Fleet Swap Discussion Thread

[Calvin]

11 minutes ago, darkstar8983 said:

What seems to be the likely scenario is that in 2019, Jamaica just didn’t maintain the R46s, plain and simple. Hence why when the swap was going on, a couple of times, Coney Island had to send the R46s back to Jamaica to be properly repaired before being sent out. When the R46s were in Jamaica, half of them ran only 1-2 trips a day, and only weekdays during the rush hour as the Kings Highway  train trips, or as trips that were removed from service as soon as the train reached Stillwell Av. Meaning that these cars didn’t get much punishment, and could be switched in and out should there be a problem with the main R46s from the . 

Probably give them props for the  weekend service: Half of the trains are 160s. It gets swapped for a R46 to prepare for Monday weekday service. Gives them a break to pulling out 70% of the 360 R46s they have there. 

Edited December 11, 2020 by Calvin

[NewFlyer 230]

We also have to keep in mind that the R46’s are 43-45 years old which means that they are bound to have more problems due to age. So I’m not surprised that they are having more issues. These trains are now being used all the time on the  and  lines whereas before the  and the  shuttle ran the R46’s overnights. A lot of these R46’s went from resting at night to being worked all the time. Even the R32’s weren’t being worked this hard before the R179s came. 
Since CBTC is coming to the Queens Blvd line, Coney Island will just have to deal with the R46’s, because realistically where else can they go? I guess they have good reason not to put them on the  even though it appears ideal for them to be on a weekday only line. 

If they can get a few more sets from Jamaica and swap the R68A’s from the  perhaps things will start to improve. 

[darkstar8983]

2 hours ago, NewFlyer 230 said:

We also have to keep in mind that the R46’s are 43-45 years old which means that they are bound to have more problems due to age. So I’m not surprised that they are having more issues. These trains are now being used all the time on the  and  lines whereas before the  and the  shuttle ran the R46’s overnights. A lot of these R46’s went from resting at night to being worked all the time. Even the R32’s weren’t being worked this hard before the R179s came. 
Since CBTC is coming to the Queens Blvd line, Coney Island will just have to deal with the R46’s, because realistically where else can they go? I guess they have good reason not to put them on the  even though it appears ideal for them to be on a weekday only line. 

If they can get a few more sets from Jamaica and swap the R68A’s from the  perhaps things will start to improve. 

They could just postpone CBTC and loan out the R160s again until the R211s arrive or the R46s get a heavy duty overhaul to hold them together. Remember that the R160s from Queens Blvd will have to eventually run on other tracks that are shared with these R46s ( the  trains on 8 Av, the  on Broadway; and the  on the Culver Line), so don’t think that the on-time performance will change all that much for the  and .

Edited December 11, 2020 by darkstar8983

[Lawrence St]

53 minutes ago, darkstar8983 said:

They could just postpone CBTC and loan out the R160s again until the R211s arrive or the R46s get a heavy duty overhaul to hold them together. Remember that the R160s from Queens Blvd will have to eventually run on other tracks that are shared with these R46s ( the  trains on 8 Av, the  on Broadway; and the  on the Culver Line), so don’t think that the on-time performance will change all that much for the  and .

I agree with him. The Mile between mechanical breakdowns has SKYROCKETED on the R46 cars after they got transferred to the Broadway lines. They should have just kept these cars for the .

[VIP]

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I agree with him. The Mile between mechanical breakdowns has SKYROCKETED on the R46 cars after they got transferred to the Broadway lines. They should have just kept these cars for the .

Concourse yard doesn’t have parts nor want to handle additional equipment other than their R68/68A.  They should really put the R46’s for   Service and not the R68/A’s and decrease Jamaica yard’s spare factor a bit. 

[Bill from Maspeth]

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2020 at 7:28 AM, darkstar8983 said:

 

 

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2020 at 7:28 AM, darkstar8983 said:

18 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

And now saw 9888-9892/9873-9877 on the , + 9043-9047/9068-9072 on the  

 

Was that train seen on the R the train that came  north as an R and went back south as a Q?  If so, that move is made every rush hour morning and the train goes back as an R from CIYD for the PM rush.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Bill from Maspeth

[Calvin]

1 hour ago, VIP said:

Concourse yard doesn’t have parts nor want to handle additional equipment other than their R68/68A.  They should really put the R46’s for   Service and not the R68/A’s and decrease Jamaica yard’s spare factor a bit. 

Did Concourse Yard agreed to maintain equipment with the  aside from being the  only? I wonder what was the difference when the  had R40 Slants/Mods with the 42s back then.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Calvin

[Lawrence St]

1 hour ago, VIP said:

Concourse yard doesn’t have parts nor want to handle additional equipment other than their R68/68A.  They should really put the R46’s for   Service and not the R68/A’s and decrease Jamaica yard’s spare factor a bit. 

But the is based out of CIY, Concourse only does storage for the .

[Bill from Maspeth]

On ‎12‎/‎9‎/‎2020 at 9:14 PM, RedLine said:

No more R160 on the A.

Nope.  Thursday 12/10 there was one R160 on the A.

8832/28+9717/13.

[VIP]

36 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

But the is based out of CIY, Concourse only does storage for the .

Right. But I hear (don’t know how true it is) concourse Can’t maintain the cars if need be. Regardless Coney Island crews will still have the headache of maintaining the R46’s whether on the  or  

[NewFlyer 230]

1 hour ago, VIP said:

Right. But I hear (don’t know how true it is) concourse Can’t maintain the cars if need be. Regardless Coney Island crews will still have the headache of maintaining the R46’s whether on the  or  

This is why the MTA needs to retire a majority the R68/R68A’s before they are well into their 40’s to avoid another situation like they are in now with the R46’s. I would think it’s just common sense tbh, because all of MTA’s equipment gets ran hard daily for decades. The R46’s also had the unfortunate pleasure of existing in a time back in the late 70s and 80s were maintence was lacking so I’m sure that took its toll on their bodies despite going through that overhaul. 
 

All that money they wasted on making the 2nd Ave line and Hudson Yards look all big and fancy while a majority of the stations are regular looking and small in comparison. I get they wanted to go for something different but they don’t have money for that and equipment/ maintenance in my opinion is way more important than having these gigantic futuristic looking stations. At the end I don’t think most people care about the massive stations as long as they can get on the train and get to their destination.

I think at this point the cuts are inevitable so I can see the  and  being temporarily eliminated which will free up equipment for other lines. 

Edited December 11, 2020 by NewFlyer 230

[darkstar8983]

2 hours ago, Bill from Maspeth said:

 

Was that train seen on the R the train that came  north as an R and went back south as a Q?  If so, that move is made every rush hour morning and the train goes back as an R from CIYD for the PM rush.

No, it was a regular 71 Av-bound  in the morning. But I get what you mean. I think that’s how they’ve been doing the Alstom/Siemens switch. Running the Siemens as the put-in  from 86 St to Astoria in the morning, so that it becomes the 86 St trip at 8:33AM, so it can go out of service and get switched to the  for the PM rush put in at 36 St, and the Alstom  to be swapped out as either the 96 St  or the  trains that drop out at 59 St.

 

on an unrelated note, apparently the 59 St  trips have their exterior signs set to either Bay Ridge-95 St or 36 St-4 Av

[Cait Sith]

9073-9077/9008-9012 is on the E.

[R10 2952]

8 hours ago, NewFlyer 230 said:

This is why the MTA needs to retire a majority the R68/R68A’s before they are well into their 40’s to avoid another situation like they are in now with the R46’s. I would think it’s just common sense tbh, because all of MTA’s equipment gets ran hard daily for decades. The R46’s also had the unfortunate pleasure of existing in a time back in the late 70s and 80s were maintence was lacking so I’m sure that took its toll on their bodies despite going through that overhaul. 

Why would they retire them? The R68/As are doing perfectly fine.  Retiring 600 reliable cars pre-emptively simply because they are older is simply a non-starter.  No transit agency strapped for cash would do something like that.  And now there's people over in the buses section saying that the Orion VII NGs need to be retired.

Why is everyone in a rush to retire everything all of a sudden FFS?  People would get laughed right out of the building if they showed up to one of the MTA board meetings advocating this...

Edited December 12, 2020 by R10 2952

[Cait Sith]

Just got off of 9093-9097/9053-9057 on the R.

[Around the Horn]

10 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

on an unrelated note, apparently the 59 St  trips have their exterior signs set to either Bay Ridge-95 St or 36 St-4 Av

This is because there is no 59th Street program from Forest Hills. (The only 59th Street program is the shuttle from 95th St)

[NewFlyer 230]

3 hours ago, R10 2952 said:

Why would they retire them? The R68/As are doing perfectly fine.  Retiring 600 reliable cars pre-emptively simply because they are older is simply a non-starter.  No transit agency strapped for cash would do something like that.  And now there's people over in the buses section saying that the Orion VII NGs need to be retired.

Why is everyone in a rush to retire everything all of a sudden FFS?  People would get laughed right out of the building if they showed up to one of the MTA board meetings advocating this...

No I wasn’t talking about getting rid of the R68/R68A’s with the R211 order. What I was saying is that the MTA should try to get replacements for the R68/A’s around the time they reach 40 years of service. With the loss of revenue for the pandemic that may be difficult to achieve. However I say try to get them out of service around the age of 40 so that way they can avoid the additional cost for maintaining a fleet whose MDBF will only continue to decrease due to age. So that means in 2026/2027 the first of the R68’s should start retiring. Hopefully it won’t be the year 2036 and we have a majority of them still in service. The R32’s and R42’s costs the MTA a lot of money to maintain, because they were well past their useful lives. The R46’s are showing their age after the swap but at the same time they are 43-45 years old so it’s not surprising that they are having issues. 

I wasn’t one of the people suggesting the Orion VII NG’s be retired. The oldest one is only 12 and they don’t seem to be doing bad at all so I suspect that a majority of them will make it to at least15/16 years old. 

[Bill from Maspeth]

Deleted comment

Edited December 12, 2020 by Bill from Maspeth

[R3238]

People are spoiled these day with these new tech trains LED lights and automatic announcement, why in a rush to retire the trains and bus,  the RTS bus run about 20 years or more if spoils brat didn't complainto the press for no wifi, phone charger and lazy to lift there feets up 3 step in the front door , and older trains avg , 60s years , believe me maintenance the old fleet is penny to MTA , they have so much waste they could cut ✂️ if they want to, thousands of bigwigs if I were them with budget issue i would cancel the R211 order,  i rather use the money to build the 2nd and 3rd phase 2nd ave line and build the 2nd station 10ave 41 st they to cheap to build decade ago

[R68NTrain]

30 minutes ago, R3238 said:

People are spoiled these day with these new tech trains LED lights and automatic announcement, why in a rush to retire the trains and bus,  the RTS bus run about 20 years or more if spoils brat didn't complainto the press for no wifi, phone charger and lazy to lift there feets up 3 step in the front door , and older trains avg , 60s years , believe me maintenance the old fleet is penny to MTA , they have so much waste they could cut ✂️ if they want to, thousands of bigwigs if I were them with budget issue i would cancel the R211 order,  i rather use the money to build the 2nd and 3rd phase 2nd ave line and build the 2nd station 10ave 41 st they to cheap to build decade ago

are you good bro? I don't know if you've noticed but the R46s are kinda falling apart. cancelling the R211 order would definitely be the right thing to do right?

[RedLine]

Approximately 84 cars are being disposed, exact car types unknown.

[danielhg121]

9 hours ago, RedLine said:

Approximately 84 cars are being disposed, exact car types unknown.

Source?

[Around the Horn]

12 hours ago, R3238 said:

the RTS bus run about 20 years or more if spoils brat didn't complainto the press for no wifi, phone charger and lazy to lift there feets up 3 step in the front door

It's literally illegal to run local buses with steps. The Americans with Disabilities Act is legally binding you know...

And to bring this back to trains, the ADA also requires recorded automated announcements and signage that meets specific standards for passengers with difficulty seeing and hearing. These things are not luxuries, they are requirements for people with disabilities.

[MHV9218]

5 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

It's literally illegal to run local buses with steps. The Americans with Disabilities Act is legally binding you know...

Just looked this up because I was curious. Don't think this is true. The ADA requires either ramps or lifts, doesn't say you can't have steps. It's illegal to run a high-floor without lifts (like the Blitzes when they were retired) but as long as you have them you're okay. Low-floors are recommended since ramps have fewer issues than lifts (as we saw with the 9350-9699 buses). Steps have to be lit, lined, striped, etc. but they're allowed. 

[Maxwell179]

1 hour ago, MHV9218 said:

Just looked this up because I was curious. Don't think this is true. The ADA requires either ramps or lifts, doesn't say you can't have steps. It's illegal to run a high-floor without lifts (like the Blitzes when they were retired) but as long as you have them you're okay. Low-floors are recommended since ramps have fewer issues than lifts (as we saw with the 9350-9699 buses). Steps have to be lit, lined, striped, etc. but they're allowed. 

I think he means it illegal for it to just have steps and no alternative method of boarding besides steps.