T to Dyre Avenue

Good to know. Glad it’s back in service.

Either way, I’m very much looking forward to riding the R211T. I want to experience riding an open gangway train here at home after riding them elsewhere. The sooner they can get the to 100% full length, the better. It is foolish to be operating trains of different lengths at the same time on the same line because the cars are operated in inflexible perma-linked sets. Unless there’s some way to alert riders on the platform ahead of time as to whether the next train will be a 480ft train or a 600ft train so they can position themselves accordingly.

Honestly, I’d much rather have 10-car trains of 60ft cars on the than 12-car trains of 51ft cars because the 60ft cars will handle crowds better. The 10-car trains have 40 entryways per side, while the 12-car trains would only have 36. And the 10-car trains would be 12ft shorter than the 12-car trains. The only true issue is that any 60ft car that runs on the has to be the same width as the current R188 fleet. So 60ft long/8ft 10in wide cars could only run on the . But I don’t think that’s truly an insurmountable issue. The switch connecting the Astoria and Flushing lines on the upper (northbound) level which is the Flushing Line’s only connection to the rest of the system is not really useful for anything other than equipment moves and it wouldn’t be any different with 60ft cars on the Flushing Line.

But going back to 10-car trains won’t make it better. Unless those 10-car trains were made up of 60-foot long cars. But even then, they’d still have to be the same width as the current R188 cars thanks to the very narrow Steinway Tunnels. Though I very much believe the idea of 60-foot, narrow-width cars for the line should be strongly considered. I mean, unless the curves on the line in LIC are so tight that they make the ones that prevent 75-foot cars from operating on the trains look gentle by comparison, then I fail to see why longer line cars shouldn’t be considered. It wasn’t. But one of the MTA’s predecessor agencies, the Board of Transportation, gave the go-ahead to lengthen the platforms on the Flushing Line in 1949, after joint IRT/BMT El car operations ended. It wasn’t. They first ran 11-car trains for the 1964 World’s Fair. They did go back to 10-car trains in the Redbird era, but only during the summer months. The equipment used to air condition the rebuilt Redbirds couldn’t be housed in a single car, so they kept the single R33 World’s Fair yarded full time in the summertime - until the late 1990s when ridership skyrocketed on the . They started running 11-car trains during the World’s Fair. But the decision to lengthen the platforms was made well before then. Yes, the problem really tends to be worse in the northbound direction, because that’s when you have the riders swarming off the longer trains cramming onto the shorter trains at QBP. An eight-car train of R46s or R68s is quite a bit longer than an 11-car train of R188s you know.

Woot! Just four days left. Keep it going! Yep, they didn’t feel like they rode any different than the other New Tech trains. Except maybe the Bombardier ones (R142 and R179), which do seem to me to have quieter, smoother rides than the others.

Got some April Foolin’ going on here, I see…

Don’t you just love how one train at QBP with BIE can completely bork the entire Broadway Line? trains are running with extensive delays in both directions after we removed a train from service that had its brake activated at Queensboro Plaza. Northbound trains have resumed making regular stops. Northbound trains are running with delays. While we get trains back on schedule: For service between Queens and Manhattan consider using trains. For service in Manhattan consider using trains. Posted: 03/31/2023 05:39 PM

Which is worth its weight in gold (or blue, I guess)! Because thanks to that Reddit page, today I was able to get to Chambers and walk down to the platform right as the R211 train was pulling in at 5:44 PM. I had intended to catch it at Fulton, but when I saw how quickly it went from High to Fulton (only three minutes), I figured I’d better just get it at Chambers (I waited it out for about 20 minutes at Barnes and Noble on Warren St). Apparently that train can move, baby! This was the rare night I was on my own for dinner, so it was R211 hunting for me today. Rode from Chambers to 59th. Little slow entering 59th, but that’s probably due to waiting for a to clear the station. It was worth it!

Wouldn’t the still have Jamaica Yard if it runs from Forest Hills to Bay Ridge? I’d keep the doing that with a swap of the and ‘s river tunnels, so that there’s much less merging at 36th St and Queens Plaza.

I fully agree it‘s better to have the via 4th Ave express and the via Brighton. Since there seems to be a stronger demand for Broadway from Brighton, it may result in fewer passengers transferring at Atlantic. I also like the idea of connecting the to Fulton to run to/from Euclid, which wouldn’t just eliminate the need for both 8th Ave services to merge at Schermerhorn, but would also allow Astoria Line trains to have a yard at one end (Pitkin).

It would definitely eliminate the madness at 36th and QP, but then again this is the MTA we’re talking about here. Only time will tell if riders at Queensbridge and Roosevelt Island adjust to having shorter and less-frequent trains come May through October.

Was wondering that myself.

No, but if I had an extended or train to Whitestone, I’d switch from the QM20 bus to it in a second. Big gap in buses + heavy LIE traffic = late to work again this morning. Hell, I’m sitting in very slow BQE traffic right now. Besides, the majority of the extended route would likely have been via 19th Avenue, which is a mostly industrial area with a substantial amount of parking lots.

Ah…AirTrain or no train. Port Authority wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s been 20-25 years! How many of those unpleasant NIMBYs are still around anyway?

That's only if both locals go to Manhattan via the 63rd St Tunnel. If only one of them goes that way, then riders at the inner QBL local stops would just have to wait for the other local train for Long Island City. I'd be fine with that too. Unfortunately, even that idea gets pooh-poohed by some formers here and on the NYC rail subreddit, even though it would clear up the madness at 36th St with the and and the madness one stop away at QP with trains on the local and express merging. There seemed to be a lot of discussion not long ago about the MTA actually considering moving the to 63rd and running the back in 53rd on weekdays while the is running. I get it, it would mean running less-frequent, 8-car trains on weekdays, which is, well, a service cut. However, is the current delay-prone service pattern with its many merges all that much better? I honestly don't think it is. And I rode the QBL line regularly for over three years, so I know how bad it can get.

Same here. They have a long history of both retiring cars early and messing up new car orders that force them to keep older cars in service longer than they should. The R17s were gone after 32 years in service (including the handful painted into the Redbird scheme). The R21s and 22s were gone after just 30 years in service. The R30s were also withdrawn early. For the R30s, I can understand why - equipping them with A/C would have made them too heavy to operate on the many elevated structures we have and there's no way they would have restricted them to just the entirely-underground (which was shortened to Euclid Ave just after the R30s were retired), and lines. Unfortunately, ridership on the B Division began to bounce back heavily just a few years later, especially in the East, and the MTA were caught flat-footed with a car shortage. Even after increasing the R143 order from 100 to 212 cars, it proved to be insufficient for the line. Same here. There really seems to be quite a bit of "defending the MTA" here. I've noticed it from my earliest days on this forum, especially after the 2010 service cuts.

That’s much more than what I had 30 years ago when trying to catch the R110A/B trains. Or even 21-23 years ago when trying to catch the R142/A/R143 trains.

Yep, same here. I mean, that’s sort of what I did with the R110A and R110B trains, as well as when all of the production New Tech Trains first went into service. And with the R110A/B trains, I didn’t have any internet sites to guide me on how to find them. Thirty years ago, I had to rely on good ol’ Lady Luck to catch those trains. Though for a while in early 1994, she was pretty good to me with catching the R110A on the at Burke Ave damn near every weekday morning at 7:15. There were those couple times the R110A got rerouted via the when I rode. And then there was that one time it actually ran as a train. Going home or trying to catch the R110B on the was a different story, especially because I didn’t live anywhere near the , although I could take the and transfer, of course. Though I gotta say that riding the R142 on the years later really felt like a much different experience than riding the R110A. Maybe it’s because the R110A had those colorful, forward facing seats and speckled gray walls that weren’t retained on the R142 or any subsequent NTT’s. And the R142 had much quieter motors and rounder cab windows.

Agreed. The proposal in Vanshnookenraggen's blog post would be much a more direct route, unless you're headed to Downtown Brooklyn or the Financial District, because a route from Bay Ridge straight up 4th Avenue is just more direct. And it has the advantage of being at least a semi-express service, unlike the all too often-proposed idea to just extend the all-local .

Not exactly…the V would run down 2nd Ave, not 6th, so only the and would share the 6th Ave local tracks. At one time not so long ago, I did suggest unsnarling QBL with an service pattern ( express via 53rd; local via 63rd) with the on 6th alongside the and . The ideas were so that there could be enough trains in South Brooklyn for a local and a express and the ability to run more trains. But I quickly realized what a tight squeeze on 6th Ave that would be, that it wouldn’t yield any additional trains on QBL, and that it would make rerouting and/or trains virtually impossible. Yes, running all express service via the 63rd Street Tunnel means all QBL express riders would have to transfer to a local train to get to Court Square. But I really don’t see how that could be a dealbreaker. I mean, percentage wise, how many riders transfer to the there? And any line riders who need to get there already have to transfer to the (or the or at 74th St), and have had to do so since December 2001.

There are two problems with this. One is there really isn't sufficient capacity to run three local services on QBL. 71st Ave already has trouble turning the and , Throwing a Queens-SAS service into the mix will only make it worse. Two is the new local service would then be merging with the express at 36th St. That area is already bad with the and merging there. It'll be much worse with a local service merging in/out with the . It would be best if said SAS service runs express alongside the and then replaces the to/from Jamaica Center, putting the onto the local. Perhaps something like this: - QBL local to/from 71st Ave via 53rd St Tunnel - unchanged ( V ) - QBL express to/from Jamaica Center via 63rd St and 2nd Ave

Personally, while I welcome a tunnel connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn under the Narrows, I'm not a fan of extending the through that tunnel because it's already a long, local line with a zillion merges. Maybe if it were an express or semi-express train, like in this proposal (scroll down about two-thirds of the way for the proposal), which builds on an earlier proposal to unsnarl the South Brooklyn BMT lines.

Aaaaannnnd…here we go again… trains are significantly delayed in both directions while we address a network communication issue in Queens. Many trains will end early. Some northbound trains will run along the line from 42 St-Port Authority Bus Terminal to 168 St. The last stop on some northbound trains will be Court Sq-23 St or Queens Plaza. The last stop on some northbound trains will be 21 St-Queensbridge The last stop on some Forest Hills-bound trains will be Chambers St on the . Gotta love that CBTC mixed in with all that merging in LIC!

I remembered back when they announced that the R143s were going to be 60-foot cars and wondered why they went back to 60 after doing 67-foot R110Bs. This post from an archived thread from back in 2011 (skip down to post 27; the thread is archived so I can’t directly quote the post) helped explain why - And it probably made more sense to go back to 60-foot cars from a practical standpoint anyway. I mean, the triplet sets that R110Bs came in were impractical right off the bat because nine-car trains of them would have been much too long for the Eastern Division, while six-car trains would have been much too short. So like you said, they would have had to be in four or five-car sets. But even so, there are some platforms in the East that can’t hold more than eight 60-footers (Metropolitan Ave and at least one track at Rockaway Pkwy - due to its offset bumper blocks - come to mind). So trains of eight 67-footers might not have even worked there. I like the idea of having 2+2 transverse seats at the ends of the cars, because I like transverse seats better than aisle-facing ones. But given the layout of the R143/160/179 cars, you likely wouldn’t have any more seats at the ends of the cars than you do now because there’s just not that much space between the bulkheads and the side doors. With the R211s’ wider side doors, there will be even less space there.

The MTA sort of tried this back in 1990 when they cut the weekend to Canal. It proved very unpopular (especially because there was no at Canal and the ran via the tunnel full time back then), so it was extended to Chambers. Even this wasn’t well received and eventually the was extended back to Broad on weekends and has remained there ever since, even after the 2010 service cuts.