R188 7857

Well they did not learn how to not destroy public property. If every rider was transit fans like we are I'm pretty sure the buses and trains would be much cleaner.

Everybody would be holding cameras, taking pictures of every train in every station... And if something rare happens, I guess it would be safe to say that every station would be crowded with people holding cameras. Yeah............ 

8087 repainted

Usual rush hour:

local comes in, leaves immediately after everyone boards.

express comes in, everyone boards, waits 5 minutes to leave- ends up getting loaded to the point where nobody can get on, yet didn't pass the local train.

Two Q13s leave packed up to the door (which shouldn't happen since you can only go up to the white line).

Bus signed up as a Q28 departs layover, switches to Q16 after a chat with an employee (couldn't tell what he was). Two Q16s pick up an extra long line, and leave. Finally, three Q28's come and pick up the line that stretches two complete bus stops. On the ride home, a few Q28s and Q13s pass, two Q28s go to Flushing together, then there's one more on Crocheron, and the next one hasn't departed Bay Terrace yet. Looking on bus time, in between 5 Q28s (between F. Lewis & 35th and Flushing) going to Bay Terrace, there is not a single one heading to Flushing. The only one heading to Flushing is about  to meet the 1st of the 5 buses, and the rest of the buses on the Q28 are the 3 that are heading to Bay Terrace together. 

However, things are starting to get back to normal. Other than two Q28s going to Bay Terrace together and a longer than expected service gap for Flushing bound buses, buses are pretty evenly spaced for the most part. 

What's your rush hour like?  

EDIT: On another note, I did spot an XD40 in CS. Think it is 7366. 

If you are talking about the CNG's then no, they will not last at all... The first OG hybrids, which are actually coming up for retirement will be around longer than the CNG's. The fist of them have already reached their service lives of 12 years.

From what I see, I wouldn't tell the difference between the very first OG hybrids from the very last OG hybrids if it wasn't for the sign, the different floors in the interior, and the addition of another stop request light. 

I honesty think that the OG's are pretty strong buses that can last, but with the issues of hybrids I don't think that they would last too long.

Bayside High School has summer school there, and often times I see 3-4 buses running back to back filled with students to Flushing. There is no reason that explains why at 12 PM there would be 3 buses filled with people going to Flushing. All Q28. Not saying that is what it was today, as I only saw that on BusTime, but other days when I'm out I see buses like that, even in the middle of the summer. However, 2 out of the 3 buses that were running did go out of service (including 4900 and one of the NG's). School trippers - that's what I assume they are. 

So 4900 did a single run on the Q28 today, and I'm pretty sure it was a school tripper since it was running alongside two other NGs that were from CS. JA does trippers for the Q28 now?

4900 is on the Q28, don't know if it's gonna stay there. 

I noticed how several V's on the q32 where rusting severely. 6051 is rusting on the inside under the run number display. It's pretty bad. Most if not all the V's on the q32 are in bad shape. One of the rusted black-back V's got retired recently Only one that didn't actually look bad was 6012 which I walked by when I was at the last stop today.  

 

And that's strange. I thought Stengel was gonna get the 2015 LFS's, not the XD40's.

Majority of the Orion V's at the moment city-wide have that rusting going on at the run number display.

Some good ones:

6034, 6012 (ex-Eastchester), and 6340(I think that was the last Orion V to get repainted, not sure). 

Everything else either has rusting around the wheels, peeling paint, or broken bodies. Some might even have everything. 

I'm gonna be honest right now, I don't think the RTS would have lasted as long as it is now if they spent most, if not all of their lives on Staten Island. One bus I know needs retirement is 6191. They haven't given that thing a wash in forever and it's falling apart. When 1305 and 1306 retired, they were still in somewhat better condition than some of the 6000's...

Those buses out on SI are terrible. I got an ex-Staten Island bus yesterday out of Casey Stengel and man every time we hit a bump it felt like any bump I could have bounced all the way up where I would hit my head on the roof..

6871, 6902, 6893 repainted. 

This might just be my 100th complaint about the Q28, I gotta ask, why in the hell would this driver just go out with an empty bus? When everybody boarded the bus at Flushing, we make the turn and a completely empty Q28 comes around and passes us, picking up people at one stop than going straight to whatever stop they get off at. The thing that made me even more mad was the fact that 3 people boarded my bus, when there was a Q28 that passed them 1 minute ago (barely 1 minute). The driver that decided to go to Bay Terrace completely empty was parked at the bus stop when I turned the corner from the Roosevelt-39 Av connector, while the one I was on just dropped off it's passenger and started another run immediately. By my (maybe flawed) logic, its either he should have picked up some passengers at Flushing if he was gonna make the run to Bay Terrace or straight up deadhead there if one of the buses were completely off schedule. I'm pretty sure a deadhead would be faster than running the full route carrying less than 10 passengers. However, not gonna assume that it was the bus driver's fault as there might have been some other reasoning behind it. Maybe someone can clarify that to me. 

This doesn't seem right. 

They have started mismatching the sets unfortunately. 7220-7216 have been coupled with 7305-7301. 

Pics coming soon

Isn't 7220-7216 one of the sets that has CBTC installed? 

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if they started to pair 78xx sets to 72xx-75xx sets in the future. 

4674 is on the Q20B. Don't know if loan or transfer.

Yeah but that rarely happens. Orion's on the Q44 and Q10 happen everyday and there is plenty of artics sitting in the depot.

I can understand JFK because they are also overwhelmed with FR's buses and the Q10 is like JFK's highest priority line. So they pull buses off other lines like the Q6 and Q41 and put them on the Q10. I don't know what CS excuse it because they have enough artics to cover the Q44 with spares.

Aren't there only certain operators that are trained to drive artics? Most of the time when 40 footers are on the Q44 there aren't much, from 1-3 and sometimes none. Most of the time I see them they either are a bit ahead or a bit behind an artic Q44. Maybe they are just extras to help out. I know for sure that once SBS comes than it would be fully artic (well I think everyone does), but for now I guess they have extra 40 footers on the Q44.

There was a few more then 4 out, they do have spares in the yard

There should definitely be more than 4 sets out, I remember seeing quite a few during the PM rush the other day as well as some in the yard as well. 

Jeez, is Casey Stengel like the dumping grounds for Orion Vs? Since CS changed up their sticker by changing some colors, I can usually tell which buses were there for quite some time and which ones came from other depots/boroughs. Recently, I've been riding buses a lot, and I notice that many of the Orion Vs at CS are being held together by tape, looks to be rusting around the wheels, and also have peeling paint. However, a majority of the buses that I've seen that on are buses with the new stickers. Now, I'm not saying that all of the buses with the new stickers come from the Bronx/Staten Island and that they all are beat up, but it's just a trend. Some of the buses that were at CS for a long time also have those issues, and I do understand that the fleet in general is starting to age. I do wonder why many of the buses getting received are noticeably in worse conditions than the ones that were originally there. There are some good ones I can point out, which includes 6038 and some others that came from the Bronx (I think Eastchester). However, some of them (6132 I think, and a 62xx I was just on) are just in terrible condition. I wonder how it's like out in Staten Island, where I guess their buses are infamous for bad maintenance. 

So about what time (month/year) will the MTA NYCT Orion V's will become extinct? 

Friend just sent me a video of a few redbirds pulling some Corona R62As up the 8th Ave line at 59th Street. The R62As were singles, one of them #1906. Maybe this is the summer swap of redbirds for 62As on the work fleet? Or something weird.

I remember just last week seeing a train on the 7 with a 5-car set paired to 6 singles. That might have been the one that I saw, not sure though.

Well, I'm on 3736 on the Q29, with almost a completely full bus (sitting and standees) at the first stop (82 Street), and the bus seems to have broken down. Isn't this nice.

 

EDIT: Seems like the bus is making progress in moving. Let's see how long it lasts before it happens again.

 

2nd EDIT: Seems like it happened again on 92 Street and 48 Avenue.

 

3rd EDIT: Luckily a bus wasn't that far down. The bus was surprisingly SRO only.

What does SRO stand for?

So while on the road today, I saw a XD40 (7439???) that is MTA Bus on the Van Wyck, no depot stickers, looks fresh.

Also saw an Orion VII CNG (don't remember number) on the LIE, with a paper taped to the back window. 

If this wasn't mentioned yet:

6038 is at CS running w/ KB stickers.

4186 repainted