Fleet Swap Discussion Thread

[RandomRider0101]

15 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

Why are Coney's R46s worse? Have you seen the Pitkin ones? they are, no joke, falling apart.

Coney got mostly Jamaica R46s which were in better condition to begin with.

If you're going by exterior cleanliness, that doesn't tell the whole story.

Many people have reported that the Coney R46s are in worse shape performance-wise than the Pitkin R46s. Coney Island doesn't seem to like maintaining the R46s, a fleet they've never had before until the last few years recently. That may very well explain why the R46s perform so badly at Coney; not to mention the low spare factor as well for cars that are almost 5 decades of age.

31 minutes ago, Ale188 said:

That's why the MTA is retiring the Pits first

No that is not why. The Pitkin R46s are moving first because the & need NTTs for CBTC installation. Just because the Pitkin cars are leaving their respective yard first doesn't mean they're all heading straight to retirement.

Since the Coney R46s are in worse shape, it is very reasonable to assume that at least a chunk of the Pitkin cars will head over to Coney to replace the worst performing cars there first. Then those cars would of course eventually be replaced as well.

[MJHmarc]

3 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

Then the crews at Ditmars Blvd will have a field day switching out rollsigns all day. Honestly at this point they should just leave Astoria with just the , lest they risk sending out mislabeled trains

That’s nothing new, rollsigns are very low on the MTA’s care list. 

[Jemorie]

Ya’ll say anything. The  need the crappy ass R46s because of the LCDs they have. It has nothing to do with ridership or the age of said cars themselves. And speaking of ridership, the  gets essentially as crowded as the  at the Brooklyn end during the AM Rush (to Midtown Manhattan) and PM Rush (back to Brooklyn). The  overall is not as busy compared to the other more popular lines such as the two Lex Av expresses and the two Queens Blvd expresses as well as one of the two 7 Av expresses. Also, the  combined (12-15 tph) is more frequent than the  alone (8-10 tph) so how is the former two “less demanding” than the latter one?

Anyway, once the crappy ass R46s retire, then Astoria is gonna have to deal with the 68s and 68As with presumably roll-sign changes until those cars eventually retire and the entirety of the BMT becomes fully NTTs like the rest of the system.

[darkstar8983]

honestly if i were in charge of operations you would still have the  running to/ from 71 Av despite the 63 St tunnel work. Service as follows:

 - unchanged from usual service

 - every 8 minutes (no Church Av/Kings Hwy trips) - via 53 St

 - peak direction rush hour service reduced to every 10 minutes (AM from 71 Av, PM from Metropolitan Av - the other direction stays every 5-8 minutes)

 - no change from usual service 

 - 21 St Queensbridge to Lexington Av-63 St * 57 St Station closed all times - shuttle connects to Broadway Line to move equipment and trash via Broadway Express track / Manhattan Bridge

 

middays:

 local in Manhattan, maybe even via lower Manhattan 

 suspended middays

 

then the  can have all the R68s it wants and the  would get all the leftover R160s that the  has sidelined. Also delay CBTC activation on Culver until  get CBTC compatible equipment, otherwise you lose a very useful reroute option, shift R46s back to the  and the rest is cake.

Hold your applause. 😁😁 - this way we keep Queens Blvd service actually moving and travel options open, get rid of the stub 57 St terminal with one track operations which is just a disaster waiting to happen, and since you all say that Broadway is very low ridership and demand, have that trunk bear the brunt of slow train moves to/from the work site.

 

[RandomRider0101]

4 hours ago, Jemorie said:

Ya’ll say anything. The  need the crappy ass R46s because of the LCDs they have. It has nothing to do with ridership or the age of said cars themselves. And speaking of ridership, the  gets essentially as crowded as the  at the Brooklyn end during the AM Rush (to Midtown Manhattan) and PM Rush (back to Brooklyn). The  overall is not as busy compared to the other more popular lines such as the two Lex Av expresses and the two Queens Blvd expresses as well as one of the two 7 Av expresses. Also, the  combined (12-15 tph) is more frequent than the  alone (8-10 tph) so how is the former two “less demanding” than the latter one?

Anyway, once the crappy ass R46s retire, then Astoria is gonna have to deal with the 68s and 68As with presumably roll-sign changes until those cars eventually retire and the entirety of the BMT becomes fully NTTs like the rest of the system.

Two things can be true at once. The 96th St sign installations on the R68/As for the Q are coinciding with more R46s popping up on the N & W. We can debate whether it's ridership related at all, but what we do know for sure is that the LCD signs on the r46s are saving them some work at Astoria.

But like you said, when the R46s retire, the N & W will have to deal with a full fleet of R68/As. By then, they would need to have enough people ready to change the rollsigns instantly. Otherwise, you will have many mislabeled trains with the current setup.

As @MJHmarc noted in their above post, that may or may not be a big enough priority for the MTA as the main priority is making sure there are enough trains ready and running for service.

[MJHmarc]

22 minutes ago, RandomRider0101 said:

Two things can be true at once. The 96th St sign installations on the R68/As for the Q are coinciding with more R46s popping up on the N & W. We can debate whether it's ridership related at all, but what we do know for sure is that the LCD signs on the r46s are saving them some work at Astoria.

But like you said, when the R46s retire, the N & W will have to deal with a full fleet of R68/As. By then, they would need to have enough people ready to change the rollsigns instantly. Otherwise, you will have many mislabeled trains with the current setup.

As @MJHmarc noted in their above post, that may or may not be a big enough priority for the MTA as the main priority is making sure there are enough trains ready and running for service.

Not usual to have just the first, last and the 2 mid cars rollsigns changed only to save time. 

[RandomRider0101]

5 hours ago, Jemorie said:

Ya’ll say anything. The  need the crappy ass R46s because of the LCDs they have. It has nothing to do with ridership or the age of said cars themselves. And speaking of ridership, the  gets essentially as crowded as the  at the Brooklyn end during the AM Rush (to Midtown Manhattan) and PM Rush (back to Brooklyn). The  overall is not as busy compared to the other more popular lines such as the two Lex Av expresses and the two Queens Blvd expresses as well as one of the two 7 Av expresses.

Also, the  combined (12-15 tph) is more frequent than the  alone (8-10 tph) so how is the former two “less demanding” than the latter one?

I just reread your post and would like to respond to the parts in bold.

You pretty much answered your own question in regards to the tph for the aforementioned lines. The & COMBINED are 12-15 trains compared to the  lines' 8 -10 trains. When split evenly by two, the & are each 6 - 7.5 trains compared to the 8 -10 trains for the . When you go by that, that seems to be an indication that the Q is the slightly busier line compared to the rest of Broadway.

I never said anything about Queens Blvd or the A division, so I'm not sure how those came into the discussion. The comparison was between the Q and the N&W. It's not like I said the Q is the busiest line in the whole system.

Edited September 12, 2023 by RandomRider0101
Changed details

[U-BahnNYC]

14 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

Yes and the cars are now older. Remember that once Jamaica found out they had the green light to take all Coney Islands R160s, they let the R46s go to shit and stopped maintaining them. A few times during the swap Coney Island would send back R46s to Jamaica and had them repair the cars because they were not cleared for service. But the most important thing is that now the cars are even older and low spare factor that now got even lower because of “8-minute  service all day” meaning that these cars don’t get a break. And now that they won’t even have the R68s to help out, since clearly the MTA sees  riders as second class citizens (downgrades to the line since 2017 and a huge nosedive in late 2019-early 2020). Where are the politicians that used to fight for better subway service? Whats next, getting rid of the  just for giggles?

So when the literally had to take on the most dilapidated hand-me-downs, all was fine?

The is not a high-ridership, high priority route like the or the Lex so yeah, for now, it'll have to deal with the crappy R46s. There is literally no other option right now - the R46s will ride off into the sunset on the Broadway lines.

[Around the Horn]

5 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

honestly if i were in charge of operations you would still have the  running to/ from 71 Av despite the 63 St tunnel work. Service as follows:

 - peak direction rush hour service reduced to every 10 minutes (AM from 71 Av, PM from Metropolitan Av - the other direction stays every 5-8 minutes)

If they could run the on Queens Blvd during this service change they would. It was the original plan until they ran simulations of the service pattern and found it would result in extreme delays. 

Just the and together has already turned 53rd Street into a parking lot during rush hour; adding the would make it even worse even if you cut Kings Highway trips (whihc would result in severe overcrowding in Brooklyn)

[Jemorie]

8 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

honestly if i were in charge of operations you would still have the  running to/ from 71 Av despite the 63 St tunnel work. Service as follows:

 - unchanged from usual service

 - every 8 minutes (no Church Av/Kings Hwy trips) - via 53 St

 - peak direction rush hour service reduced to every 10 minutes (AM from 71 Av, PM from Metropolitan Av - the other direction stays every 5-8 minutes)

 - no change from usual service 

 - 21 St Queensbridge to Lexington Av-63 St * 57 St Station closed all times - shuttle connects to Broadway Line to move equipment and trash via Broadway Express track / Manhattan Bridge

 

middays:

 local in Manhattan, maybe even via lower Manhattan 

 suspended middays

 

Honestly, you’re doing too much. They’re not gonna significantly reduce  service just to keep the  on Queens Blvd or send some R160s back to Coney Island Yard to run on the . I’m glad your proposal did not came true in reality.

5 hours ago, RandomRider0101 said:

I just reread your post and would like to respond to the parts in bold.

You pretty much answered your own question in regards to the tph for the aforementioned lines. The & COMBINED are 12-15 trains compared to the  lines' 8 -10 trains. When split evenly by two, the & are each 6 - 7.5 trains compared to the 8 -10 trains for the . When you go by that, that seems to be an indication that the Q is the slightly busier line compared to the rest of Broadway.

I never said anything about Queens Blvd or the A division, so I'm not sure how those came into the discussion. The comparison was between the Q and the N&W. It's not like I said the Q is the busiest line in the whole system.

Yeah, no. The N/Q/W are more or less in the same boot.

The and  have the same headway at the Brooklyn end (10 tph) during AM Rush (to Manhattan) and PM Rush (from Manhattan). Even between June 2010 and November 2016, they always had the same headways during both AM out of Brooklyn and PM back to Brooklyn. Neither one is busier than the other. That’s why I specifically said from the jump that the  gets essentially as crowded as the  earlier. Off peak service on both lines were previously 6 tph each until the Second Avenue Subway open, in which the latter of the two increased to 8 tph off peak, although midday service on the former was only recently increased to 8 tph.

But in terms of the northernmost end, it really does not matter if you mathematically split the  and  evenly by two. Combined, that indicates that Astoria with a train every 4 or 5 minutes (12-15 tph) is busier than the Second Avenue Subway and to some extent the local stations along the Brighton Line, all of which are served exclusively by the  (8-10 tph).

I compared the  with the Lexington Av expresses and the Queens Blvd expresses because everyone wants to make it seem like the  is the third busiest line in the system after the Lexington Avenue Line in general and the Queens Blvd Line in general all because of the Second Avenue Subway.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Jemorie

[RandomRider0101]

5 hours ago, Jemorie said:

Yeah, no. The N/Q/W are more or less in the same boot.

The and  have the same headway at the Brooklyn end (10 tph) during AM Rush (to Manhattan) and PM Rush (from Manhattan). Even between June 2010 and November 2016, they always had the same headways during both AM out of Brooklyn and PM back to Brooklyn. Neither one is busier than the other. That’s why I specifically said from the jump that the  gets essentially as crowded as the  earlier. Off peak service on both lines were previously 6 tph each until the Second Avenue Subway open, in which the latter of the two increased to 8 tph off peak, although midday service on the former was only recently increased to 8 tph.

But in terms of the northernmost end, it really does not matter if you mathematically split the  and  evenly by two. Combined, that indicates that Astoria with a train every 4 or 5 minutes (12-15 tph) is busier than the Second Avenue Subway and to some extent the local stations along the Brighton Line, all of which are served exclusively by the  (8-10 tph).

I compared the  with the Lexington Av expresses and the Queens Blvd expresses because everyone wants to make it seem like the  is the third busiest line in the system after the Lexington Avenue Line in general and the Queens Blvd Line in general all because of the Second Avenue Subway.

When I checked the timetables myself, they seemed to indicate that the Q runs more consistently overall. That would match with what you said earlier about the tph, as well as with what others have stated.

Either way, the N & W will be running most of the R46s out of CI. Yes the cars are not great, but they're not going anywhere until at least option 1 of the R211s is completed. 

[MJHmarc]

1 hour ago, RandomRider0101 said:

When I checked the timetables myself, they seemed to indicate that the Q runs more consistently overall. That would match with what you said earlier about the tph, as well as with what others have stated.

Either way, the N & W will be running most of the R46s out of CI. Yes the cars are not great, but they're not going anywhere until at least option 1 of the R211s is completed. 

Question- The R68’s/A’s and R46’s that are being upgraded to LED lights lately are any indicators to fleet that will be kept for transfer vs put of of service when there’s enough 211’s running?  

[zacster]

If the signs in the R68s are a problem in Astoria, maybe they could take the LEDs out of the R46s and put them in the R68s.  This way they can have incorrect LED readings rather than incorrect curtains!  I have only rarely seen R68s on the Q with the 96th/2nd reading, mostly they say 57th/7th.  And the R46s frequently have the wrong direction displayed.  Neither car class is being maintained very well.

[darkstar8983]

22 hours ago, RandomRider0101 said:

Two things can be true at once. The 96th St sign installations on the R68/As for the Q are coinciding with more R46s popping up on the N & W. We can debate whether it's ridership related at all, but what we do know for sure is that the LCD signs on the r46s are saving them some work at Astoria.

But like you said, when the R46s retire, the N & W will have to deal with a full fleet of R68/As. By then, they would need to have enough people ready to change the rollsigns instantly. Otherwise, you will have many mislabeled trains with the current setup.

As @MJHmarc noted in their above post, that may or may not be a big enough priority for the MTA as the main priority is making sure there are enough trains ready and running for service.

Just can’t stand seeing my home line filled with nothing but R46s. Keeps me from taking the train, and restricting myself to other transportation modes, even to meet up with friends or family, or commute to/from work. Why can’t they run even one R160 and I can time my commutes around the scheduled? They do it with the  daily, so surely they have enough equipment to do so for the  too.

Edited September 12, 2023 by darkstar8983

[Lex]

4 minutes ago, darkstar8983 said:

Just can’t stand seeing my home line filled with nothing but R46s. Keeps me from taking the train, and restricting myself to other transportation modes. Why can’t they run even one R160 and I can time my commutes around the scheduled? They do it with the  daily, so surely they have enough equipment to do so for the  too.

Oh, you mean that lone  to 96th Street? That's one train, which is nowhere near enough.

There is no conspiracy against you or others using the /. If you don't like the current rolling stock prospects, whatever, but the only thing keeping you from using the train is you. You've already made it perfectly clear, and in all honesty, I can't help but think several people are sick of your whining.

[ArchytectAnthony]

 

27 minutes ago, darkstar8983 said:

Just can’t stand seeing my home line filled with nothing but R46s. Keeps me from taking the train, and restricting myself to other transportation modes, even to meet up with friends or family, or commute to/from work. Why can’t they run even one R160 and I can time my commutes around the scheduled? They do it with the  daily, so surely they have enough equipment to do so for the  too.

Damn your hatred for the R46 is that huge huh. As someone that lives on west end (D) for basically my entire life, im used to riding old trains lol. Sure it sucks going from riding new trains daily to riding the oldest trains in the system within a year but lifes never fair. Even I miss riding R160s on the and . But we have no choice but to have some patience until option 1 and/or 2 of r211's to maybe see NTT's on those lines again.

Edited September 12, 2023 by ArchytectAnthony

[RandomRider0101]

8 hours ago, MJHmarc said:

Question- The R68’s/A’s and R46’s that are being upgraded to LED lights lately are any indicators to fleet that will be kept for transfer vs put of of service when there’s enough 211’s running?  

Are you asking about the sets that have received / are receiving the upgraded lighting in the cars? If so, I don't think that's necessarily an indicator that those sets will be in service longer than the sets that don't get them. They replace the lights when they burn out, which is what I assumed happened with the R46s since they are up there in age.

8 hours ago, zacster said:

If the signs in the R68s are a problem in Astoria, maybe they could take the LEDs out of the R46s and put them in the R68s.  This way they can have incorrect LED readings rather than incorrect curtains!  I have only rarely seen R68s on the Q with the 96th/2nd reading, mostly they say 57th/7th.  And the R46s frequently have the wrong direction displayed.  Neither car class is being maintained very well.

To the 1st point - I was thinking that before. Maybe they can take the LCD signs from the R46s when they retire, and put them on the R68/As. That's if they feel it's worth the effort.

To the 2nd point - I assumed they may have installed the 96th St signs on more of the R68/As, but it looks like that's not really the case. Also, I would guess that the R68/As at Coney aren't being maintained well due to them running constantly with minimal shop time. They did the same thing when they had the R160s there, and that's likely why they broke down more often than the R160s already at Jamaica.

[MJHmarc]

Just read a reddit post saying there were over 22 sets of N Q and W’s taken out of service today due to vandalism 🤔

[MJHmarc]

1 hour ago, ArchytectAnthony said:

 

Damn your hatred for the R46 is that huge huh. As someone that lives on west end for basically my entire life, im used to riding old trains lol. Sure it sucks going from riding new trains daily to riding the oldest trains in the system within a year but lifes never fair. Even I miss riding R160s on the and . But we have no choice but to have some patience until option 1 and/or 2 of r211's to maybe see NTT's on those lines again.

N Q and W riders can set their eyes on the R268’s 

Edited September 13, 2023 by MJHmarc

[Calvin]

2 hours ago, Lex said:

Oh, you mean that lone  to 96th Street? That's one train, which is nowhere near enough.

There is no conspiracy against you or others using the /. If you don't like the current rolling stock prospects, whatever, but the only thing keeping you from using the train is you. You've already made it perfectly clear, and in all honesty, I can't help but think several people are sick of your whining.

I might to have to add, sometimes that  to 96 St as a  to Coney Island doesn't run all the time during the weekday. It can be cancelled without a notice or crew shortage. It happened sometimes, when I pass by Sheepshead Bay between 8:50-9:20 AM, the trains were the usual R46 and R68/A. 

[Jemorie]

55 minutes ago, MJHmarc said:

Just read a reddit post saying there were over 22 sets of N Q and W’s taken out of service today due to vandalism 🤔

Yes it’s true. See the Unplanned Service Change Thread for more information.

[RandomRider0101]

3 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

Just can’t stand seeing my home line filled with nothing but R46s. Keeps me from taking the train, and restricting myself to other transportation modes, even to meet up with friends or family, or commute to/from work. Why can’t they run even one R160 and I can time my commutes around the scheduled? They do it with the  daily, so surely they have enough equipment to do so for the  too.

While I can understand not liking the R46s, would it really kill you to at least try to take them when you really have somewhere to go? Yes the cars have many obvious issues (aside from age), but they still get thousands of people from point A to point B every day all around the city.

[Vulturious]

2 hours ago, MJHmarc said:

Just read a reddit post saying there were over 22 sets of N Q and W’s taken out of service today due to vandalism 🤔

You mind sharing the link, good sir?

[MJHmarc]

10 hours ago, Vulturious said:

You mind sharing the link, good sir?

Crazy amounts of email alerts yesterday and thats why this morning theres no W.  Sounds like an R46 hate group went all out.

Edited September 13, 2023 by MJHmarc

[MJHmarc]

12 hours ago, Vulturious said:

You mind sharing the link, good sir?