Mysterious2train

Yes, R211Ts 4040-4049 were seen at Concourse Yard recently while on vacation from the . 

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fr211-location-v0-fnus6gau9o0d1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D4032%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D961a45fd1d7cae256e528941d2263055776f1c4c

Not my picture - was posted on Reddit last week. 

2 hours ago, r40s 4501 said:

Option two was never confirmed only option one

Again, the agency is already in the process of requesting the federal funding to buy the option 2 cars this year.

And the agency already ordered the CBTC equipment for the option 2 cars. If you read the link from last October's board meeting (emphasis mine):

Quote

Contract S-48013-2 (the “Contract”) provides for communication-based train control (“CBTC”) equipment for New York City Transit’s R211 subway cars that will operate on the 8th Avenue Line. MTA Construction & Development (“C&D”) requests Board approval to exercise the second option of the Contract – for additional R211 CBTC equipment in the amount of $10,123,326 (“Option 2”). The Contract was awarded to Thales Transport and Security, Inc. (“Thales”) in March 2019, and ratified by the Board in October 2019, following a declaration of an Immediate Operating Need by the New York City Transit (“NYCT”) Vice President, Materiel. Thales has since been acquired by Ground Transportation Systems USA, Inc. but continues to do business as Thales. The Contract requires Thales to furnish and deliver carborne CBTC equipment to the car manufacturer Kawasaki to outfit 92 (five-car) R211 operating units. (The 440 R211As + 20 R211Ts in the base order) The Contract includes two options to outfit additional units. Option 1 was exercised with Board approval in March 2022 to acquire CBTC equipment for an additional 128 R211 units. (The 640 option 1 cars) This Option 2 will require Thales to furnish and deliver carborne CBTC equipment for an additional 89 R211 units for $10,123,326. (The 437 option 2 cars) The purchase of the railcars contemplated in Option 1 was approved by the Board in November 2022. NYCT now plans to purchase the quantity of railcars contemplated in Option 2. The exercise of this Option 2 is required to provide the necessary CBTC equipment for the additional cars to be acquired by NYCT.

Also forgot to mention that next month's board and committee meetings include the annual update on rolling stock, so I suppose the MTA will announce their plans to order the option 2 cars (And possibly if they will be R211As or R211Ts, though as I understand it, the contract allows the MTA to order the options without immediately committing to the layout, or at least this was the case for the option 1 cars).

On 5/8/2024 at 5:17 PM, subwaycommuter1983 said:

That's 30 NTTs for the "A" train. 

Don't be surprised if within a couple of weeks from now, the "A" train will only use the r46's during rush hour and by the summer time, the "A" train will most likely be fully NTTs.

On 5/9/2024 at 1:14 AM, JayJay85 said:

Yea, That this rate  will be fully NTT by middle of the summer, and R46's will only be on the  for awhile, after that R179's will start coming off both the  lines, even through I want the R179 to stay on  , TA should worry about the R179's on  last.

That's a little bit unrealistic. The  currently has 17 R211As that have entered service, and we know they're not all used each day. There's also another ~3 trainsets that are here in the system but haven't entered service yet. I would conservatively guess that only around 13-14 are currently actually out there each day, but again, just a guess on my part. Could be more. The is assigned 40 trains each PM rush, including 10 R179s (not including spares), so we know the  will need ~30 R211As each PM Rush (again, not including spares). Including spares, I would guess what, 35-36 trainsets?* Which would be another 15-16 trainsets we'll need delivered? Assuming Kawasaki delivers 30 R211As each month, and it takes the MTA 3 weeks to 1 month to push trainsets into service, I would guess what, another ~6 months before the R46s are gone from the  (During rush hour anyway - maybe sooner during off-peak hours). Though with the R211S (hopefully) also being delivered over the next few months, I've no idea how much capacity for deliveries there is and if that might take away from the R211A deliveries. If the pace of R211A deliveries slows down for any other reason, that would also push back the date for the  to be R46-free.

* - If there's 35-36 R211A trainsets on the , that would leave 8 or 9 from the base order for the , which seems about right. 

On 5/10/2024 at 12:52 AM, Around the Horn said:

I've noticed that for whatever reason they love to run them in clumps of four or five of them back to back

Maybe, though with the Rockaways branches being so much longer than the Lefferts branch, I would assume that even if cars started service on each branch evenly throughout the morning, you'd still see clumping at different points during the day (even if temporarily)

3 hours ago, Comrade96 said:

option 2 has been confirmed? since when

All but confirmed. In 2019, the MTA awarded a contact to Thales to manufacture CBTC equipment for Kawasaki to install on the R211s and in October 2023, the agency exercised an option in their contract that would cover the option 2 cars. And the option 2 order itself was one of the projects in this year's request for federal funding. (If you're wondering why the MTA exercised the option for additional CBTC equipment before ordering the actual cars, the presentation states that this option in the contract with Thales was going to expire in November of last year, so the agency exercised the option right before it expired rather than go through the trouble of bidding and awarding a new contract, which also saved money).

2 hours ago, Kriston Lewis said:

The bulletin that was passed around stated that they could not run express in customer service between either 125-59 or Utica-Hoyt. Any other segment is fine.

No, the bulletin specifically said Euclid Av to Hoyt-Schermerhorn. I would repost the bulletin here but the mods removed it when I posted it the first time. Here is the the original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/19c9r4n/r211t_to_start_service_on_the_c_line/?share_id=h5wxmAzdWT1mTNuDSCATt&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=4

There were definitely some passengers still on the train, so either the MTA subsequently retracted or modified that ban, or somebody messed up.

On 3/15/2024 at 3:37 PM, Lawrence St said:

Ordering four car R179’s was absolutely unnecessary in the first place (except the ones for ENY). If the plan was to always have the  become full length, why order four car sets in the first place?

Now you have this mess of fleet uniformity because the  has always been the oddball of 8th Ave. Sure the R211’s will sort of fix the problem, but where will you send the four car R179’s?

Simple answer is when the MTA ordered the R179s, they were planning to keep the  at 480' for the foreseeable future. Just read this excerpt from the  line review (which was released in 2015 after the R179 order was placed)

Quote

There have been periodic requests for the operation of full-length 600-foot trains on the C in lieu of the current 480-foot trains. ... However, based on projections for C ridership incorporating regional employment, population, and transportation forecasts, NYC Transit projects that C loading with 480-foot trains at current frequencies will remain within NYC Transit Rapid Transit Loading Guideline levels5 into the 2020s....Full-length C trains would require an additional 44 cars at a cost of over $100 million. Currently, the cars necessary for 600-foot C trains are not included in the MTA Capital Program. Increasing C trains to 600 feet using existing rolling stock would be an inefficient use of NYC Transit resources because other lines with higher ridership would be required to operate the 480-foot-long trains6 currently assigned to the C, resulting in heavier crowding on those lines.

As others have alluded to the R179s were at one point intended to provide some extra cars for the opening of the Second Avenue Subway. The MTA issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the R179s in 2010 with a base order of 290 cars, and an option of 50 cars. A second option of 80 cars was added with the intention of providing extra cars for the opening of the SAS. I can't find an exact breakdown but the order was intended to be a majority 5-car sets. So the might have been able to graduate to full-length trains. But by the time the contract was actually awarded to Kawasaki in March 2012, the order was shrunk to a 300 car base order with no options with 260 cars in 4-car sets and 40 in 5-car sets. So as ordered, the vast majority of the fleet was to be 4-car sets (making 32.5 8-car trains) with only four 10-car trains. If the R179 fleet was delivered as ordered, then the  would have presumably used exclusively or almost exclusively 4-car R179 sets, at least in the short-term until the R211s was delivered, and the would have been almost entirely R46s and used at most four R179 sets.

Of course, what actually happened is due to Bombardier completely sh*tting the bed with the order, the MTA negotiated an extra eighteen cars in the order, taking what would have been eighteen 4-car sets and turning them into 5-car sets, increasing the number of 10-car train sets from four as originally ordered to an ultimate total of thirteen (and likewise reducing the ultimate number of eight-car trains from 32.5 to 23.5). This allowed the  to use almost a dozen R179 sets each day which freed up some R46s to use on the . So really, it was just the MTA making the most of a bad situation that the  ended up with a mixed fleet.

Additionally, do we actually have any indication from the MTA besides our own speculation that the agency wants to make the  full length now? For all I now, the agency could be fine leaving the  as mixed length for the next few decades - we know the agency was fine leaving the  at 480 ft long last decade.

Bulletin was posted on Reddit, so here it is:
 

[images removed] - mod team 

12 hours ago, Michael J Q Last Bus said:

Exact page??

This is it.

As a reminder, we know 4060-4069 was taken out of passenger service at least once, on or around April 5th, due to what seemed to be because of door issues.

Some Reddit users have claimed 4060-4069 was taken out of service again earlier today, including one who said they saw it sitting at Euclid this afternoon.

Another user on that Subreddit's chat thread claimed that the train lost power this morning between 207th and Dyckman which is why it was taken OOS. No idea how accurate that is though.

2 hours ago, NBTA said:

When the service fully runs to Grand Central (not this shuttle thing), I believe trains will run there all night. I could be wrong as always.

The draft East Side Access schedules show no service to/from Grand Central Madison between ~1:45 AM and 5:45 AM.  

3 hours ago, BreeddekalbL said:

anymore deliveries coming soon?

To add on to what Around the Horn said, as of the last update to the MTA board committees back in June 2021, the 20 R211T cars (open gangway) are scheduled to arrive in June of this year, and the next set of 10 R211A cars (a.k.a. the beginning of the actual production order) is scheduled to arrive in September. 

38 minutes ago, Metajore said:

How many of the R46's are going to be replaced? The base order cannot possibly replace all of the R46's.

The base order has 440 R211As, which is just enough to retire the ~350 or so R46s at Pitkin/207th, which squares with the goal of putting them on the  for 8th Ave CBTC, on paper anyway.

1 hour ago, RestrictOnTheHanger said:

Is there a slow order somewhere that is causing this?

Looks to be related to this

Quote

ACCESSIBILITY IMPROVEMENTS
Mon to Fri, 6:30 AM to 9 AM, Jun 21 - Oct 29
Downtown trains will stop at 138 St-Grand Concourse during the morning rush hour 

Reminder: Downtown trains stop at this station all other times. 

 

ACCESSIBILITY IMPROVEMENTS
Mon to Fri, 4 PM to 6 PM, Jun 21 - Oct 29
Uptown trains will stop at 138 St-Grand Concourse during the evening rush hour 

Reminder: Uptown trains stop at this station all other times. 

Somebody more in the know can confirm, but guessing the middle track at 149th on Jerome is being used to store equipment for the ADA accessibility work at the complex, so the  is running on the local track in both directions, and to reduce potential merging delays between 138th and 149th a handful of  trips are being sent via 7th Ave. Those rerouted trips seem to only be during the AM though.

31 minutes ago, shiznit1987 said:

Do you think once the CBTC work is done on Queens Blvd the MTA will consider adding a second weekend local like the  or even  

No. Even after the Queens Blvd West CBTC project wraps up, the current 2020-2024 capital program calls for CBTC installation on the Crosstown and 63rd St lines (as well as Astoria/60th St and the Queens Blvd Line from Kew Gardens to 179th St and Archer Ave). And we will presumably see funding for CBTC on the 6th Avenue and Broadway mainlines in a future capital program(s).  Which makes the idea of major expansions in B-Division weekend service likely DOA for a decade or two. Even after those CBTC projects are done, the MTA can play the "we're broke" and "we can't run extra service because of regular maintenance" cards. Might be the cynic in me but I'm a little skeptical that we'll ever even see the current garbage 12-minute weekend headways on half of the B-division reverted. 

On 5/11/2021 at 9:28 PM, paulrivera said:

"B train service has ended early for the evening after our crews addressed a power problem affecting the signaling system between ‌Prince St and ‌Canal St on the NQRW."

 

As per the MTA data feeds for this week, the  and  (in Manhattan) are all scheduled to end early this week (except Friday), presumably due to the 6th Ave Fastrack:

 - Lost 4 round trips, Last train from 145th scheduled to depart 8:35 PM (normally 9:15 PM); Last train from Brighton Beach 8:14 PM (normally 8:54 PM)

 - Lost 2 round trips, Last train from Forest Hills 8:06 PM (normally 8:27); Last train from Metropolitan to Manhattan 8:14 PM (normally 8:38). Service between Delancey-Essex and Myrtle also ending 2 hours early which is also attributed to Fastrack. 

 - Lost 9(!) round trips, Last train from Ditmars 7:48 PM (normally 9:26 PM); Last train from Whitehall 8:38 PM (normally 10:14)

So the  was already ending a little early, and perhaps they just attributed it to/it just got mixed in with the big FUBAR on Broadway yesterday. I stayed in Queens yesterday, but I did see one Jamaica-bound  signed up as via Crosstown, so I'm assuming 6th Ave was a real Clusterf. No clue why the  is ending so much earlier than normal. though. Hope this isn't the start of even more G.O. creep.

18 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

Here they are in all their glory: (not my video)

 

A bit bland that the B-cars don't have any color to them, especially compared to the M-8s shown in the same video!

One of the many renderings did show a blue horizontal stripe on the bottom with diagonal yellow stripe, but it looks like it was only on the A-cars and was replaced by the diagonal stripes. The wraps on the R160s come off as tacky to me (I think because they were added later on, compared to being an "intrinsic" part of the design like with the M9s and R211s, at least once the designs were finalized/hijacked by Cuomo) but I do at least like that on them the blue continues on the side of the A-cars onto the B-cars (though I don't love the blue wrap being on the top half). Ideal for me would've been the horizontal blue stripe on the bottom half of all the cars with the thin yellow stripe above that.

33 minutes ago, subwaycommuter1983 said:

Makes sense.

in fact the base order r211A's consists of

440 cars = 44 10 car trains

Pitkin currently has 

352 cars = 44 8 car trains

Makes sense indeed but I have a feeling we're still going to see posts about how the base order could/should go to Jamaica or Coney Island, or how the R160s should be moved here or there, etc.

26 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Would it make sense in order to save money on the budget, to convert the R211S order into regular R211's and send them to NYCT, and send the best R46's to SIR to replace the R44's?

The MTA and Kawasaki would have to renegotiate the order contract to do that, possibly costing the MTA more money, though at least it would hypothetically be easier/cheaper to do now compared to later on since Kawasaki is still working on the test sets and hasn't moved on to the production sets yet. Regardless, what would this accomplish? What does "budget" mean in this context? Are you referring to the capital budgets or annual operating budgets? How would this save money, since the same number of R211 cars would make up the base order and the subway and SIR would be using the same number of cars to make service? (and again, putting aside that renegotiating the contract might just increase the price). How long would those R46s be expected to stay on Staten Island? Until the option orders, if they're ordered? It's not like they can stick around forever. Sounds like this would just rob Peter to pay Paul.

2 hours ago, Stormxx said:

When phase 2 of the second avenue subway commences, the  better have its R211's or R160's. Phase 2 almost costs more than the base order of the R211 itself. 

Don't worry, even if Uncle Joe and Congress actually do provide some Fedbux soon to fund phase 2, it wouldn't open until the end of this decade at the absolute earliest - more likely into the next decade. If the R46s are still around by then, the MTA will have much bigger problems to deal with.

12 hours ago, GojiMet86 said:

Has the number of 8-car units been specified yet?

Indirectly, yes. In the Oct 2019 board and committee meetings the MTA board approved awarding a contract to Thales to install CBTC equipment onboard the R211s. The contract stated that the 2nd R211 option order of 437 cars would be in 89 4-car and 5-car sets. That works out to 405 cars in sets of 5 (81 sets, 40.5 full trains) and 32 cars in sets of 4 (8 sets, 4 full trains).

Good 'ol former NYS Deputy Police Superintendent and Nassau County Assistant Police Commissioner David "Why should I ride and inconvenience myself when I can ride in a car?” Mack.

17 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Why was 63rd St not included in part of the QBL CBTC project?

The CBTC project was split into 2 phases. The first phase includes the QBL mainline from 8 Av-50 St to Kew Gardens and was funded in previous capital programs. The next phase is (was?) part of the 2020-2024 program and includes 63rd Street (the 6th Av-Queens line) and Kew Gardens to 179 St and Archer Av.

On 12/16/2020 at 12:53 PM, Lawrence St said:

So since I've been seeing M8's on the SLE, will the New Haven line be extended to SLE or will it just run as a shuttle?

No plans to do any through-running that I'm aware of (beyond the peak-hour SLE trips to Stamford that already exist, anyway). It would just be regular Shore Line East service. I do think the MTA or CTDOT paid a little lip service to the idea of limited through-running in some planning document or other a long time ago, if I'm not misremembering, but I don't remember off the top of my head. There's also SLE platforms and consists being a lot shorter than typical New Haven Line trains to consider as well.

On 12/16/2020 at 1:59 PM, trainfan22 said:

The New Haven line will not be extended to New London. If M8 run on SLE, it will be an separate service from the NH line service. If the NH line got extended to serve SLE stops, the run time would be an whopping three hours!

 

 

Plus, who would want to sit on an M8 for three hours? 

Could be even longer - assuming a standard express from NYC to Stamford, then local to New Haven, you'd probably be looking at closer to 3.5 hours from NYC to New London (compared to about 2.5 hours on Amtrak). Granted, making fewer stops like those (former?) peak-hour expresses certainly could cut down the run time. 

On 12/16/2020 at 8:34 PM, Lex said:

Well, I wouldn't be so quick to say this. After all, it would make direct service to/from Grand Central and Penn Station much easier.

I get the appeal of Metro-North/SLE through service, though (and this is definitely getting out of Metro-North territory) I would much rather see Connecticut and Rhode Island complete their plans of bringing SLE and Rhode Island commuter rail service service together at Westerly, RI to help fill in one of the last commuter rail gaps along the Northeast Corridor. Not that either state has devoted much funding to this over the last decade though.

On 12/16/2020 at 9:00 PM, checkmatechamp13 said:

Before March, was there any weekend service north of Southeast, and if so, how much? 

Scoots between Wassaic and Southeast, typically every two hours. Prior to March 2018, there was also one through train from Wassaic to GCT each day on Saturday and Sunday, though this was discontinued due to track work.

Something that apparently slipped under the radar: John Longobardi, Chief Transportation Officer at Metro-North, told the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council at their October meeting that the supplemental 60-car order of M-8s had started arriving, but hadn't started testing yet (almost a year late, since the order was approved in November 2016 and was expected to start arriving after three years, but obviously the least of Metro-North and Shore Line East's problems this past year).

M-8 tests in Shore Line East territory are progressing as well, as they have been for some five years now?

Some relevant tweets. So this route is starting this weekend, poles installed, and the MTA has yet to officially announce it to the public? I definitely don't see any info on the website. 

8 hours ago, happy283 said:

Manufacturing issues stem from a root problem which is the bidding proccess. The MTA should have signed a contract with one manufacturer (in my opinion it should be Kawasaki) and have that company make all NYCT cars going forward. When you have the bidding which is the MTA trying to get the cheapest thing out there, things are bound to go wrong. You know what they say, you get what you pay for. This is a perfect example of that.

5 hours ago, happy283 said:

Prices would go up but in theory the contract could include a set price and protection for the MTA to prevent negligence. They have proven they can manufacture quality cars so they would be expected to do so as part of the contract.

Kawasaki is a reliable carbuilder for the MTA, certainly more so than Bombardier at this point (as low as that bar is) but relying on them to be NYCT's sole carbuilder would be asking for trouble. Even if we assume Kawasaki acts with the MTA's best interests in mind and wouldn't try to take advantage of their monopoly, any delays they experience could have a domino effect on their orders. While we've all heard about the delays with the M9s, and we're prepared for the possibility that the R211s could be delayed too, there's also the additional 60-car M8 order for Metro-North (and (formerly?) Shore Line East?)  - supposed to start arriving back around September and is now some 9 months late. I don't think we've heard anybody from the MTA/CDOT/Kawasaki come out and give a reason for the M8 delays, but I would assume the M9 delays have pushed back work on the M8s. Granted, delays and setbacks are normal, and the M8 order is a small, supplemental order meant primarily to increase service as opposed to retiring an older fleet, and there's presumably little need for those extra M8s right now with ridership down due to COVID.  But in a world where demand shoots back up, we really shouldn't open up NYCT to a situation where an issue with Kawasaki or any hypothetical sole manufacturer production ended up delaying multiple big car orders. The MTA already only has a handful of bidders willing to work with it. Restrictive low-bidding laws are certainly something to look at, but going with a single manufacturer is just restrictive in a different direction.