R179 Discussion Thread

[bobtehpanda]

2 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

First of all, you get what you pay for. Chinese quality isn't quite there yet and won't be for years to come. Second, why should we buy from a country that wouldn't buy trains from us in the first place?

By that logic, we shouldn't buy any trains from anybody, because nobody buys American trains. Looking at the quality of American cars vs other countries, I don't blame em. 

[Around the Horn]

3 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

Siemens and Alstom are merging.

then that's even better cause now you have plant space in Sacremento (Siemens) and Alstom (Hornell) 

[TheNewYorkElevated]

1 hour ago, bobtehpanda said:

By that logic, we shouldn't buy any trains from anybody, because nobody buys American trains. Looking at the quality of American cars vs other countries, I don't blame em. 

A lot of the best U.S. train companies died a long time ago. If they were still here, the transit industry would be a very different place. 

[ArtoisMTA]

On 1/7/2011 at 12:07 PM, 553 Bridgeton said:

Hope Kawasaki gets it.

Me too, but Bombardier should do a good job... I hope

[bobtehpanda]

9 hours ago, TheNewYorkElevated said:

A lot of the best U.S. train companies died a long time ago. If they were still here, the transit industry would be a very different place. 

Sure. But they made their own bed and got to lie in it. French companies and German companies and Japanese companies, and now Chinese companies, were able to sell their stuff abroad to make up for a small market back home. American products were just not compelling outside of the American market.

[RR503]

1 hour ago, bobtehpanda said:

Sure. But they made their own bed and got to lie in it. French companies and German companies and Japanese companies, and now Chinese companies, were able to sell their stuff abroad to make up for a small market back home. American products were just not compelling outside of the American market.

I don’t think it’s that simple. All of the companies you refer to really got started domestically during the massive global wave of post-WW2 infrastructure investment, the one that brought the world services like the Shinkansen. Pretty much everywhere on the planet save for the US spent large sums on all three major transport modes (air/road/rail). The US, however, spent almost its entire investment on the former two modes, starving rail equipment manufacturing companies of the capital and market necessary for them to advance at a similar pace as their foreign counterparts. It would have been one thing if this had been made up for in private expenditure, but it simply wasn’t. By 1950, almost all US common carriers were dead set on divesting their passenger ops, instead focusing their ever dwindling resources on the still-profitable freight business. Thus, as that wave ended, the manufacturers which had benefitted from domestic investment were singularly ready to attack the foreign market as trade barriers fell in the 60s/70s/80s — which is exactly what happened. 

I think it’s telling of this capital allocation issue that while we have no passenger equipment manufacturers to speak of, our nation’s freight OEMs are still among the leading providers of rail cargo equipment in the world. 

Edited July 5, 2018 by RR503

[Via Garibaldi 8]

6 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Sure. But they made their own bed and got to lie in it. French companies and German companies and Japanese companies, and now Chinese companies, were able to sell their stuff abroad to make up for a small market back home. American products were just not compelling outside of the American market.

Oh please with the BS.  The French, Germans, Japanese and Chinese are ALL protectionists, and those companies are definitely propped up by the local governments to ensure that they succeed.  Let's put everything on the table here.  I'm not going to sit here and say that American train cars were great, but let's be real here.  The countries that we're discussing are all known for their protectionist policies, and anytime the U.S. says anything about manufacturing here to keep our tax dollars HERE and create GOOD paying jobs HERE, everyone is up in arms. The anti-American sentiment is disgusting.  You wonder why you're in Washington instead of here.  All of those low paying service jobs aren't sustainable.  I have no problem using a Japanese, German or French company, as long as they have a manufacturing plant here in NY where they're creating and keeping money here locally instead of it being outsourced to China and elsewhere.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

23 hours ago, kosciusko said:

It's far more complicated then just simply "in the country" and "out of the country." The NYS Economy doesn't exist in a vacuum. The stipulation doesn't guarantee that money stays in NY anyway. Alstom built the r160s in Brazil and only sent them to NY for final assembly. Same deal with Kawasaki. The brunt of the construction isn't done in NY regardless so the stipulation only serves to obstruct other companies from bidding.

Some with the r143's, they were all built in Japan, then sent to Yonkers for final assembly.

Given the way the global economy works, what we have now is about as good as it is going to get, and it's very simple.  If upstate New York continues to lose jobs, downstate New York will be footing more and more of the taxes which are already sky high as it is.  I would much rather the current set up with that stipulation in place where more monies stay here locally as opposed to more monies going elsewhere.

[bobtehpanda]

5 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Oh please with the BS.  The French, Germans, Japanese and Chinese are ALL protectionists, and those companies are definitely propped up by the local governments to ensure that they succeed.  Let's put everything on the table here.  I'm not going to sit here and say that American train cars were great, but let's be real here.  The countries that we're discussing are all known for their protectionist policies, and anytime the U.S. says anything about manufacturing here to keep our tax dollars HERE and create GOOD paying jobs HERE, everyone is up in arms. The anti-American sentiment is disgusting.  You wonder why you're in Washington instead of here.  All of those low paying service jobs aren't sustainable.  I have no problem using a Japanese, German or French company, as long as they have a manufacturing plant here in NY where they're creating and keeping money here locally instead of it being outsourced to China and elsewhere.

The protectionist sentiment has usually ended up with American transit systems spending more money for worse train cars. How is the R179 order doing in Plattsburgh? Or Amtrak's order for railcars?  Or the 7000-series DC Metro cars? The list goes on and on. Jobs are important, but you also can't then also complain that 'the MTA spends too much money', because it costs a lot of taxpayer money to buy American.

The last American passenger railcar companies went out of business because the MTA sued them out of existence due to a lack of quality. Contrast that, with, say, Boeing, which even in the era of protectionism sold a lot of planes to countries that had their own aviation industry.

Edited July 5, 2018 by bobtehpanda

[Via Garibaldi 8]

3 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

The protectionist sentiment has usually ended up with American transit systems spending more money for worse train cars. How is the R179 order doing in Plattsburgh? Or Amtrak's order for railcars?  Or the 7000-series DC Metro cars? The list goes on and on. Jobs are important, but you also can't then also complain that 'the MTA spends too much money', because it costs a lot of taxpayer money to buy American.

The last American passenger railcar companies went out of business because the MTA sued them out of existence due to a lack of quality. Contrast that, with, say, Boeing, which even in the era of protectionism sold a lot of planes to countries that had their own aviation industry.

I love how you completely glossed over how I stated that the other countries that you talked about prop up the rail companies that you claimed are doing oh so great.  They're not doing so great on their own.  It's because the French, the Germans, the Japanese AND the Chinese believe in protectionism and protect these companies, so why is it so horrible for us to do the same?  It's BS.  

[bobtehpanda]

2 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I love how you completely glossed over how I stated that the other countries that you talked about prop up the rail companies that you claimed are doing oh so great.  They're not doing so great on their own.  It's because the French, the Germans, the Japanese AND the Chinese believe in protectionism and protect these companies, so why is it so horrible for us to do the same?  It's BS.  

If you see all the cool kids throwing money into a fire, do you also throw your own money into a fire? "Everybody's doing it" is a poor reason to do things.

The French economy has no job growth, the Germans have no wage growth, and the Chinese are bracing for a massive economic correction as we speak. Conversely, America is posting record unemployment numbers. So make of that what you will.

Edited July 5, 2018 by bobtehpanda

[Via Garibaldi 8]

6 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

If you see all the cool kids throwing money into a fire, do you also throw your own money into a fire? "Everybody's doing it" is a poor reason to do things.

The French economy has no job growth, the Germans have no wage growth, and the Chinese are bracing for a massive economic correction as we speak. Conversely, America is posting record unemployment numbers. So make of that what you will.

You're the one that pitched these railroad companies as doing so great, not me.  All I'm saying is they're not doing so great on their own, so your comments are false in that regard.  Protectionism is helping those companies and for once instead of us banking on low paying service jobs, how about we throw our hats behind GOOD paying jobs.   By service jobs I mean more low paying jobs at Target.  We have more than enough of those and look where they've gotten us...

Furthermore, you can't have it both ways.  If you want to have some kind of jobs that pay decently upstate then sacrifices have to be made.  Sure, we can get rid of the Made in NY stipulation and see how much worse off the upstate would be, and how much more New Yorkers living in NYC would pay in taxes. Upstate New York has been dying for YEARS now.  They've had very little growth in jobs, and a shrinking tax base as people flee and leave the state entirely.  You can complain all you want about "Made in NY", but it's a necessity at this point for the region.  For all of your complaining, there are definitely some advantages to building locally, some of which surely you must be aware of.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Via Garibaldi 8

[RR503]

5 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Oh please with the BS.  The French, Germans, Japanese and Chinese are ALL protectionists, and those companies are definitely propped up by the local governments to ensure that they succeed.  Let's put everything on the table here.  I'm not going to sit here and say that American train cars were great, but let's be real here.  The countries that we're discussing are all known for their protectionist policies, and anytime the U.S. says anything about manufacturing here to keep our tax dollars HERE and create GOOD paying jobs HERE, everyone is up in arms. The anti-American sentiment is disgusting.  You wonder why you're in Washington instead of here.  All of those low paying service jobs aren't sustainable.  I have no problem using a Japanese, German or French company, as long as they have a manufacturing plant here in NY where they're creating and keeping money here locally instead of it being outsourced to China and elsewhere.

Again, saying “they were protectionist and we weren’t ergo we lost” is a gross and pretty misleading oversimplification. From the time of the Marshall Plan, we pretty consistently strong-armed those foreign markets (with the exception of China) you mentioned open to receive our goods, while we — until Reagan, really — didn’t reciprocate. If you look at European /Japanese airline fleets from that era, you’ll see evidence of just that — masses Douglases, Convairs, Boeings, with only a smattering of Vickers, Hawker-Siddley, Sud-Aviation, etc. To continue with that previous example, such fleets remained really until the 1980s when Airbus — an organization about as antithetical to protectionism as one can get — appeared. 

Back to rail, the real difference was again, one of national priorities. A reliable domestic market is an unnegotiable imperative for pretty much any transport company. You need that familiarity with your products, level of economic sheliding from vascillations in international relations, and a market of cheap delivery. America simply didn’t provide that for its car builders, and they thus disinvested, and, well, disappeared. I also want you to look at the trains next time you’re in France/Germany. You’ll be surprised to find how many of them are built abroad... 

To the larger point of foreign companies eating up American market share by exploiting trade regs, it is again nowhere near that simple. I’d actually argue that in many industries, the blow was actually just as much a self-inflicted one as it was an international one. 

Everyone loves talking about steel, so let’s use that as an example. During the 60s and 70s, protectionism shielded American steel companies from any meaningful external competition. They thus got complacent. While American WW2 rebuild funds built basic oxygen furnaces and continuous casters in Japan, American steel producers — who, mind you, were flush with cash — remained almost universally content with their older, slower, more costly open hearth and ingot casting methods. So when the 80s came, bringing efficient electric arc furnaces (scrap recyclers) and (TW) foreign competition, American producers — who had a massive transport cost and supply chain advantage — took a massive L and, well, you got Youngstown. A similar phenomenon of better organized, more cost- and customer-focused foreign competition is what took the auto industry, FWIW. 

Again, not as simple as you make it out to be... 

[subwaycommuter1983]

Calm down everyone!! If there is a lesson that we get from the overall r179 experience is that the MTA needs a company that can build high quality and technologically up to date subway cars in the shortest amount of time. So far Kawasaki has proven to be the most reliable and stable company and I'm glad that they were chosen to build the r211's . If all goes well, the MTA should stick with Kawasaki to build future subway cars. Quality is more important than origin.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

9 minutes ago, RR503 said:

Again, saying “they were protectionist and we weren’t ergo we lost” is a gross and pretty misleading oversimplification. From the time of the Marshall Plan, we pretty consistently strong-armed those foreign markets (with the exception of China) you mentioned open to receive our goods, while we — until Reagan, really — didn’t reciprocate. If you look at European /Japanese airline fleets from that era, you’ll see evidence of just that — masses Douglases, Convairs, Boeings, with only a smattering of Vickers, Hawker-Siddley, Sud-Aviation, etc. To continue with that previous example, such fleets remained really until the 1980s when Airbus — an organization about as antithetical to protectionism as one can get — appeared. 

Back to rail, the real difference was again, one of national priorities. A reliable domestic market is an unnegotiable imperative for pretty much any transport company. You need that familiarity with your products, level of economic sheliding from vascillations in international relations, and a market of cheap delivery. America simply didn’t provide that for its car builders, and they thus disinvested, and, well, disappeared. I also want you to look at the trains next time you’re in France/Germany. You’ll be surprised to find how many of them are built abroad... 

To the larger point of foreign companies eating up American market share by exploiting trade regs, it is again nowhere near that simple. I’d actually argue that in many industries, the blow was actually just as much a self-inflicted one as it was an international one. 

Everyone loves talking about steel, so let’s use that as an example. During the 60s and 70s, protectionism shielded American steel companies from any meaningful external competition. They thus got complacent. While American WW2 rebuild funds built basic oxygen furnaces and continuous casters in Japan, American steel producers — who, mind you, were flush with cash — remained almost universally content with their older, slower, more costly open hearth and ingot casting methods. So when the 80s came, bringing efficient electric arc furnaces (scrap recyclers) and (TW) foreign competition, American producers — who had a massive transport cost and supply chain advantage — took a massive L and, well, you got Youngstown. A similar phenomenon of better organized, more cost- and customer-focused foreign competition is what took the auto industry, FWIW. 

Again, not as simple as you make it out to be... 

I'm not making things simple at all.  All I'm saying is we've been outsourcing our jobs for years now and why is that you nor bob nor anyone else wants to admit that it's failed us miserably? We've had stagnant wages in this country for years now while everything else goes through the roof.  Are you trying to tell me that the plethora of low paying service jobs makes sense because that's precisely what we've been replacing such jobs with over the last 20+ years and everyone just pretends like it's ok. 

It matters and it hurts us Americans.   We live in America, and I don't understand the anti-American sentiment about making things here in America where we live for once. It's crazy.  The Made in NY stipulation makes a lot of sense.  We're spending BILLIONS of dollars for downstate and allowing for jobs to be created upstate and maintained there.  Does it cost us a bit more? Sure, but it benefits the entire region (both upstate and downstate).  If you want to yell that outsourcing makes sense, be prepared to tell me what's replacing those jobs aside from low paying service jobs because that's what has mainly been coming here.  If you don't work in tech, medical or finance, God help you because those are the three main sectors that are growing.  That and the film industry.  There's only so many of those jobs, so we need to manufacture something here.    

Edited July 5, 2018 by Via Garibaldi 8

[kosciusko]

2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

so why is it so horrible for us to do the same?

The r179 order should answer that question.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Just now, kosciusko said:

The r179 order should answer that question.

One order shouldn't dictate such a policy.

[bobtehpanda]

2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

You're the one that pitched these railroad companies as doing so great, not me.  All I'm saying is they're not doing so great on their own, so your comments are false in that regard.  Protectionism is helping those companies and for once instead of us banking on low paying service jobs, how about we throw our hats behind GOOD paying jobs.   By service jobs I mean more low paying jobs at Target.  We have more than enough of those and look where they've gotten us...

Furthermore, you can't have it both ways.  If you want to have some kind of jobs that pay decently upstate then sacrifices have to be made.  Sure, we can get rid of the Made in NY stipulation and see how much worse off the upstate would be, and how much more New Yorkers living in NYC would pay in taxes. Upstate New York has been dying for YEARS now.  They've had very little growth in jobs, and a shrinking tax base as people flee and leave the state entirely.  You can complain all you want about "Made in NY", but it's a necessity at this point for the region.  For all of your complaining, there are definitely some advantages to building locally, some of which surely you must be aware of.

This kind of protectionism actually hurts upstate in the long run. Subsidizing companies in this manner is basically a runaround way of putting them on the dole, and as a result, all of these upstate towns have gotten lazy and don't actually look for ways to revitalize themselves. I mean, Pittsburgh used to be a steel town, and now they've diversified into many different sectors because nobody was there to prop them up. 

These railroad companies do great, because they make products that other people want to buy. No one's going to buy a subsidized product if it still doesn't work. The last passenger railcar companies in the US folded because they got sued into the ground for shoddy work. Compare that to Boeing, a company that has to deal with subsidized competition that at least makes good products.

Honestly, everyone would be better off if we split the state in two or three, but that's not going to happen, so we're going to keep singing this song and dance and pretending everyone's better off.

[Bosco]

I'm hoping (don't want to jinx) that this will impact the R179, but...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-bombardier-streetcars-welding-problem-quebec-1.4732985

[Around the Horn]

31 minutes ago, Bosco said:

I'm hoping (don't want to jinx) that this will impact the R179, but...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-bombardier-streetcars-welding-problem-quebec-1.4732985

As far as I'm aware, none of the R179s went through that Bombardier plant in Mexico so it shouldn't be an issue.

[RR503]

3 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I'm not making things simple at all.  All I'm saying is we've been outsourcing our jobs for years now and why is that you nor bob nor anyone else wants to admit that it's failed us miserably?

I never said our trade policies have failed us -- they unquestionably have. I'm just saying that we write off too much to their failure, while the underlying causes of deindustrialization/underemployment are much more complicated. 

3 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

We've had stagnant wages in this country for years now while everything else goes through the roof.  Are you trying to tell me that the plethora of low paying service jobs makes sense because that's precisely what we've been replacing such jobs with over the last 20+ years and everyone just pretends like it's ok.

This is a perfect example of something that's blamed on outsourcing losses but actually has little to do with them. Many economists agree that the erosion of wage growth has much, much more to do with the erosion of workers' collective bargaining/organizing power than it has to do with the collapse of any single sector. Keep in mind that industrial jobs were once the Walmart-jobs -- reserved for those who had no other option. They were only made so middle-class through years of really union struggle. Service workers never benefited from that whatsoever, and have thus been made to live off of pittances -- especially in the big-box era. Maybe instead of throwing time and money at dying industries like coal, we should be addressing the issues in their replacements. I don't think I need to remind you that the total employment of the entire coal industry and Kmart are approximately equal. 

3 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

 It matters and it hurts us Americans.   We live in America, and I don't understand the anti-American sentiment about making things here in America where we live for once. It's crazy.  The Made in NY stipulation makes a lot of sense.  We're spending BILLIONS of dollars for downstate and allowing for jobs to be created upstate and maintained there.  Does it cost us a bit more? Sure, but it benefits the entire region (both upstate and downstate).  If you want to yell that outsourcing makes sense, be prepared to tell me what's replacing those jobs aside from low paying service jobs because that's what has mainly been coming here.  If you don't work in tech, medical or finance, God help you because those are the three main sectors that are growing.  That and the film industry.  There's only so many of those jobs, so we need to manufacture something here.    

Is this welfare I'm hearing, VG8? How the mighty have fallen! I guess we can't give the poor Metrocards and food stamps, but when it's time to shell out the tax dollars so Joe from Hornell can keep his job, by all means... 

Jokes aside, I really think (as bob has correctly pointed out) industrial welfare is a waste of our time. Whatever we may do to give those towns a goody bag of downstate riches, they remain a separate world by merit of topography. Circling back to transportation, really the only way to exploit that area's potential is to link it solidly with downstate via public transit. Whatever we may say about upstate being an industrial backwater, it actually harbors quite a few institutions that could be the foundation of a new regional economy -- if given better access to the social/intellectual/economic capital of downstate. If one could take a cheap train to the SUNY campuses in the Southern Tier, or to URochester, or to Skidmore, or to ______ and expect to be there in a short period of time not subject to the slow-motion meltdown that is CSX, then you may actually see real investment moving to those areas -- think outsourcing jobs that can't be done reliably in the high-cost downstate environment. 

[subwaycommuter1983]

5 hours ago, subwaycommuter1983 said:

Calm down everyone!! If there is a lesson that we get from the overall r179 experience is that the MTA needs a company that can build high quality and technologically up to date subway cars in the shortest amount of time. So far Kawasaki has proven to be the most reliable and stable company and I'm glad that they were chosen to build the r211's . If all goes well, the MTA should stick with Kawasaki to build future subway cars. Quality is more important than origin.

In other words our tax money needs to go to a company that is able to build subway cars without issues or delays, it doesn't matter where the company is located as long as the company gets the job done, which didn't happen with Bombardier.

2 hours ago, Bosco said:

I'm hoping (don't want to jinx) that this will impact the R179, but...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-bombardier-streetcars-welding-problem-quebec-1.4732985

The MTA made a terrible mistake of choosing Bombardier to build the r179's.

[Coney Island Av]

I think I should clarify why all the nonsense with the 179s is going on:

Firstly, look back to when we started receiving the R160s in a large majority. The R38s/R40s were dwindling more than their fellow R32/R42 cousins, so that's why they were the first to go. The 160s were intended to retire all R32 through R42 rolling stock, but the meddling R44s ruined the plan. The latters' structural issues are the main reason why they were retired, and why the R32s/R42s are still alive today. If the 44s didn't mess up, the R32s/R42s would've certainly been retired by 2010. Another impact that the retirement of the 44s had was very critical because the majority of the 179s were originally conceived as being five-car links, as opposed to majority being in four-car links. Due to the R32s and R42s still active at the time, transit had to go with the latter plan, since the R179s would be replacing the 60-foot latters.

But fast forward a few years, and we're constantly experiencing problems with the order. Bombardier is doing a terrible job, and five-car sets are treated like oddballs due to not enough of them being ordered. However, despite all of these problems, they would've eventually replaced all remaining R32s/R42s no matter what, as seen with the R142s having problems and eventually broke through. But oh no, the R179s are stopped again all because of the Canarsie shutdown! It will essentially be living hell for most, because the  will be truncated, headways increased, and service would have to be increased, etc. As a result, to allow for this, every single rolling stock, whether old or new, has to stay, including the R32s/R42s. So it looks like they'll be staying for yet another half-decade. So the R32s/R42s were indeed planned to be retired sooner, but were saved twice. 

Long story short, it's essentially all the R44s fault that this nonsense is happening. 

[subwaycommuter1983]

12 minutes ago, Coney Island Av said:

I think I should clarify why all the nonsense with the 179s is going on:

Firstly, look back to when we started receiving the R160s in a large majority. The R38s/R40s were dwindling more than their fellow R32/R42 cousins, so that's why they were the first to go. The 160s were intended to retire all R32 through R42 rolling stock, but the meddling R44s ruined the plan. The latters' structural issues are the main reason why they were retired, and why the R32s/R42s are still alive today. If the 44s didn't mess up, the R32s/R42s would've certainly been retired by 2010. Another impact that the retirement of the 44s had was very critical because the majority of the 179s were originally conceived as being five-car links, as opposed to majority being in four-car links. Due to the R32s and R42s still active at the time, transit had to go with the latter plan, since the R179s would be replacing the 60-foot latters.

But fast forward a few years, and we're constantly experiencing problems with the order. Bombardier is doing a terrible job, and five-car sets are treated like oddballs due to not enough of them being ordered. However, despite all of these problems, they would've eventually replaced all remaining R32s/R42s no matter what, as seen with the R142s having problems and eventually broke through. But oh no, the R179s are stopped again all because of the Canarsie shutdown! It will essentially be living hell for most, because the  will be truncated, headways increased, and service would have to be increased, etc. As a result, to allow for this, every single rolling stock, whether old or new, has to stay, including the R32s/R42s. So it looks like they'll be staying for yet another half-decade. So the R32s/R42s were indeed planned to be retired sooner, but were saved twice. 

Long story short, it's essentially all the R44s fault that this nonsense is happening. 

They're not going to last 5 years. Once Canarsie tunnel is reopened, the r211's will be arriving and I doubt that Kawasaki will mess up the order. And also, we can't forget about Byford's plan to accelerate CTBC, which also means that the MTA must start working right away on replacing r62s and r68's and potentially modifying all r142s, which I didn't know that they were encountering serious problems.

[R32 3838]

The new cbtc will be different from what we have now. It won't have ato so they can still use smee until they retire. Plus there's another big issue, the R142's. They don't even know how are they gonna put cbtc in them since bombardier doesn't want no part of that. The remaining R142A's are getting converted like the R188's