R211 Discussion Thread

[U-BahnNYC]

15 hours ago, R32 3838 said:

 

The is a high ridership line and should get the small amount of R211s which would be shared with the / if that group of R211s have the CBTC to run on the like the R143s and 64 R160s

If the were to get the 8 car R160s, The would have to use the R179s which are currently in the process of receiving CBTC kits.

 

And with the ridership patterns that keep changing, We don't even know if the will ether get 8 car trains. It all depends since things are always changing on the fly.

 

NO, The needs to stay the way it is now. I'm sick and tired of people thinking the is useless when they don't even take the line. Skip - Stop works on the / and its very useful when you want another way to get to Jamaica if the has issues. Have every other to to 9th ave instead during the rush hours. Having every other go to Brooklyn would not be bad and would not interfere with the skip stop pattern since the other trains will end at broad st. Or just have both / go down to 9th ave by adding a few more trains during the peak hours.

I just don't see the point in giving any IND line 8-car trains. 8-car trains are meant for the Eastern Division only. The  should become 10-car once the full R211 order arrives so it can just use the Jamaica Yard fleet. Simplify things on the entire IND system once and for all to make way for platform screen doors. 

Regarding the , the R179s will be more than adequate for the entire Eastern Division if all the 8-car R179s are displaced to East New York. No need for 8-car r211s to complicate things further. Just make the damn train 10 cars like every other IND line and call it a day. The remaining R179s from the  will be enough to increase capacity on the and the . 

Why does the MTA purposely shoot itself in the foot like this? With continued gentrification along the  I see no sense in not just making it a 10-car IND line. 

[U-BahnNYC]

Also on a different note can someone clarify: are the base order R211A's supposed to start arriving this year, once the 30-day test is over? I read somewhere that they've been delayed to 2025 at the earliest but maybe that is the second option order that article was talking about? 

I ride the  a lot and honestly the 75-footers are giving me a lot of anxiety lately with the closed storm doors, especially when there's an issue and the train is stuck in a tunnel underground. I can't wait for the R46s to get off the ...  

[trainfan22]

19 minutes ago, U-BahnNYC said:

Also on a different note can someone clarify: are the base order R211A's supposed to start arriving this year, once the 30-day test is over? I read somewhere that they've been delayed to 2025 at the earliest but maybe that is the second option order that article was talking about? 

I ride the  a lot and honestly the 75-footers are giving me a lot of anxiety lately with the closed storm doors, especially when there's an issue and the train is stuck in a tunnel underground. I can't wait for the R46s to get off the ...  

The R211s will start arriving this year once the pilot train passes its 30 day revenue service test.

[RandomRider0101]

37 minutes ago, U-BahnNYC said:

Also on a different note can someone clarify: are the base order R211A's supposed to start arriving this year, once the 30-day test is over? I read somewhere that they've been delayed to 2025 at the earliest but maybe that is the second option order that article was talking about? 

I ride the  a lot and honestly the 75-footers are giving me a lot of anxiety lately with the closed storm doors, especially when there's an issue and the train is stuck in a tunnel underground. I can't wait for the R46s to get off the ...  

2025 is the year that the base order is expected to be completed. The media often reports stories incorrectly, which is why it's best to only trust sources that come directly from the  themselves.

[FLX9304]

On 12/15/2022 at 6:59 PM, rbrome said:

On the busses, they have technology now that actually counts people instead of just fares. Fare evasion is around 30% on busses right now. I assume ridership numbers include fare-beaters, but I'm not certain. 

For the subways, the MTA teamed up with Columbia University to devise an accurate way to determine the evasion rate. Their methodology seems solid to me. They recently determined that around 15% of people don't pay the subway fare. I'm less sure if ridership numbers try to estimate fare-beaters here, although even if you add that 15%, ridership is still well below pre-pandemic levels, which makes sense given how empty most offices are still. 

Source: this Twitter thread (the methodology is described in the next tweet): 

 

Don’t believe in tweetwat, they make things up to stay in the spotlight. See for yourself 

[U-BahnNYC]

1 hour ago, trainfan22 said:

The R211s will start arriving this year once the pilot train passes its 30 day revenue service test.

Ok, that's what I thought. Are there already trains ready to get delivered at the Kawasaki plant? Will the delivery be slow at first like one train a month or something?

[R32 3838]

2 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

I just don't see the point in giving any IND line 8-car trains. 8-car trains are meant for the Eastern Division only. The  should become 10-car once the full R211 order arrives so it can just use the Jamaica Yard fleet. Simplify things on the entire IND system once and for all to make way for platform screen doors. 

Regarding the , the R179s will be more than adequate for the entire Eastern Division if all the 8-car R179s are displaced to East New York. No need for 8-car r211s to complicate things further. Just make the damn train 10 cars like every other IND line and call it a day. The remaining R179s from the  will be enough to increase capacity on the and the . 

Why does the MTA purposely shoot itself in the foot like this? With continued gentrification along the  I see no sense in not just making it a 10-car IND line. 

 

Them being in a rush to get rid of the R32s and not thinking with common sense is why we are in the situation we are in. The R179s should have been mostly 10 car units from the start. It's criminal that the has only 13 sets and the fact that the is still 8 cars or half of the line.

The can't use the R179s since the cbtc kits wouldn't work on the line unless they make a dedicated group for the . The is better off with the R179s since all the CBTC kits in the R160's (8377 and up), R179s and R211s has to be compatible with all CBTC and upcoming CBTC routes with the exception of the .

 

Also even without the R211 8 car units, We are going to have a surplus of 8 car trains now which is why i feel that making the R179s mostly 8 car units was a dumb decision. The only thing i could see happening is ordering additional R160 B cars to insert in existing 4 car units similar to the R188s minus the CBTC conversion to increase the amount of 10 car R160s.   

[darkstar8983]

2 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

I just don't see the point in giving any IND line 8-car trains. 8-car trains are meant for the Eastern Division only. The  should become 10-car once the full R211 order arrives so it can just use the Jamaica Yard fleet. Simplify things on the entire IND system once and for all to make way for platform screen doors. 

Regarding the , the R179s will be more than adequate for the entire Eastern Division if all the 8-car R179s are displaced to East New York. No need for 8-car r211s to complicate things further. Just make the damn train 10 cars like every other IND line and call it a day. The remaining R179s from the  will be enough to increase capacity on the and the . 

Why does the MTA purposely shoot itself in the foot like this? With continued gentrification along the  I see no sense in not just making it a 10-car IND line. 

Not necessarily. There are 372 R160s, and the 64  train-specific cars can be displaced by R211s, with those R160s going to the  and . Let’s say they order 120 cars of R211s in 4-car sets, and then the R143s can still supplement the R179s for the , while the  and  keep all the R160s. The  needs 192 cars to make service + 56 cars as spares (maybe even 64 spare cars). This leaves the  with the 96 cars necessary to make service. The spare factor can be shared between the two routes since the  is based in Jamaica and the  lays up trains there weekends. But if the plan to lengthen  trains is still being put off, then don’t order ANY 4-car R211s - you don’t want an odd-ball fleet of cars that can only run in series with themselves (I.e. the R179s)

[U-BahnNYC]

On 1/2/2023 at 6:55 PM, R32 3838 said:

 

Them being in a rush to get rid of the R32s and not thinking with common sense is why we are in the situation we are in. The R179s should have been mostly 10 car units from the start. It's criminal that the has only 13 sets and the fact that the is still 8 cars or half of the line.

The can't use the R179s since the cbtc kits wouldn't work on the line unless they make a dedicated group for the . The is better off with the R179s since all the CBTC kits in the R160's (8377 and up), R179s and R211s has to be compatible with all CBTC and upcoming CBTC routes with the exception of the .

 

Also even without the R211 8 car units, We are going to have a surplus of 8 car trains now which is why i feel that making the R179s mostly 8 car units was a dumb decision. The only thing i could see happening is ordering additional R160 B cars to insert in existing 4 car units similar to the R188s minus the CBTC conversion to increase the amount of 10 car R160s.   

Yes it was very dumb to make the R179s mostly 8-car, which exactly why I think it's even dumber to even bother ordering any 8-car R211. The 8-car sets are pretty useless outside of the Eastern Division where only they can run. 

There already is a massive glut of extra 8-car trains with the R179s so I'm still not understanding why on earth there should be more 8-car trains in the form of new R211s? Just push all the R179s on the Eastern Division and the  won't need any new rolling stock for the next 2 decades at least. 

It's the IND and 10-car BMT lines that most desperately need new rolling stock right now. Why is so much attention paid to the Eastern division when it needs it the least? 

 

On 1/2/2023 at 7:40 PM, darkstar8983 said:

Not necessarily. There are 372 R160s, and the 64  train-specific cars can be displaced by R211s, with those R160s going to the  and . Let’s say they order 120 cars of R211s in 4-car sets, and then the R143s can still supplement the R179s for the , while the  and  keep all the R160s. The  needs 192 cars to make service + 56 cars as spares (maybe even 64 spare cars). This leaves the  with the 96 cars necessary to make service. The spare factor can be shared between the two routes since the  is based in Jamaica and the  lays up trains there weekends. But if the plan to lengthen  trains is still being put off, then don’t order ANY 4-car R211s - you don’t want an odd-ball fleet of cars that can only run in series with themselves (I.e. the R179s)

That's what I'm saying - if they're gonna lengthen the  , why on earth do it with 8-car trains instead of IND standard 10-car trains that can run everywhere else? The  has no connection to the Eastern Division whatsoever so why bother with a lackluster "upgrade" to 8-car trains on an IND line?! They can always just run 5-car sets late nights if they're worried about 10 being too much for off-peak but the way things are going, the neighborhoods along the  will continue to gentrify. 

[darkstar8983]

1 minute ago, U-BahnNYC said:

That's what I'm saying - if they're gonna lengthen the  , why on earth do it with 8-car trains instead of IND standard 10-car trains that can run everywhere else? The  has no connection to the Eastern Division whatsoever so why bother with a lackluster "upgrade" to 8-car trains on an IND line?! They can always just run 5-car sets late nights if they're worried about 10 being too much for off-peak but the way things are going, the neighborhoods along the  will continue to gentrify. 

I think the issue is the precise point where the ridership is at - not enough to immediately justify 10-car trains but in need of longer rush hour consists than 5-car trains. The issue then becomes frequency if the train lengths are lengthened to 10-cars or 8-cars - in the past the service was every 10-12 minutes rush hours because of the 6-car R46 trains and the ridership not justifying more frequent service. Just my two cents. But we don’t want a repeat of the R143s where the TA thought it was going to be sufficient for the .

Also remember that the  right now doesn’t have a spare factor - it piggybacks off of the  so that way the  and  each have a spare factor of 7 trains on average.

[U-BahnNYC]

Just now, darkstar8983 said:

I think the issue is the precise point where the ridership is at - not enough to immediately justify 10-car trains but in need of longer rush hour consists than 5-car trains. The issue then becomes frequency if the train lengths are lengthened to 10-cars or 8-cars - in the past the service was every 10-12 minutes rush hours because of the 6-car R46 trains and the ridership not justifying more frequent service. Just my two cents. But we don’t want a repeat of the R143s where the TA thought it was going to be sufficient for the .

Also remember that the  right now doesn’t have a spare factor - it piggybacks off of the  so that way the  and  each have a spare factor of 7 trains on average.

It's just that in my mind it makes more logical sense to have more rather than less, so just make the damn 10 cars. The ridership 100% justifies this if anyone ever has seen the G during the day. It's not like they're "saving" on crews since there's still the archaic 2-person crew (a whole other discussion) even on 5-car trains so the extra cost of running a 10-car train should be trivial. 

The other thing is to have simplicity. Why order a small handful of R211s that will get thrown to a yard like ENY like a hot potato. ENY will at that point have 4(!) different types of rolling stock to deal with which is just absurd. 

[U-BahnNYC]

Then again, I shouldn't be too surprised the  is making bad decisions yet again. A dysfunctional, mediocre, corrupt, and wholly incompetent laughing stock of an organization, perpetually begging the public for more money that somehow mysteriously vanishes, in return for atrocious, abysmal service. 

[subwaycommuter1983]

1 hour ago, U-BahnNYC said:

Then again, I shouldn't be too surprised the  is making bad decisions yet again. A dysfunctional, mediocre, corrupt, and wholly incompetent laughing stock of an organization, perpetually begging the public for more money that somehow mysteriously vanishes, in return for atrocious, abysmal service. 

Thank you. This is why the MTA needs to be audited by the state and federal government. It is embarrassing that many US cities and towns are running buses for Free and their subways are more reliable.

The MTA gets billions of dollars from the federal government, but instead of managing the money efficiently, they just keep making dumb excuses to raise the fares, while service on buses and trains keep getting worse.

[subwaycommuter1983]

4 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

I just don't see the point in giving any IND line 8-car trains. 8-car trains are meant for the Eastern Division only. The  should become 10-car once the full R211 order arrives so it can just use the Jamaica Yard fleet. Simplify things on the entire IND system once and for all to make way for platform screen doors. 

Regarding the , the R179s will be more than adequate for the entire Eastern Division if all the 8-car R179s are displaced to East New York. No need for 8-car r211s to complicate things further. Just make the damn train 10 cars like every other IND line and call it a day. The remaining R179s from the  will be enough to increase capacity on the and the . 

Why does the MTA purposely shoot itself in the foot like this? With continued gentrification along the  I see no sense in not just making it a 10-car IND line. 

The issue is that there aren't enough 10 car trains to make the C and G full length, but there is a huge surplus of 8 car trains.

IMO ALL r211's need to be 10 car trains and the 2nd option order should be r211T's.

 

[RandomRider0101]

11 minutes ago, subwaycommuter1983 said:

The issue is that there aren't enough 10 car trains to make the C and G full length, but there is a huge surplus of 8 car trains.

IMO ALL r211's need to be 10 car trains and the 2nd option order should be r211T's.

I Believe the 8-car trains (4-car sets) were included in option 2 to make the 8 cars. But if they decide to make the 10 cars instead, then there's no need to order any 4 car sets.

Just about everyone agrees that the remaining 4-car R179s at 207th will head to East NY once enough R211s hit service. At that point, as many have stated, they will have more than enough cars to cover all service needs; including extra spares for CBTC.

[RandomRider0101]

@U-BahnNYC since you made multiple posts on this topic, I'll try to keep it simple and just share this directly with you.

9 hours ago, RandomRider0101 said:

I Believe the 8-car trains (4-car sets) were included in option 2 to make the 8 cars. But if they decide to make the 10 cars instead, then there's no need to order any 4 car sets.

Just about everyone agrees that the remaining 4-car R179s at 207th will head to East NY once enough R211s hit service. At that point, as many have stated, they will have more than enough cars to cover all service needs; including extra spares for CBTC.

The may not become 10 cars bc may not see it as necessary; It is more likely for the to be 8 cars.

In that case they will need to order more 4 car sets as 88-92 R160s / R179s will not be enough to cover the and provide an adequate spare factor.

Taking cars from East NY is also not an option as they need all the cars they currently have, mainly for CBTC purposes. The already has to share its cars with the just like the  ; sending all the 207th R179s over to ENY will ensure that won't have to borrow anymore, unless in an emergency.

 

 

[texassubwayfan555]

On 1/2/2023 at 6:52 PM, U-BahnNYC said:

archaic 2-person crew

I still don't get why people think NYC is so special that it needs to have conductors on all the subway trains. London and Paris have old systems but have been using one person operation for over 20 years!

[U-BahnNYC]

1 hour ago, texassubwayfan555 said:

I still don't get why people think NYC is so special that it needs to have conductors on all the subway trains. London and Paris have old systems but have been using one person operation for over 20 years!

It doesn't. We could have fully automatic trains with 21st century technology. But the transit unions will get very touchy if anyone dares suggest even having OPTO, always pitching the same tired old line about "safety" and how "unique" the NYC system is. 

The R211 order could be the perfect opportunity to start implementing OPTO system wide. 

[R32 3838]

With all the BS going on in NYC, A C/R is necessary. It's not killing y'all if we have conductors. There are other things that the needs to cut cost on like management. Too many supervisors and etc. from the top to start. 

 

Try having OPTO on the line or on queens blvd. You would need platform conductors to try to control the crowds, So getting rid of conductors wouldn't save money regardless. 

[T to Dyre Avenue]

14 hours ago, texassubwayfan555 said:

I still don't get why people think NYC is so special that it needs to have conductors on all the subway trains. London and Paris have old systems but have been using one person operation for over 20 years!

London and Paris also run much shorter (but more frequent) trains than NYC. I think Toronto still uses conductors too, except on the Scarborough and Sheppard lines, which run 4-car trains (the other lines run 6-car trains).

12 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

It doesn't. We could have fully automatic trains with 21st century technology. But the transit unions will get very touchy if anyone dares suggest even having OPTO, always pitching the same tired old line about "safety" and how "unique" the NYC system is. 

The R211 order could be the perfect opportunity to start implementing OPTO system wide. 

We could have had subway automation if it hadn't been for the half-assed way MTA management went about it over the decades.

Edited January 4, 2023 by T to Dyre Avenue

[RedLine]

The yellow line in Toronto started using OPTO too

[U-BahnNYC]

19 hours ago, R32 3838 said:

With all the BS going on in NYC, A C/R is necessary. It's not killing y'all if we have conductors. There are other things that the needs to cut cost on like management. Too many supervisors and etc. from the top to start. 

 

Try having OPTO on the line or on queens blvd. You would need platform conductors to try to control the crowds, So getting rid of conductors wouldn't save money regardless. 

I have never once seen conductors doing anything to control crowds, or do much to help in general. If you go up to ask a question most look annoyed and other just flat out ignore you. 

[U-BahnNYC]

8 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

London and Paris also run much shorter (but more frequent) trains than NYC. I think Toronto still uses conductors too, except on the Scarborough and Sheppard lines, which run 4-car trains (the other lines run 6-car trains).

We could have had subway automation if it hadn't been for the half-assed way MTA management went about it over the decades.

Maybe on the Métro, but the RER is just as long as NYC trains. 

[VIP]

23 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

I have never once seen conductors doing anything to control crowds, or do much to help in general. If you go up to ask a question most look annoyed and other just flat out ignore you. 

I find that hard to believe that a conductor would “flat out ignore” a customer with a valid question, complaint, or concern… and just because YOU “never” seen conductors doing anything doesn’t mean you make generalizations about them and their job. Conductors do a lot of safety sensitive operations, and are the point of contact and communication of the train.

Edited January 5, 2023 by VIP

[Lawrence St]

On 1/4/2023 at 9:51 AM, T to Dyre Avenue said:

London and Paris also run much shorter (but more frequent) trains than NYC. I think Toronto still uses conductors too, except on the Scarborough and Sheppard lines, which run 4-car trains (the other lines run 6-car trains).

We could have had subway automation if it hadn't been for the half-assed way MTA management went about it over the decades.

Wasn't it because a fire took out the entire Grand Central Shuttle automated sets?