SUBWAY - Random Thoughts Topic

[Via Garibaldi 8]

4 minutes ago, MHV9218 said:

You know that the solution to all of this is massive public investment in infrastructure, right? The reason the Italians have such a good train network is because they put a great deal of resources into the network, and to this day the private service (Italo) is no better, sometimes worse than the state-run Frecciarossa. That kind of thing is entirely possible in America, so long as we actually try for it. I assume you support Biden's infrastructure bill? That's how we get reliable high-speed intra-state and cross-country rail.

I'm well aware of it. They're constantly investing... That said though, there's a lot of corruption there, which is why some things are run so poorly, from the Postal service, to garbage collection in parts of the South and so on. It's not all perfect there, and we have some of the same problems here. Bloated costs is one of them. I'm supportive of an infrastructure bill that is specifically for infrastructure and not other "pet projects".

Edited April 13, 2021 by Via Garibaldi 8

[Trainmaster5]

Question from left field. Been looking at the  website for the last couple of hours and I'm confused. Is the Franklin Avenue shuttle running or not ? Prospect Park shows  and  trains and nothing else. I see nothing under planned work or delays. What gives ? Thanks in advance.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 4/12/2021 at 9:16 PM, Union Tpke said:

I care more about frequent service than stations that look nice. However, if you are renovating West 4th, you might as well reopen closed entrances there while you are at it.

I don’t see why we can’t have both, other than bureaucratic intransigence on the MTA’s and the City’s parts.

23 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

There's a very wide gap between "look nice" and "total f**king dump overrun by rats with sewage down the tracks."

At least some of that is water damage, so actually fixing the station might actually also improve service.

Figuring out a better way to minimize water damage should really a significant be part of all station renovations.

20 hours ago, Deucey said:

I remember a Londoner complaining about how decrepit Tube stations look. I showed him pics of 34th St on 6th Av. He got quiet.

 

I've ridden a lot of transit, and I feel that station maintenance and décor reflect the city/metro area the station is in.

NYC looks dirty and poorly maintained - like everything except Battery Park City looks as mildewy and built half-assed as the subway, and even going back to when Giuliani "cleaned it up", all the infrastructure looks like those houses that always patch roofs and add shingles instead of actually replacing it.

It's like we used to say in my car club - if you keep your engine bay clean, mechanics and service techs will keep it clean too. Since NYC JDGAF,  doesn't either.

Why else does the subway look like it does, but the railroads' stations look semi- immaculate?

Pretty much. Maybe if City Hall started caring about the shape and cleanliness of the stations and actually invested money in keeping them in better shape instead of say, “oh no, it’s not our problem, it’s the State’s!”

8 hours ago, MHV9218 said:

You know that the solution to all of this is massive public investment in infrastructure, right? The reason the Italians have such a good train network is because they put a great deal of resources into the network, and to this day the private service (Italo) is no better, sometimes worse than the state-run Frecciarossa. That kind of thing is entirely possible in America, so long as we actually try for it. I assume you support Biden's infrastructure bill? That's how we get reliable high-speed intra-state and cross-country rail.

Fully agreed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You get what you pay for. Washington spends a pitiful amount of money on mass transit and intercity rail. But it’s also the attitude towards passenger trains that’s severely lacking in Washington and in most state capitals. They’re stuck in 1950s about passenger trains and for decades they’ve taken the attitude that taking a train is somehow “not the American way,” or that “only Communists take trains!” We can’t lead the way forward if we keep looking back to the past. Investment in infrastructure is needed, believe it or not, like it or not.

8 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I'll tell you why... Because the riders accept such conditions. It's "the City", so filthiness is supposedly ok. It's one of the reasons I started my group. We've become very complacent with unreliable service, filthy trains and buses and so on. Like you, I've traveled extensively, primarily in other countries. You travel about 7 hours up to Montréal and see how clean everything is. Outside of the Downtown area with some trash here and there, the residential areas are so immaculate you can eat off of the ground. Sure, transit is an issue in other places, but there is more investment in them running punctually and being clean. I lived in Florence, which had no subway system then. You get around the City by bus if you use public transit, and it's a very well run system. The inter-city trains generally run well as well (at least in Northern Italy anyway (Southern Italy or the "mezzogiorno" is another story lol)). Hell I can go from Florence to Bologna faster than I can going from parts of the outer boroughs to Manhattan. lol

 

So true. I was expecting it to be cleaner than New York’s, but was surprised at just how much cleaner (and safer) Montreal’s metro and outer neighborhoods were when I last visited in 2007. They really cared and it showed. Even Chicago, which I also visited the same year, had a relatively clean ‘L’ system. I rode the Green Line through the South Side. I kept alert (given that I grew up riding the  and  trains through the South Bronx) but never once felt scared. We really need to invest the money in making the system cleaner and safer. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Question from left field. Been looking at the  website for the last couple of hours and I'm confused. Is the Franklin Avenue shuttle running or not ? Prospect Park shows  and  trains and nothing else. I see nothing under planned work or delays. What gives ? Thanks in advance.

Yup, it's running.

[Trainmaster5]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yup, it's running.

Thanks for the response. My nephew said that he saw the info come back about the same time as your post. I actually tried Trip Planner earlier as the website advised and the shuttle was not an option displayed which is why I asked the question. Three bus options and a notification of elevators out of service at Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street. I’ve seen subway outages and associated re-routes on the site yet they still display subway arrival times for stations being bypassed on the same page. Makes me wonder if anybody proofreads the info. That’s my rant. Carry on.

[Deucey]

2 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Pretty much. Maybe if City Hall started caring about the shape and cleanliness of the stations and actually invested money in keeping them in better shape instead of say, “oh no, it’s not our problem, it’s the State’s!”

I was referring to the whole décor of NYC being the inspiration for the décor of the subway. The city always has looked like mildew is everywhere - sidewalks, brick building grout, asphalt or concrete. Even the trees look like they have a layer of soot on them.

So it's no surprise that the subway looks the same - one influenced the other (especially since the people who built the subways built the City's other infrastructure. The "do the minimum to not get fired" mindset in city maintenance work was imprinted on  - which is how  could let that system fall apart whilst making sure the railroads look "clean" - the rest of the Tristate governments care about impressions while the City never did.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

7 hours ago, Deucey said:

I was referring to the whole décor of NYC being the inspiration for the décor of the subway. The city always has looked like mildew is everywhere - sidewalks, brick building grout, asphalt or concrete. Even the trees look like they have a layer of soot on them.

So it's no surprise that the subway looks the same - one influenced the other (especially since the people who built the subways built the City's other infrastructure. The "do the minimum to not get fired" mindset in city maintenance work was imprinted on  - which is how  could let that system fall apart whilst making sure the railroads look "clean" - the rest of the Tristate governments care about impressions while the City never did.

Yep, it’s always looked like the entire City could really use a power wash and polish. Not helping is that the City seems to be under construction in perpetuity. Or the lack of a garbage or recycling can when you really need one. But I wouldn’t count on any bureaucrat in DCAS or Sanitation ok’ing it any time soon. 

Edited April 14, 2021 by T to Dyre Avenue

[Via Garibaldi 8]

9 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Thanks for the response. My nephew said that he saw the info come back about the same time as your post. I actually tried Trip Planner earlier as the website advised and the shuttle was not an option displayed which is why I asked the question. Three bus options and a notification of elevators out of service at Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street. I’ve seen subway outages and associated re-routes on the site yet they still display subway arrival times for stations being bypassed on the same page. Makes me wonder if anybody proofreads the info. That’s my rant. Carry on.

Well on the bus side, I was told the Customer Service gets their info from the depots, which I find absurd, given some of the errors I have seen. I agree. I just wonder how this info is sent out without any proofing. I'm mentioning the bus side because I believe the bus and subway folks basically alternate between the two departments. Additionally, they continue to have all sorts of tech issues. What is posted on Twitter does not feed into their website or alerts consistently. Sometimes people get the alerts, and other times they don't. Same for the website.

Then they have the new website, which I hate (and apparently other customers too), and then the old one still around, and sometimes the data doesn't feed into each site correctly.

[bobtehpanda]

10 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Yep, it’s always looked like the entire City could really use a power wash and polish. Not helping is that the City seems to be under construction in perpetuity. Or the lack of a garbage or recycling can when you really need one. But I wouldn’t count on any bureaucrat in DCAS or Sanitation ok’ing it any time soon. 

Most American cities shove garbage cans in the alley.

Most European cities, which lack proper alleys, put dumpsters underground.

The City can barely keep paint fresh on the roads, I put the odds of this happening in like the year 3000.

[LGA Link N Train]

Hmmm. Trains seem to be getting more and more crowded by the day, at least that some sense of normality returned to the City. I wonder whether or not this’ll keep up.

[R32 3838]

6 hours ago, LaGuardia Link N Tra said:

Hmmm. Trains seem to be getting more and more crowded by the day, at least that some sense of normality returned to the City. I wonder whether or not this’ll keep up.

yeah the was decently packed when i rode it this week. so ridership is coming back in a rapid rate.

[paulrivera]

R179's are heading up the Concourse line in service, so there will be at least some 480' equipment running on the  line tomorrow.

Not a smart move running short trains when the Yankees are in town, but it is what it is...

[Vulturious]

1 hour ago, paulrivera said:

R179's are heading up the Concourse line in service, so there will be at least some 480' equipment running on the  line tomorrow.

Not a smart move running short trains when the Yankees are in town, but it is what it is...

its probably only running for the late night shuttle, we don't know for sure until tomorrow.

[YankeesPwnMets]

Wonder if any 46's will make an appearance on the

[GojiMet86]

There's an 8-car R179 on the  late-night shuttle right now.

[Vulturious]

Here are a few videos of the 8-car R179's along Concourse in action:

They really hauling the R179's at these curve stations, gotta say one of my favorite clips so far from this GO.

These other 2 clips are the R179's signed up as the .

Honestly (this is just speculations and what not), this GO had me thinking the  is up to something, like they're testing out how well the  can run or something else. They were pretty vague as to why this was happening, but again it's just speculations.

[Deucey]

5 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

Honestly (this is just speculations and what not), this GO had me thinking the  is up to something, like they're testing out how well the  can run or something else. They were pretty vague as to why this was happening, but again it's just speculations.

You referring to explanation of the GO on 6 Av Express as ‘Structural Improvements’?

https://new.mta.info/planned-service-changes/subway

[Vulturious]

1 minute ago, Deucey said:

You referring to explanation of the GO on 6 Av Express as ‘Structural Improvements’?

https://new.mta.info/planned-service-changes/subway

Yeah, they never said much about it, although last I heard, both Manhattan Bridge and connection between 7 Av-53 St and 59 St-Columbus Circle were where work was happening.

[paulrivera]

Back to 125% loading guidelines on the  line. These are normal 8 minute headways mind you.

[R32 3838]

R179's were pulled from service on the due to the C/R boards not lining up at kingsbridge rd. VIP was right on that. 

[trainfan22]

Did a round trip from Broadway Junction to Bedford Park Blvd on the got an R46 N/B and a R68 S/B. This hobby has exploded in popularity as I seen multiple buffs filming at various Concourse line stops. 

 

 

Years ago it was rare to see buffs in the masses outside of fan trips, etc.

[Calvin]

Just my observation on the R68  train: the blue is dark blue. On the R179s and some R46s, the blue is almost light blue similar to the R160  train interior route. And, Baseball specials were out as well today. You may see one tomorrow as the Yankees are still playing home field with packed  trains. 

[paulrivera]

2 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

Years ago it was rare to see buffs in the masses outside of fan trips, etc.

Hey, it's the first time in 23 years that a  train made a scheduled trip to the Bronx.

 

3 hours ago, R32 3838 said:

R179's were pulled from service on the due to the C/R boards not lining up at kingsbridge rd. VIP was right on that. 

"Partner you got the lineup?"

"Yep, got the lineup. Why aren't you opening the doors?"

"You overshot the platform!"

"I'm right at the 8 car marker, whatchu mean?"

"Well, I can't open up here then, next stop Bedford Park"

buzz buzz

[MHV9218]

So wait, they actually ran 179s for a little while with no C/R boards for the 4/4 8-car consist? And just dealt with it? That's something else.

[R10 2952]

1 hour ago, MHV9218 said:

So wait, they actually ran 179s for a little while with no C/R boards for the 4/4 8-car consist? And just dealt with it? That's something else.

It's the same agency that thought running 8-car trains of R40/42s on the  would be a good idea. Stupid is as stupid does... 

Edited April 18, 2021 by R10 2952