R211 Discussion Thread

[RandomRider0101]

14 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Is it? I rode the Queens Blvd Line every day for three years (2012-15) and I seem to recall the  having much greater ridership than the . Even in these post-Covid times I can’t see how the  would be more popular than the other three QBL services, especially since it doesn’t run there on weekends and it’s almost always the first to get booted off the QBL whenever it has a meltdown in service and the last to get restored. 

It looks like you confused the Jamaica Line with Jamaica yard. Ofc we all know the is the least used  along Queens Blvd; in Brooklyn however it's a slightly different story. In my experience and observation I would say the is pretty equal to the ridership-wise.

 

15 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Honestly the  train is not coming back at least in it's pre-2010 form. The  train was quite an effective and popular merger of the lines, and it's def the favored train on the Jamacia Line in terms of ridership.

I imagine down the road it'd be relatively easy for the MTA to change or add programming to the R211s as needed.

If the has higher ridership than the in brooklyn, that would mean there are more ppl at the local stops than the express stops. Most riders tend to go for the express train when they have access to one, so I'm not sure how accurate this statement is; but who knows, these lines may see bigger increases in ridership due to the continued gentrification of BKLYN.

 

[RTOMan]

16 hours ago, U-BahnNYC said:

This happens way more often than it should. I can't count how many times I've been stuck underground with absolutely 0 communication, or mumble jumble, from the crew. It is a real problem and frankly more people ought to be reporting crews that fail to properly communicate. 

You have a legit gripe there too.. 

[RTOMan]

18 hours ago, JustTheSIR said:

Wait what do you mean "they can't hack it"

Something like just being able to stay on your phone the whole time without having to get up?

No idea what’s going on in them folks heads.. It’s TOs and CRs… 🤷🏽‍♂️

[RTOMan]

On 2/11/2023 at 10:57 AM, Jemorie said:

So that could partially explain why the  was running on a 12 minute headway during the  shutdown during the two weekends last month (I forgot the dates). Before back in between April 2019 and May 2020, when the was shutdown, the ran on an 8 minute headway. Also could partially explain why the    is now reduced to a 20 minute headway and cut back to 34 St during the  shutdown so far as of late.

I’ll remember this information. Thanks.

Yeah it’s kinda sad too that they are told what to expect in training they come out after training and it’s like no one told them how it can be…🤷🏽‍♂️

[FLX9304]

On 2/11/2023 at 7:05 PM, zacster said:

From neighbors, other riders.  The cars are unreliable, announcements can't be heard.  They are jerky. People do notice these things.  The R160s were modern and reliable, these just aren't.  The N, Q and W went from the newest cars in the system to the oldest.  You don't think people would notice?

When they replaced the standards with the R9s in the Eastern Division, everybody thought they were replacing one old car with another.  But the R9s at that point were only 30 years old.  The R46 is 50!  Both the R9 at the time and the R46 now though were pretty beat up.

Big difference between R9 & R46: 

R9: These cars are single cars with no a/c and rebuilding them was gonna be costly (just like the R12/14/15/17/21/22). 
R46s were easier to rebuild because of lesser cabs in cars. That’s they lasted longer. 
but that’s another story for another time. Let’s get back to the R211s 

[Kriston Lewis]

On 2/11/2023 at 7:05 PM, zacster said:

From neighbors, other riders.  The cars are unreliable, announcements can't be heard.  They are jerky. People do notice these things.  The R160s were modern and reliable, these just aren't.  The N, Q and W went from the newest cars in the system to the oldest.  You don't think people would notice?

You can add some crews to that. Before I moved, someone posted on the Ditmas Park Facebook group that a conductor told riders they were delayed because the R46s only have four doors per side and that all the new trains were sent to Queens. He also said they should to complain to the TA about the R160 reassignments.

[subwaycommuter1983]

2 hours ago, Kriston Lewis said:

You can add some crews to that. Before I moved, someone posted on the Ditmas Park Facebook group that a conductor told riders they were delayed because the R46s only have four doors per side and that all the new trains were sent to Queens. He also said they should to complain to the TA about the R160 reassignments.

What the MTA is going to do??

They can't retire the r46's cause the r211's are not in service.

They can't go back to QBL due to CBTC.

The r46's and r68's cannot stay on the A, B, C, D due to CBTC on 8th Avenue (which includes 59th Street) and logically 6th Avenue. 

Why is it so hard for NQW rail fans to understand.

Plus, the A, D, E and F trains have much higher ridership than NQW trains.

NQW rail fans need to take a chill pill and stop acting like spoiled brats who think that they are entitled to new trains.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

40 minutes ago, subwaycommuter1983 said:

What the MTA is going to do??

They can't retire the r46's cause the r211's are not in service.

They can't go back to QBL due to CBTC.

The r46's and r68's cannot stay on the A, B, C, D due to CBTC on 8th Avenue (which includes 59th Street) and logically 6th Avenue. 

Why is it so hard for NQW rail fans to understand.

Plus, the A, D, E and F trains have much higher ridership than NQW trains.

NQW rail fans need to take a chill pill and stop acting like spoiled brats who think that they are entitled to new trains.

Lowkey, Broadway is prolly the "laziest" North-South core in Manhattan. Literally Broadway could be removed and all it's branches except Astoria could be replaced with relative ease.

South Brooklyn  and  are all low ridership, and to the North the Astoria and SAS branches are short while the  on QBLVD doesn't pull all that much weight.

Also rmbr that even during rush hour, the Broadway services each only run every 8 minutes or so.

[trainfan22]

27 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Lowkey, Broadway is prolly the "laziest" North-South core in Manhattan. Literally Broadway could be removed and all it's branches except Astoria could be replaced with relative ease.

South Brooklyn  and  are all low ridership, and to the North the Astoria and SAS branches are short while the  on QBLVD doesn't pull all that much weight.

Also rmbr that even during rush hour, the Broadway services each only run every 8 minutes or so.

South Brooklyn is not low ridership, ever ride the line on weekends when the isn't running? SRO by the time you get to Chruch Ave. I use to live along the line in Brooklyn, the Q is very well utilized in BK.

 

 

Weekday ridership might have taking a hit due to Covid/WFH but it was crushloaded during rush hour prior to that. 

[trainfan22]

IMO N/Q/W riders will be even more miserable if those lines become entirely R68/68A because nearly all of CI R68/68A fleet has flat wheels, making them an even more unpleasant ride than the R46.

 

The 68/68A wasn't like this in the 2000s, it's really bad in current day. The R68A in particular was so nice to ride in the mid to late 2000s, now they rumble like crazy. Concourse easily has the best R68s to ride cause they are smooth.

Edited February 14, 2023 by trainfan22

[Vulturious]

16 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Lowkey, Broadway is prolly the "laziest" North-South core in Manhattan. Literally Broadway could be removed and all it's branches except Astoria could be replaced with relative ease.

South Brooklyn  and  are all low ridership, and to the North the Astoria and SAS branches are short while the  on QBLVD doesn't pull all that much weight.

Also rmbr that even during rush hour, the Broadway services each only run every 8 minutes or so.

This has to be one of the weirdest opinions I read talking about Broadway.

We have to remember that at the time, the BMT was focused on bringing in service between Brooklyn and Manhattan. They only started branching out towards other areas of NYC by involving Queens which at the time also wasn't that great in population and demand was only starting to rise. To say that they were lazy is in all honesty a huge overstatement, they went through a lot of efforts in my opinion. Especially when building the Broadway line, they decided to take over the bridge running Broadway service towards midtown along the north side with the south side running the Nassau Loop.

Express service was originally meant to continue down the Broadway line to lower Manhattan, but the BMT changed their minds and created a new tunnel to the Manhattan Bridge meant to bring in more service between midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. Frankly, it did wonders, working out for the best. Not to mention that if I'm not mistaken, the IRT was trying to build an entire Broadway line. The BMT went through a lot to acquire Broadway around Times Square going south which what brought about the 7 Av line today. There's no way Broadway can be replaced, if it were gotten rid of today or before, service easily will end up being worse. 

I don't know where you're hearing this, but there's no way South Brooklyn on the  and  are low riderships. The  I can see why, but even that can pull ridership because it's the only local line along 4 Av for obvious reasons, especially at 86 St. I've been on all 3 lines and they pull, a good chunk of riders along the  especially with it being express along all of 4 Av heading directly into Manhattan. The  by itself pulls a lot during weekends because of the lack of express service.

Covid has made quite the damage in service frequency across the entire subway system, let's not forget the transition to Work from Home with it still around. There's also the issue of majority of Broadway also having to downgrade to the R46's because of the swap which can contribute a bit, but I won't get into that. 

[subwaycommuter1983]

1 minute ago, trainfan22 said:

IMO N/Q/W will be even more miserable if those lines become entirely R68/68A because nearly all of CI R68/68A fleet has flat wheels, making them an even more unpleasant ride than the R46.

 

The 68/68A wasn't like this in the 2000s, it's really bad in current day. The R68A in particular was so nice to ride in the mid to late 2000s, now they rumble like crazy. Concourse easily has the best R68s to ride cause they are smooth.

The second option order of r211's will allow the NQW to get some r160's, so they won't be entirely r68's.

[Jemorie]

1 hour ago, subwaycommuter1983 said:

What the MTA is going to do??

They can't retire the r46's cause the r211's are not in service.

They can't go back to QBL due to CBTC.

The r46's and r68's cannot stay on the A, B, C, D due to CBTC on 8th Avenue (which includes 59th Street) and logically 6th Avenue. 

Why is it so hard for NQW rail fans to understand.

Plus, the A, D, E and F trains have much higher ridership than NQW trains.

NQW rail fans need to take a chill pill and stop acting like spoiled brats who think that they are entitled to new trains.

“hIgH rIdErShIP”

Stop it with this never-ending stupid narrative. It’s all about replacing aging signals. You know the IND dates back to the 1930s or before.

Also, the conversation so far in this thread has been pretty tame for the past few days.

You’re the one who keeps bringing it up because you want a reaction. Maybe if you ignore it, then it will die on its own.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jemorie

[Jemorie]

25 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

This has to be one of the weirdest opinions I read talking about Broadway.

We have to remember that at the time, the BMT was focused on bringing in service between Brooklyn and Manhattan. They only started branching out towards other areas of NYC by involving Queens which at the time also wasn't that great in population and demand was only starting to rise. To say that they were lazy is in all honesty a huge overstatement, they went through a lot of efforts in my opinion. Especially when building the Broadway line, they decided to take over the bridge running Broadway service towards midtown along the north side with the south side running the Nassau Loop.

Express service was originally meant to continue down the Broadway line to lower Manhattan, but the BMT changed their minds and created a new tunnel to the Manhattan Bridge meant to bring in more service between midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. Frankly, it did wonders, working out for the best. Not to mention that if I'm not mistaken, the IRT was trying to build an entire Broadway line. The BMT went through a lot to acquire Broadway around Times Square going south which what brought about the 7 Av line today. There's no way Broadway can be replaced, if it were gotten rid of today or before, service easily will end up being worse. 

I don't know where you're hearing this, but there's no way South Brooklyn on the  and  are low riderships. The  I can see why, but even that can pull ridership because it's the only local line along 4 Av for obvious reasons, especially at 86 St. I've been on all 3 lines and they pull, a good chunk of riders along the  especially with it being express along all of 4 Av heading directly into Manhattan. The  by itself pulls a lot during weekends because of the lack of express service.

Covid has made quite the damage in service frequency across the entire subway system, let's not forget the transition to Work from Home with it still around. There's also the issue of majority of Broadway also having to downgrade to the R46's because of the swap which can contribute a bit, but I won't get into that. 

Some of these stubborn idiots don’t even ride, live or work by the  and . Just saying a whole bunch of ignorant nonsense out of their asses. Very typical for social media. That’s why. Not to mention the entirety of the IND dates 1930s or before so it’s painfully obvious that it was bound to need a brand new signaling system anyway, yet they still remain so painfully ignorant to this fact and instead continue to keep on repeatedly pushing the whole “the IND is superior to the BMT” or “the BMT is useless” agendas. If that was the case, then the  would have never put the R160s on the  to begin with.

But this topic is about the R211. Not sure where are they getting all this other stuff from…Besides, only one person caused this entire thread to go downhill because that said person thought his pee wee little fantasy idea of having R143s on the  would be a great success for no reason. Then the discussion so far was tame. And now we’re getting all this talk about the  being useless lines out of complete nowhere because…? I don’t know…

Like nobody is disagreeing that the  will be getting the R211s. It’s just only one person who said otherwise and kept running his mouth about the R143s possibly being assigned to the  and converted from four cars to five cars and blah blah blah nonsense.

That is all.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jemorie

[Jemorie]

1 hour ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Lowkey, Broadway is prolly the "laziest" North-South core in Manhattan. Literally Broadway could be removed and all it's branches except Astoria could be replaced with relative ease.

South Brooklyn  and  are all low ridership, and to the North the Astoria and SAS branches are short while the  on QBLVD doesn't pull all that much weight.

Also rmbr that even during rush hour, the Broadway services each only run every 8 minutes or so.

I literally cringed when I read your post.

Anyway, no. The  run up to 10 tph from the Brooklyn end during the AM Rush. The  also runs up to 10 tph from the Queens end during the AM Rush.

And I’ll leave you with that…

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

30 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

This has to be one of the weirdest opinions I read talking about Broadway.

We have to remember that at the time, the BMT was focused on bringing in service between Brooklyn and Manhattan. They only started branching out towards other areas of NYC by involving Queens which at the time also wasn't that great in population and demand was only starting to rise. To say that they were lazy is in all honesty a huge overstatement, they went through a lot of efforts in my opinion. Especially when building the Broadway line, they decided to take over the bridge running Broadway service towards midtown along the north side with the south side running the Nassau Loop.

Express service was originally meant to continue down the Broadway line to lower Manhattan, but the BMT changed their minds and created a new tunnel to the Manhattan Bridge meant to bring in more service between midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. Frankly, it did wonders, working out for the best. Not to mention that if I'm not mistaken, the IRT was trying to build an entire Broadway line. The BMT went through a lot to acquire Broadway around Times Square going south which what brought about the 7 Av line today. There's no way Broadway can be replaced, if it were gotten rid of today or before, service easily will end up being worse. 

I don't know where you're hearing this, but there's no way South Brooklyn on the  and  are low riderships. The  I can see why, but even that can pull ridership because it's the only local line along 4 Av for obvious reasons, especially at 86 St. I've been on all 3 lines and they pull, a good chunk of riders along the  especially with it being express along all of 4 Av heading directly into Manhattan. The  by itself pulls a lot during weekends because of the lack of express service.

Covid has made quite the damage in service frequency across the entire subway system, let's not forget the transition to Work from Home with it still around. There's also the issue of majority of Broadway also having to downgrade to the R46's because of the swap which can contribute a bit, but I won't get into that. 

Ok I concede my original post was harsh and poorly worded. Every NYC subway line is important to some degree and serves a purpose, especially the trunk lines in Manhattan.

Compared to the other trunk lines though, it carries the 2nd lowest number of riders, only 6th Avenue is lower and that's likely just because it doesn't dip into Lower Manhattan. There are no Broadway services with tight headways and notorious for crowding like the  or  trains; if a train is a few minutes late it doesn't have catastrophic ripples throughout the morning rush.  And with the exception of the Astoria line, all the other branches Broadway serves can theoretically be served by re-routes is something goes wrong, mainly via 6th Avenue.

In terms of CBTC and train cars, it probably makes sense for it to be less of a priority to receive new technologies when compared to lines with tight headways. high ridership, and that don't have easily available re-route alternatives.

SAS has def given the northern part of the Broadway line much more of a purpose, cause the express tracks just ending north of 57th Street always felt so wrong and SAS is actually fairly high ridership so far despite only being so short.

[Vulturious]

I don't know what Jeromie is talking about, I don't think I wanna know cause that's just drama I don't wanna hear.

Anyway...

3rd unit finally ran under it's own power going to ENY. Two different shell designs, guess that's why the base order has two full train sets of R211T's.

[Lawrence St]

Anyone else think that the interior R211 next stop sign is ugly and small? They should have kept that part the same as the the previous NTT’s or made the route bullet LCD with the rest being LED.

Looking at some of these YouTube videos they can’t even fit basic station names like KINGSBRIDGE RD without going over two slides.

[JustTheSIR]

11 hours ago, Jemorie said:

“hIgH rIdErShIP”

Stop it with this never-ending stupid narrative. It’s all about replacing aging signals. You know the IND dates back to the 1930s or before.

Also, the conversation so far in this thread has been pretty tame for the past few days.

You’re the one who keeps bringing it up because you want a reaction. Maybe if you ignore it, then it will die on its own.

Doesn’t south Brooklyn date back to the 1880s?

[NBTA]

The  is consistently a heavy line, the  on the other hand..will show up when it wants to. But the 211 will fix every problem right???….right?

[rbrome]

In terms of ridership vs. signal age when deciding CBTC upgrades, the priority was ridership (certain lines being at capacity). The pandemic changed that. Now it's the reliability of older signals. The MTA has been very public and clear about this change in priority: 

https://original.newsbreak.com/@mystictransit-1594639/2697823263217-mta-announces-more-lines-to-get-upgraded-signaling-technology

 

11 hours ago, Vulturious said:

3rd unit finally ran under it's own power going to ENY. Two different shell designs, guess that's why the base order has two full train sets of R211T's.

Oh wow. I don't know how I missed the two different gangway designs. Thanks for pointing this out! Fascinating. 

 

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Anyone else think that the interior R211 next stop sign is ugly and small? They should have kept that part the same as the the previous NTT’s or made the route bullet LCD with the rest being LED.

Looking at some of these YouTube videos they can’t even fit basic station names like KINGSBRIDGE RD without going over two slides.

Agreed. I mean, in terms of physical size, I think it's very large and easy to read, which is good. But yes, it doesn't have enough resolution and/or size to fit enough text. The same goes for the outside displays on the sides. It's neither difficult nor expensive to design these differently so they fit more text. I really don't understand these decisions. 

[Lawrence St]

53 minutes ago, rbrome said:

In terms of ridership vs. signal age when deciding CBTC upgrades, the priority was ridership (certain lines being at capacity). The pandemic changed that. Now it's the reliability of older signals. The MTA has been very public and clear about this change in priority: 

https://original.newsbreak.com/@mystictransit-1594639/2697823263217-mta-announces-more-lines-to-get-upgraded-signaling-technology

 

Oh wow. I don't know how I missed the two different gangway designs. Thanks for pointing this out! Fascinating. 

 

Agreed. I mean, in terms of physical size, I think it's very large and easy to read, which is good. But yes, it doesn't have enough resolution and/or size to fit enough text. The same goes for the outside displays on the sides. It's neither difficult nor expensive to design these differently so they fit more text. I really don't understand these decisions. 

Same here, the LCD screens would have made much more sense on the interior signage. They made the FINDS LCD, why not the next stop display as well?

[darkstar8983]

21 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Ok I concede my original post was harsh and poorly worded. Every NYC subway line is important to some degree and serves a purpose, especially the trunk lines in Manhattan.

Compared to the other trunk lines though, it carries the 2nd lowest number of riders, only 6th Avenue is lower and that's likely just because it doesn't dip into Lower Manhattan. There are no Broadway services with tight headways and notorious for crowding like the  or  trains; if a train is a few minutes late it doesn't have catastrophic ripples throughout the morning rush.  And with the exception of the Astoria line, all the other branches Broadway serves can theoretically be served by re-routes is something goes wrong, mainly via 6th Avenue.

In terms of CBTC and train cars, it probably makes sense for it to be less of a priority to receive new technologies when compared to lines with tight headways. high ridership, and that don't have easily available re-route alternatives.

SAS has def given the northern part of the Broadway line much more of a purpose, cause the express tracks just ending north of 57th Street always felt so wrong and SAS is actually fairly high ridership so far despite only being so short.

Yes and now that phase 2 will be coming along and the increased ridership that phase 1 is generating, we’re going to have a situation on Broadway similar to 8 Av (two high frequency routes - 2 Av and Astoria, and one medium frequency route, Queens Blvd) 

[darkstar8983]

9 hours ago, NBTA said:

The  is consistently a heavy line, the  on the other hand..will show up when it wants to. But the 211 will fix every problem right???….right?

Yes, the  is high frequency because of the service demands now on 2 Av requiring a train roughly every 5 minutes (comparable to the ), and Astoria on the combined  provides a train roughly every 4 minutes. The  alone isn’t recognized for a high frequency route because of large service gaps, and that the burden of providing service to Astoria is shared with the .

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

25 minutes ago, darkstar8983 said:

Yes, the  is high frequency because of the service demands now on 2 Av requiring a train roughly every 5 minutes (comparable to the ), and Astoria on the combined  provides a train roughly every 4 minutes. The  alone isn’t recognized for a high frequency route because of large service gaps, and that the burden of providing service to Astoria is shared with the .

I thought the  ran more like every 6 to 7 minutes during peak, but with supplemental  trains up 2nd Av making it more like every 5 minutes in practice.