepting MetroCard and OMNY users at no additional cost at Jamaica, Kew Gardens, Forest Hills and Penn Station. Posted: 10/28/2021 09:05AM

But there is a third track between 86th and 95th Streets. Unfortunately, it only has switches at the south end of the track, so trains can only access this middle track from 95th St. What they could (and perhaps should) do is install two switches at the north end of the track. This way, a second 4th Ave local service can terminate at 86th St - which is a very well-used station - while the terminates at 95th St exclusively. As for the V, yes I don’t think it’s coming back as a 6th Ave service. Maybe it might come back as a second 2nd Ave service. Maybe it should, so that SAS south of the 63rd St Tunnel can have an equal or near-equal amount of service as north of 63rd.

I seem to recall a lot of threads in Subchat and the old SubTalk message board about posters' subway dreams. I remember sharing one I had where I saw R62A trains randomly parked in Corona Yard signed up as and (11) trains, but only in single and double cars. This was right around the time Transit made the decision to move R62As from the and lines to the , so maybe 2002-03.

Not to mention that a 79th St/Astoria Blvd route would be mostly, if not entirely, underground. Any case a NIMBY could make about “unsightly elevated trains” would go right out the window.