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1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

Why is it that Canarsie Yard, a yard that only serves one line, has a train wash while ENY, a yard that serves 3 lines, doesn't?

Don’t get too worked up, Canarsie doesn’t even use their own car wash for their OWN fleet. Lol 

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3 hours ago, VIP said:

Don’t get too worked up, Canarsie doesn’t even use their own car wash for their OWN fleet. Lol 

Yeah. The ENY R160s and R143s look like they haven’t been washed in over 10 years. But the worst offenders are the Moshulu Yard cars on the (4) line. Those cars (compared to the (2) and (5)) look like they’ve NEVER been washed.

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In terms of subway cleanliness, I would say:

corona yard on the (7) line easily takes first place. Those R188 and R142A converted cars always look clean (or minimal dirt)

Coney Island used to keep its R160s really clean (even though it’s R160s had lower MDBFs than Jamaica’s R160s), but the R68As and R68s are pretty clean too. The R46s not so much, probably because they are either on the road or being shuffled in and out of repair shops.

Pitkin and 207 St yard are a disaster with how dirty the (A) and (C) like cars are.

Concourse does pretty good also with Keeping it’s fleet clean.

Amazingly, the R142s from the (2) and (5) are pretty clean considering the rest of the A division have their cars looking grimy and abandoned. It is Probably due to the fact that the (2) and (5) switch and share cars, and on weekends, service on the (5) has for the most part been super sporadic compared to weekday service, giving those R142s more yard time.

Before the Jamaica / Coney Island swap, Jamaica’s R160s had this orange rust gathering on its cars (now distinguishing the original Jamaica cars from ex-Coney Island ones) and their R46s were just left to rust.

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6 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Why is it that Canarsie Yard, a yard that only serves one line, has a train wash while ENY, a yard that serves 3 lines, doesn't?

They use to send NIS trains from ENY down to Canarsie to get washed, they stopped doing that for whatever reason. This even happened after the (L) was converted to CBTC. Was cool to see the occasional R32 or 42 running NIS on the Canarsie line.

 

 

I think the wash might be OOS for whatever reason.

 

 

The most ridiculous train wash is for the (3) line fleet, they got to run light all the way from Livonia to 239th street yard up in the BX to get washed. That's longer than the actual (3) line revenue run!

 

 

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1 hour ago, darkstar8983 said:

In terms of subway cleanliness, I would say:

corona yard on the (7) line easily takes first place. Those R188 and R142A converted cars always look clean (or minimal dirt)

Coney Island used to keep its R160s really clean (even though it’s R160s had lower MDBFs than Jamaica’s R160s), but the R68As and R68s are pretty clean too. The R46s not so much, probably because they are either on the road or being shuffled in and out of repair shops.

Pitkin and 207 St yard are a disaster with how dirty the (A) and (C) like cars are.

Concourse does pretty good also with Keeping it’s fleet clean.

Amazingly, the R142s from the (2) and (5) are pretty clean considering the rest of the A division have their cars looking grimy and abandoned. It is Probably due to the fact that the (2) and (5) switch and share cars, and on weekends, service on the (5) has for the most part been super sporadic compared to weekday service, giving those R142s more yard time.

Before the Jamaica / Coney Island swap, Jamaica’s R160s had this orange rust gathering on its cars (now distinguishing the original Jamaica cars from ex-Coney Island ones) and their R46s were just left to rust.

This is b/c at Jamaica Yard, almost entirely the 2 out of 3 routes (E) and (R) run underground hence the rusted appearance. The (F) as well but is outside for at least 45 minutes on the line.

Even if Coney Island does do work on the R46s, the paint does tend to smear on the bonnets. The (Q) is the one that takes the cake due to running them in-service at midnight. 

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8 hours ago, Calvin said:

This is b/c at Jamaica Yard, almost entirely the 2 out of 3 routes (E) and (R) run underground hence the rusted appearance. The (F) as well but is outside for at least 45 minutes on the line.

Even if Coney Island does do work on the R46s, the paint does tend to smear on the bonnets. The (Q) is the one that takes the cake due to running them in-service at midnight. 

That is true. the (N) / (W) R46s are mainly used weekdays, with only about 6 of them running weekends and the R68s/R68A's and R160s covering the rest of the (N) 's fleet.

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On 8/27/2021 at 6:39 AM, Wallyhorse said:

It's not a legit source:

The Buffalo Chronicle as I remember was outed to being a very right-wing source.  Someone last year on Twitter linked to an article from it about a mobster who was going to make it so Trump won easily by talking about things allegedly done but turned out as I remember to be a fake article.

That said, Phase 2 does need to be extended across 125 if possible to a terminal at Broadway that would allow transfers to ALL of the other lines on 125 and should also include a connection to the 8th Avenue and Concourse lines just west of what would be 125/St. Nicholas, likely where such a connection would involve connection to the tracks between the express and local north of 125.  Such would mainly be for G.O.'s but also could be used for some special event trains to Yankee Stadium or in the future could allow for a Concourse/8th Avenue train to 168 or 207 in Manhattan or 205 in the Bronx via Broadway and the SAS for example (or THAT be a future SAS to The Bronx).

I believe that’s what I said. 

And there may be at least a couple very real reasons not to extend Phase 2 all the way to Broadway/125 due to Upper Manhattan’s challenging topography/geology and the very high elevation of the (1) line station. Not to mention that this same track connection you keep on proposing will do nothing but interfere with (A)(B)(C)(D) service. Read this article for more (get about halfway down and also read the comments for why the track connections to the (A)(B)(C)(D) line are a bad idea):

https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2021/05/second-avenue-subway-phase-2-the-case-for-a-crosstown-extension-on-125th-street/

Edited by T to Dyre Avenue
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21 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

But the worst offenders are the Mosholu Yard cars on the (4) line.

Grand Concourse has a car wash, but the Mosholu (4) fleet often shares that with the Grand Concourse (D) fleet. The car wash is on the eastern bend of the yard. What you likely meant to say is that the Mosholu fleet is not often sent over for washing the same way that the East 180/Unionport (5)<5> fleet is sent over for washing, much less the Wakefield (2) fleet. This likely has to do with its status as a senior line, seeing that it is the express backbone by day only to become the local at night when the (3) train as well as the (5) train are only running inside their respective boroughs.

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Happened to read an article in today's online Daily News concerning the IRT and (L) train fiasco the other night. The million dollar RCC failed which isn't news to many of us. The question I have, as another poster mentioned, is why the trains were ordered to stop where they were ? Power to the tracks and signals was available so there was no logical reason for that order to be given as far as I know. Absent any underlying problems a T/O can safely bring a consist into the next station if only a door panel is able to platform. The problem with RCC, in my opinion, is that most local supervision and towers were either eliminated outright or became subservient to the RCC. Therefore when the RCC became blinded they had to break out the old system that always worked. I told a superintendent one day that the whole concept of the RCC, with it's ATS component in the IRT, was just a long term means to reduce the workforce and bring everyone under one roof. He agreed and said " wait 'til something goes wrong and see who or what takes the blame ". He was right on the money. BTW, the writer of the article is as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to mass transit issues in the metropolitan area. reading his articles for the last couple of months shows me that he's either a mouthpiece for the agencies or he's truly unqualified. Just my opinion. YMMV. Carry on.

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40 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Happened to read an article in today's online Daily News concerning the IRT and (L) train fiasco the other night. The million dollar RCC failed which isn't news to many of us. The question I have, as another poster mentioned, is why the trains were ordered to stop where they were ? Power to the tracks and signals was available so there was no logical reason for that order to be given as far as I know. Absent any underlying problems a T/O can safely bring a consist into the next station if only a door panel is able to platform. The problem with RCC, in my opinion, is that most local supervision and towers were either eliminated outright or became subservient to the RCC. Therefore when the RCC became blinded they had to break out the old system that always worked. I told a superintendent one day that the whole concept of the RCC, with it's ATS component in the IRT, was just a long term means to reduce the workforce and bring everyone under one roof. He agreed and said " wait 'til something goes wrong and see who or what takes the blame ". He was right on the money. BTW, the writer of the article is as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to mass transit issues in the metropolitan area. reading his articles for the last couple of months shows me that he's either a mouthpiece for the agencies or he's truly unqualified. Just my opinion. YMMV. Carry on.

I follow signal improvements in many Countries. Places like the UK and Germany are going to ROCs or ESTW to combine their signal boxes (which themselves already control substantial track miles) to do one-roof railroads. We have data from US Class 1 railroads and the Situational Awareness suffers and the ability to react to failures in the field is reduce since the real motivation is always a commiserate reduction in staff. 

Cut staff by a few dozen because the software has automatic routing, sure...oh no a switch broke, now the Dispatcher is covering an oversized territory in degraded operation and mistakes start happening. Parallel with that a lot of other field functions get sucked into the big office...help is enroute, see you in an hour!

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10 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

So I was watching videos from yesterday's power outage, and one thing has me confused.

All the signals were still powered, so what exactly prompted the shutdown of the entire IRT? Was the tracking system not working?

From what I read, the brief outage caused the rail communications on the IRT and L to switch to an emergency battery backup. It was intended to operate until either 1. Regular power (Con Ed) came back or 2. MTA's fuel powered generators went online. Regular power did come back but the battery system failed to switch to it, and due to a lack of notice, those fuel generators never went online either. 

The system continued to use the battery generators until they ran out of juice, which sparked the "outage" so to speak (since the third rail still had power), it's just that dispatchers couldn't see where trains were. 

56 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

The question I have, as another poster mentioned, is why the trains were ordered to stop where they were ? Power to the tracks and signals was available so there was no logical reason for that order to be given as far as I know

I am wondering the same thing

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1 hour ago, Trainmaster5 said:

The question I have, as another poster mentioned, is why the trains were ordered to stop where they were ? Power to the tracks and signals was available so there was no logical reason for that order to be given as far as I know. 

 

11 minutes ago, NoHacksJustKhaks said:

I am wondering the same thing

I read something – take with a grain of salt – about passengers trying to take matters into their own hands after waiting and getting off the trains in the tunnels (possibly in between cars) and so the TA had to order to stop and cut third rail power in some cases. Not sure how true that it is but it was reported.

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18 minutes ago, MHV9218 said:

 

I read something – take with a grain of salt – about passengers trying to take matters into their own hands after waiting and getting off the trains in the tunnels (possibly in between cars) and so the TA had to order to stop and cut third rail power in some cases. Not sure how true that it is but it was reported.

I read the same thing. It’s my opinion that the passengers became frustrated because the lights were on, the A/C was functioning, the platforms had lights but the train crews were ordered to stop and stay where they were. I don’t understand why that order was given. Unless I missed something the signal system was working. As long as the trains had power and a working signal system stopping for no apparent reason seems to be a bad decision by the folks in charge.  That’s why some people self-evacuated. My opinion. Carry on.

Edited by Trainmaster5
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49 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

I read the same thing. It’s my opinion that the passengers became frustrated because the lights were on, the A/C was functioning, the platforms had lights but the train crews were ordered to stop and stay where they were. I don’t understand why that order was given. Unless I missed something the signal system was working. As long as the trains had power and a working signal system stopping for no apparent reason seems to be a bad decision by the folks in charge.  That’s why some people self-evacuated. My opinion. Carry on.

I imagine the ATS wouldn't route any trains to if RCC was down so once the first train gets to a gap station they would be stuck. But that should allow a walk-through evacuation at the very least.

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57 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

I read the same thing. It’s my opinion that the passengers became frustrated because the lights were on, the A/C was functioning, the platforms had lights but the train crews were ordered to stop and stay where they were. I don’t understand why that order was given. Unless I missed something the signal system was working. As long as the trains had power and a working signal system stopping for no apparent reason seems to be a bad decision by the folks in charge.  That’s why some people self-evacuated. My opinion. Carry on.

I believe it was because RCC couldn't see where anyone was and were running blind basically. The (7) and (L) make no sense unless CBTC is regulated & controlled by the Rail Control Center, but QBL CBTC was up and running.

I agree though, it was a stupid order and I don't know why they couldn't go off radio communication.

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1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

I believe it was because RCC couldn't see where anyone was and were running blind basically. The (7) and (L) make no sense unless CBTC is regulated & controlled by the Rail Control Center, but QBL CBTC was up and running.

I agree though, it was a stupid order and I don't know why they couldn't go off radio communication.

I'm not going to get too deep into this and I'm certainly not arguing with you or anyone else about this thing. Oversimplifying my point is the easiest way to go about this thing. RCC is nothing more than a centralized location . When I was operating my train whether back in the Command Center day at 370 Jay in Brooklyn or the RCC time in Midtown I was in control of my train and I made decisions based upon the situation and what I was taught. Neither higher power could see what I personally encountered. I had a suicidal person laying across the tracks at Baychester Avenue once. Command Center nor the RCC of today's system would have known about the situation unless advised them of it. I requested that power be removed. I negotiated with the individual and worked it out with the first police officers on the scene. dealt with the Sargent when he arrived at the scene. When the situation was resolved and everyone was in the clear requested that power be restored and when the console dispatcher was hesitant about the restoration the desk superintendent ordered it restored on my say so. When I spoke with the desk superintendent that evening and complained about his console dispatcher he agreed with me 100 % and said that knew the rules but many console dispatchers were new to the job and wouldn't listen to or take any advice from a mere hourly.  When you say that RCC was blind at that point I would agree with you. The problem is that Command Center was always blind to local situations and RCC can see a little bit more about signals and track circuits. I don't know how the new Train Operators are taught. Perhaps they are taught to defer rather than take the initiative. Just think about the millions spent on software and technology for the RCC but a local dispatcher and tower operator have to come to the rescue. My rant. Glad to be retired and glad that nobody was hurt. Carry on. 

Edited by Trainmaster5
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16 hours ago, Jsunflyguy said:

I imagine the ATS wouldn't route any trains to if RCC was down so once the first train gets to a gap station they would be stuck. But that should allow a walk-through evacuation at the very least.

I’m glad that someone understands what I was getting at. If I’m in an under river tunnel let me approach the next station and if there’s a switch involved let me see how it’s lined up and then we decide how to proceed.  Thanks for your reply.

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The MTA needs to do something about the constant delays (M) and (R) trains face when they terminate at Forest Hills. It makes no sense that trains are waiting minutes at a time at each stop after Roosevelt Ave or Elmhurst Ave. 
I’d say build another platform and track on the SB side to be used exclusively for terminating trains. I don’t know if there’s room for that but something needs to be done. 

Yes you’d have to double the amount of people clearing out trains but I think it’s totally worth it. 

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Hope everyone who went from point A to B using the NYC Subway made it to their destinations safe with no worries. 

As of 10 PM, some subway stations are flooded or tunnels to this case. 28 St on the 1 line is one of them: 

https://pix11.com/news/local-news/terrifying-video-shows-water-pouring-into-manhattan-subway-station/

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If the MTA creates new routes like the T and 8 trains trains or bring back routes like H and K. What voices would the announcements be

I was thinking that the K and T train could have the announcements voiced by Catherine Cowdery with the next stop is announcements sounding like the G 7 and V trains. And the H train could have the announcements voiced by Kathleen Campion and the next stop is announcements sounding like the A C trains. The K train could alternatively be voiced by Kathleen Campion and the next stop is announcements sounding like the F train. This isn’t an official proposal it’s more of what if scenario

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2 hours ago, Jemorie said:

Can’t wait for those crappy ass R46s to retire.

 

CI ones still run like dogshit , People on here and on facebook cap for them while they continue to breakdown.  This is what happens when you run them on 3 major CI routes 24/7 with barely any spares.

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