SUBWAY - Random Thoughts Topic

[darkstar8983]

On 7/26/2023 at 8:33 PM, Chris89292 said:

Does anyone know if the 63rd street tunnel reconstruction project is still on track, or is it delayed again, I don’t see any changes on the Planned service changes page, and there hasn’t been any announcements about the project’s starting date and other useful information for passengers to know beforehand 

likely delayed to 2024, since the project can't be finished by December 20, 2023 and likely they want the 63 St tunnel during the Christmas holiday so that the 53 St tunnel can be closed for its yearly 5-day shutdown.

[ABOGbrooklyn]

Why has the MTA not add Mets Willets Point and 90th Elmurst Av to their list of Flushing line stations to get repaired?

[Chris89292]

19 minutes ago, ABOGbrooklyn said:

Why has the MTA not add Mets Willets Point and 90th Elmurst Av to their list of Flushing line stations to get repaired?

Apparently 90th street got a small rehabilitation in the 90’s, willets point Station renewal is in design process, since it’s a design and build contract, maybe in the future their will be a contract to renovate 90th street and willets point stations, but I do agree, at least have the windscreens replaced with modern style ones with artwork

[Calvin]

 has started to placed cameras on subway cars. R46 car 6168 has one that's a size of a small black circle.  

[Lil 57]

R44 388 on the  got its rollsign replaced by a Staten Island Railway logo (similar to the ones you see on the side of the train). I have a feeling that’s probably going to happen to the rest of the fleet since half the cars have missing rollsigns and it wouldn’t make sense to replace them given that they will be retiring soon.

[Vulturious]

A couple of things were happening today that all revolved around R160's, first one being an R160  that was running around from the morning rush and continued in service making a few extra trips all along the . Probably has something to do with an R46 not being available or a train in general not being available for the  to borrow so it stuck with the 's R160 for the time being. Unfortunately it was taken out of service about 40 minutes ago due to door problems. It had that problem when at 96 St and was finally taken out when it reached Coney Island. This set made around 3 trips, first being the put-in to 96 St from Bay Ridge to run to Coney after, then 2 more round trips along the . 

The second unusual occurance was an ENY R160 at 9 Av was heading up along the 38 St yard lead to relay heading back down going into 9 Av lower level. That was about 3 hours ago and unknown if it's still there and why it went there in the first place, but still cool nonetheless. 

[Lil 57]

Just saw this video about speeding up the Brighton Line

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvXiBoOAUAM/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Question is why are they changing the speed limits to non-uniform numbers (like 34mph instead of 35mph etc…)? 

[darkstar8983]

5 hours ago, Vulturious said:

A couple of things were happening today that all revolved around R160's, first one being an R160  that was running around from the morning rush and continued in service making a few extra trips all along the . Probably has something to do with an R46 not being available or a train in general not being available for the  to borrow so it stuck with the 's R160 for the time being. Unfortunately it was taken out of service about 40 minutes ago due to door problems. It had that problem when at 96 St and was finally taken out when it reached Coney Island. This set made around 3 trips, first being the put-in to 96 St from Bay Ridge to run to Coney after, then 2 more round trips along the . 

The second unusual occurance was an ENY R160 at 9 Av was heading up along the 38 St yard lead to relay heading back down going into 9 Av lower level. That was about 3 hours ago and unknown if it's still there and why it went there in the first place, but still cool nonetheless. 

A lot of R46s (especially CI ones) have been having issues. Surprising that there yet hasn’t been any new R160  sightings, especially compared to last summer when they made plenty of appearances due to poor performance of the R46s, high vandalism, etc.

[Vulturious]

45 minutes ago, darkstar8983 said:

A lot of R46s (especially CI ones) have been having issues. Surprising that there yet hasn’t been any new R160  sightings, especially compared to last summer when they made plenty of appearances due to poor performance of the R46s, high vandalism, etc.

I would imagine the lack of crews are still a bit of an issue, but if that ain't the case, I would assume they somehow keep either having just enough trains to cover the lines or just didn't want to bother having another line also covering. I wouldn't know, I'm just spewing stuff at this point.

[habbyy]

On 7/26/2023 at 5:49 PM, Trainmaster5 said:

I worked the pm tour on the  for over 20 years and never had this problem. I was normally on-time at Nevins, Franklin and Utica/ or New Lots so I'm wondering what could be the cause of this perceived delay. My experience though. Carry on.

I observe it everyday, it might not be "slow" compared to usual traffic, but compared to the speed at which the train moves in manhattan, it ended up with me noticing this behavior well into not even a year of riding this line , idk what it is  exactly ,but like I said, the trains suddenly move slow when traversing between borough hall and nevins, i will start recording daily just to show haha but yeah idk what causes it, they are always very very slow going between these two stops compared to the previous speed between the other stations in manhattan

[Lex]

4 hours ago, habbyy said:

I observe it everyday, it might not be "slow" compared to usual traffic, but compared to the speed at which the train moves in manhattan, it ended up with me noticing this behavior well into not even a year of riding this line , idk what it is  exactly ,but like I said, the trains suddenly move slow when traversing between borough hall and nevins, i will start recording daily just to show haha but yeah idk what causes it, they are always very very slow going between these two stops compared to the previous speed between the other stations in manhattan

That's what you meant? That section has speed restrictions in place so trains entering Nevins Street don't derail on the sharp curve. It's standard operating procedure.

[darkstar8983]

13 hours ago, Vulturious said:

I would imagine the lack of crews are still a bit of an issue, but if that ain't the case, I would assume they somehow keep either having just enough trains to cover the lines or just didn't want to bother having another line also covering. I wouldn't know, I'm just spewing stuff at this point.

true - makes sense. The Astoria section of the  wouldn't notice too much if one train or even two spaced out in terms of departure did not run, since headways on both routes could be thinned out a bit (or even a shorter recovery time at Ditmars Blvd), but the Brooklyn section of the  would notice if suddenly, an  trip was cancelled due to train shortages.

Edited August 2, 2023 by darkstar8983

[Trainmaster5]

11 hours ago, habbyy said:

I observe it everyday, it might not be "slow" compared to usual traffic, but compared to the speed at which the train moves in manhattan, it ended up with me noticing this behavior well into not even a year of riding this line , idk what it is  exactly ,but like I said, the trains suddenly move slow when traversing between borough hall and nevins, i will start recording daily just to show haha but yeah idk what causes it, they are always very very slow going between these two stops compared to the previous speed between the other stations in manhattan

Let me enlighten you. There are speed restrictions between Borough Hall or Hoyt Street and Nevins Street in both directions on all tracks as poster Lex has pointed out . Carry on.

[trainfan22]

There's a new automated PSA announcement on the tech trains telling riders there is over 100 accessible stations in the system and go on to mta.info to find out their status.

 

 

I don't remember it word for word but it's something similar to what I said, it's done by an new woman, not the usual lady who does the PSAs on the NTT 

[Far rockaway]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:37 PM, darkstar8983 said:

likely delayed to 2024, since the project can't be finished by December 20, 2023 and likely they want the 63 St tunnel during the Christmas holiday so that the 53 St tunnel can be closed for its yearly 5-day shutdown.

no it's not delayed. It begins the end of August.

[Jemorie]

17 hours ago, habbyy said:

I observe it everyday, it might not be "slow" compared to usual traffic, but compared to the speed at which the train moves in manhattan, it ended up with me noticing this behavior well into not even a year of riding this line , idk what it is  exactly ,but like I said, the trains suddenly move slow when traversing between borough hall and nevins, i will start recording daily just to show haha but yeah idk what causes it, they are always very very slow going between these two stops compared to the previous speed between the other stations in manhattan

 

12 hours ago, Lex said:

That's what you meant? That section has speed restrictions in place so trains entering Nevins Street don't derail on the sharp curve. It's standard operating procedure.

 

5 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Let me enlighten you. There are speed restrictions between Borough Hall or Hoyt Street and Nevins Street in both directions on all tracks as poster Lex has pointed out . Carry on.

Southbound  trains apply the brakes midway through Hoyt St in my experience most of the time, while northbound  go at a faster speed leaving Nevins Street, also in my experience most of the time as well.

[Trainmaster5]

2 hours ago, Jemorie said:

 

 

Southbound  trains apply the brakes midway through Hoyt St in my experience most of the time, while northbound  go at a faster speed leaving Nevins Street, also in my experience most of the time as well.

IIRC the northbound local and express tracks are signed up for 15 mph leaving Nevins and the resume sign is about 1 car length from Hoyt Street on both tracks. Heading southbound on the express track I can slow down where the opening on the local track leads to the ramp to the lower level. The local track is speed restricted entering Nevins at approximately 10 mph. In the ancient times when I was being road qualified if we had to take an excessive brake to enter Nevins we would be told to take a seat after making the station stop. You were admonished for not having your train under control. That applied to both southbound local tracks. When I broke in someone for the road I stressed that very thing. I’ve had supervisors approach me and give me the thumbs up sign when I never even knew they were onboard. They were judging their school car students. Back then we never knew where or when they would show up. My main man came up to me at 9: pm on a Sunday night with his wife and I never saw him get on the train. Simply put if a T/O has to take an excessive brake or come to a stop before entering a station or an interlocking location that person doesn’t have the train under control IMO. Carry on.

[Calvin]

Another set of cars at refuse duty for the mainline (loaned from the until October, fall season): 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904 and 1905 that joined with 1960.  

For now, the  has 42 trains during the summer (37 in-service with 5 spares). Fall, Winter and Spring: their total is at 43, spare count at 6. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by Calvin
1954, 1957, 1958, 1959 are at Corona Yard

[Trainmaster5]

3 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

IIRC the northbound local and express tracks are signed up for 15 mph leaving Nevins and the resume sign is about 1 car length from Hoyt Street on both tracks. Heading southbound on the express track I can slow down where the opening on the local track leads to the ramp to the lower level. The local track is speed restricted entering Nevins at approximately 10 mph. In the ancient times when I was being road qualified if we had to take an excessive brake to enter Nevins we would be told to take a seat after making the station stop. You were admonished for not having your train under control. That applied to both southbound local tracks. When I broke in someone for the road I stressed that very thing. I’ve had supervisors approach me and give me the thumbs up sign when I never even knew they were onboard. They were judging their school car students. Back then we never knew where or when they would show up. My main man came up to me at 9: pm on a Sunday night with his wife and I never saw him get on the train. Simply put if a T/O has to take an excessive brake or come to a stop before entering a station or an interlocking location that person doesn’t have the train under control IMO. Carry on.

Both southbound tracks, local and express. Correction 

[trainfan22]

To my surprise, they are relaying trains at Bedford Park rather than terminating all trains on the middle track.

 

 

For those who don't know, 205th is closed for most of August so all trains are ending at Bedford Park.

Edited August 3, 2023 by trainfan22

[Kamen Rider]

You thought single pocket operation on the D at Bedford Park would be a good idea…?

[trainfan22]

15 minutes ago, Kamen Rider said:

You thought single pocket operation on the D at Bedford Park would be a good idea…?

Cause the terminates at Bedford Park using single pocket operation, so I thought the would as well. 

[CenSin]

6 minutes ago, trainfan22 said:

Cause the terminates at Bedford Park using single pocket operation, so I thought the would as well. 

If that were the case, I’d weep for those who rely on it during rush hour.

[Jemorie]

2 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

You thought single pocket operation on the D at Bedford Park would be a good idea…?

He was just saying…

2 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

Cause the terminates at Bedford Park using single pocket operation, so I thought the would as well. 

No, you’re good.

Though keep in mind, the  runs on a 6 minute headway in both directions during rush hours and 10 minutes off peak (12 minutes on weekends). Whereas in the ‘s case, during rush hours, it’s 10 minutes in one direction (from Bedford Park Blvd in the AM and back to Bedford Park Blvd in the PM) while the other direction is 6 minutes like the .

Nevertheless, there are scattered delays with the single pocket operation. This is especially true at 145 St because if a  and  heading north arrive at/leave 125 St at the same time, only one of them has to wait at 135 St, the next station, while the other proceeds to 145 St, the following station. This in turn can delay a northbound  or  behind it. Also, if a southbound  leaves 145 St, then the  behind it is delayed.

The current design and layout of both Homeball Alley and the Grand Concourse Line isn’t the best. I think the Grand Concourse Line was originally meant to be four tracks but that was scrapped presumably because of some lawsuit from the IRT from what I heard.

Anyway, the least they can do is run the weekday only  service to/from Bedford Park Blvd permanently (meaning the  would run express in one direction during this time). But I doubt the  would ever let that happen unless there is demand for it, which I also doubt. Not a bad idea overall though.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Jemorie

[Daniel The Cool]

3 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

You thought single pocket operation on the D at Bedford Park would be a good idea…?

I mean to be fair when they did a similar G.O like this back in 2003 which lasted for like a couple months, that's what they did. And plus the  normally does that during the Rush Hour so I can't really blame anyone for assuming.