R211 Discussion Thread

[CenSin]

6 hours ago, VIP said:

Some users give way too much information about these trains and TA workers wonder why the train buffs or vandals know exactly what to mess with when they break into cabs… all the sensitive information and details about operations should be kept confidential. 

Cryptographers, though, would say that a secure system is one in which everything—especially the internal workings—can be disclosed and it would still be secure.

[engineerboy6561]

6 hours ago, VIP said:

Some users give way too much information about these trains and TA workers wonder why the train buffs or vandals know exactly what to mess with when they break into cabs… all the sensitive information and details about operations should be kept confidential. 

Dumb question; I thought you couldn't do anything in a cab without a key, and I would assume that even if you had a key you wouldn't be able to wrest control of the train away from the T/O and C/R who are already logged in and operating. Like if someone got their hands on the relevant credentials and either got into a yard or took advantage of a shift change they could wreak havoc, but it sounds like a serious design flaw if a teenager can break into a cab halfway through a run and do anything worse than sing dirty songs on the PA or maybe turn off the lights.

 

Also, how many people are actually breaking into cabs and doing dumb shit? Like I'm not seeing it happen but I'm also out of town and don't spend much time on the stupid side of Tiktok

Edited March 23, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

35 minutes ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Dumb question; I thought you couldn't do anything in a cab without a key, and I would assume that even if you had a key you wouldn't be able to wrest control of the train away from the T/O and C/R who are already logged in and operating. Like if someone got their hands on the relevant credentials and either got into a yard or took advantage of a shift change they could wreak havoc, but it sounds like a serious design flaw if a teenager can break into a cab halfway through a run and do anything worse than sing dirty songs on the PA or maybe turn off the lights.

 

Also, how many people are actually breaking into cabs and doing dumb shit? Like I'm not seeing it happen but I'm also out of town and don't spend much time on the stupid side of Tiktok

I've personally never experienced someone breaking into a cab on a train for 17 years as NYCer, though to be fair, I've spent the vast of majority of my time in Manhattan below 110th Street and downtown Brooklyn; seems like a lot a petty crimes, vandalism, and surfing seems to occur on the less busy outskirts of the system at off times.

Considering how extensive the system is and how large NYC is, including a lot of really rough neighborhoods, I'm genuinely suprised at how relatively few issues there have been around train hijacking, bombs, fires, shootings, or someone causing effective mass-chaos.

[engineerboy6561]

20 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

I've personally never experienced someone breaking into a cab on a train for 17 years as NYCer, though to be fair, I've spent the vast of majority of my time in Manhattan below 110th Street and downtown Brooklyn; seems like a lot a petty crimes, vandalism, and surfing seems to occur on the less busy outskirts of the system at off times.

Considering how extensive the system is and how large NYC is, including a lot of really rough neighborhoods, I'm genuinely suprised at how relatively few issues there have been around train hijacking, bombs, fires, shootings, or someone causing effective mass-chaos.

Same; I grew up on the system and was basically on it all the time before September 2011, and from Jan 2016 to Jan 2018, and the only one I ever heard about taking over a cab was Darius McCollum (who apparently got into so much shit because he just kept taking buses and trains out for a ride to the point where he's been arrested nearly thirty times for it, he was skilled enough that he could pass for an employee (so that unless you knew what he looked like or knew who was on the roster off the top of your head you wouldn't think twice about seeing him sign out a train), and apparently (according to Wikipedia) at one point he talked people on the LIRR into giving him their shift), and he just really wanted to drive trains and that's all it was. Now granted nobody on here (including me) is very happy with him because his behavior made the whole community look like the sort of idiots who want to drive trains so badly that they don't terribly care who they endanger in order to do so (especially considering that people on the spectrum are more likely to be part of this community than the general public), and the whole thing was just a mess.

Edited March 23, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

10 minutes ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Same; I grew up on the system and was basically on it all the time before September 2011, and from Jan 2016 to Jan 2018, and the only one I ever heard about taking over a cab was Darius McCollum (who apparently got into so much shit because he just kept taking buses and trains out for a ride to the point where he's been arrested nearly thirty times for it, he was skilled enough that he could pass for an employee (so that unless you knew what he looked like or knew who was on the roster off the top of your head you wouldn't think twice about seeing him sign out a train), and apparently (according to Wikipedia) at one point he talked people on the LIRR into giving him their shift), and he just really wanted to drive trains and that's all it was. Now granted nobody on here (including me) is very happy with him because his behavior made the whole community look like the sort of idiots who want to drive trains so badly that they don't terribly care who they endanger in order to do so (especially considering that people on the spectrum are more likely to be part of this community than the general public), and the whole thing was just a mess.

Bro I've always wondered why the NYC subway community skews so heavily autistic (I'm autistic myself). Maybe it has to do with all the classifications, structure, and sorting and stuff, but I'm not sure.

I think the reason I became interested at a young age was because of all the classifications of the trains themsevles. I basically assigned every subway line an internal personality of sorts (  train is lazy,  train is innocent and naive,  train is happy,  train is a unicorn, ect.

[U-BahnNYC]

6 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Bro I've always wondered why the NYC subway community skews so heavily autistic (I'm autistic myself). Maybe it has to do with all the classifications, structure, and sorting and stuff, but I'm not sure.

I think the reason I became interested at a young age was because of all the classifications of the trains themsevles. I basically assigned every subway line an internal personality of sorts (  train is lazy,  train is innocent and naive,  train is happy,  train is a unicorn, ect.

People on the spectrum find comfort in classification and repetitiveness. The subway system is structured, classified and very repetitive. It's not unique to the NYC subway fans - all around the world autistic people tend to have a high affinity for trains. 

[Fan Railer]

5 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

I'm not an expert and I trust that the engineers designing the car did this intentionally for a reason, but at face value this seems like a bad idea that would lead to more wear and tear on a lot of joints, and potentially make things less safe as well. Any idea why they choose to do it this way?

 

1 hour ago, engineerboy6561 said:

My guess is CBTC odometry; if a train has a known start point and it knows how may miles it's traveled from there it's easy for the train to build an internal map of where it is in the system. You can use revolution counters to keep track of train miles traveled, but only as long as there's no wheelslip, and the only way to guarantee no wheelslip is to let the axle freewheel.

That is exactly the reason. All new rolling stock since the R188 for the A division and R179 for the B division have one free-wheeling axle per unitized set. The A division NTTs already have one unpowered truck on the B cars, so the CBTC odometer was installed onto one of them, turning it into a C car. The R179s have the one unpowered truck with one free-wheeling axle on the lowest number A car of the set (designated A1, as opposed to the fully motorized A2 car) located at the number 2 end of the car (non-cab end). The R211s have that unpowered truck located at the cab end of the A1 car, which is again the lowest numbered car in the set.

There is plenty excess horsepower from the propulsion system to maintain baseline performance even with the addition of what is essentially 1 unpowered car per full length train. Same goes for braking capacity; you're basically only adding 1 un-braked truck per full length train.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Fan Railer

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

2 minutes ago, Fan Railer said:

 

That is exactly the reason. All new rolling stock since the R188 for the A division and R179 for the B division have one free-wheeling axle per unitized set. The A division NTTs already have one unpowered truck on the B cars, so the CBTC odometer was installed onto one of them, turning it into a C car. The R179s have the one unpowered truck with one free-wheeling axle on the lowest number A car of the set (designated A1, as opposed to the fully motorized A2 car) located at the number 2 end of the car (non-cab end). The R211s have that unpowered truck located at the cab end of the A1 car, which is again the lowest numbered car in the set.

There is plenty excess horsepower from the propulsion system to maintain baseline performance even with the addition of what is essentially 1 unpowered car per full length train. Same goes for braking capacity; you're basically only adding 1 un-braked truck per full length train.

I see, thanks for this insight.

The part I worry about isn't with the horse or breaking power itself; no doubt our technology would be more than powerful to overcome that loss, I just worry about the connectors between cars if that underpowered car is basically being yanked by the others all day. It also seems like if you have an extreme derailment situation, that would be bad because that car wouldn't have as much control over itself and inertia across cars could be very uneven.

Does the unpowered car feel any different when riding? If so I've never noticed.

[engineerboy6561]

1 hour ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

I see, thanks for this insight.

The part I worry about isn't with the horse or breaking power itself; no doubt our technology would be more than powerful to overcome that loss, I just worry about the connectors between cars if that underpowered car is basically being yanked by the others all day. It also seems like if you have an extreme derailment situation, that would be bad because that car wouldn't have as much control over itself and inertia across cars could be very uneven.

Does the unpowered car feel any different when riding? If so I've never noticed.

It probably doesn't feel much different; within a set the trailer car is also going to be getting pushed by the cars behind it as well as pulled by the cars in front of it, and the traction motors are loud enough that you can hear them regardless of which car you're in. As far as the connectors are concerned, the nice thing about having draw bars within sets is that you don't really have to worry about coupling slack as long as the tensile strength of each bar is significantly more than the maximum difference in tractive effort between the two cars that are connected (and if that tensile strength is much higher than the maximum difference in tractive effort then it wouldn't stress the drawbar too much. For an 82,000lb car decelerating at maximum rate (3.0mph/s) that would be about 50 kN. In theory, you could use a steel bar with a three-square-inch cross-sectional area to withstand that and have a safety factor of two before the bar started to deform (steel yield strength is about 50,000psi, and when you divide 50kN by 25kpsi you get about three square inches of cross-sectional area. This is basically the simplest possible way to calculate this, and there are probably a lot of subtleties I'm not accounting for here); I'm guessing the drawbars are much thicker than that so as not to make it an issue.

Edited March 23, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[RedLine]

One truck on each blind B car for R142/142A/188 does not have traction motors either.

Edited March 23, 2023 by RedLine

[Chris89292]

11 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Bro I've always wondered why the NYC subway community skews so heavily autistic (I'm autistic myself). Maybe it has to do with all the classifications, structure, and sorting and stuff, but I'm not sure.

I think the reason I became interested at a young age was because of all the classifications of the trains themsevles. I basically assigned every subway line an internal personality of sorts (  train is lazy,  train is innocent and naive,  train is happy,  train is a unicorn, ect.

I define subway lines based on how safe it is, like the  for me is the safest subway line, it’s always chill, the  is a dangerous subway line for me, it gives me anxiety just to ride both lines, the  is basically a nightmare subway line, and the  is just the subway line to take when going to Coney Island 

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

12 hours ago, Chris89292 said:

I define subway lines based on how safe it is, like the  for me is the safest subway line, it’s always chill, the  is a dangerous subway line for me, it gives me anxiety just to ride both lines, the  is basically a nightmare subway line, and the  is just the subway line to take when going to Coney Island 

Honestly, I feel like the  gets an unfair bad rep by NYers. The line serves a distinct and clear purpose, statically has good on-time performance, runs relatively frequently, and lacks merges with other lines (meaning less delays and more even trains). Also, it has had CBTC for the longest now, and was the first to get NTTs (the R143s are literally designed for the ). It's basically a B-division version of the  which everyone seems to like.

[Trainmaster5]

46 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Honestly, I feel like the  gets an unfair bad rep by NYers. The line serves a distinct and clear purpose, statically has good on-time performance, runs relatively frequently, and lacks merges with other lines (meaning less delays and more even trains). Also, it has had CBTC for the longest now, and was the first to get NTTs (the R143s are literally designed for the ). It's basically a B-division version of the  which everyone seems to like.

I seem to recall R142 cars in the A Division. I believe that they were NTT cars too. Thank you. Carry on.

[darkstar8983]

9 hours ago, Chris89292 said:

I define subway lines based on how safe it is, like the  for me is the safest subway line, it’s always chill, the  is a dangerous subway line for me, it gives me anxiety just to ride both lines, the  is basically a nightmare subway line, and the  is just the subway line to take when going to Coney Island 

I feel that. Ive noticed that based on safety (on a Scale of 1-10, with 10 being the safest and 1 being the most dangerous, I rank the lines as

 - 9 (safe along the whole line except late nights)

 - 6 (only have taken it from 135 St to Flatbush Av)

 - 6 (only have taken it from 135 St to Atlantic Av-Barclays Center)

 - 7 (only have taken it from Woodlawn to Franklin Av)

 - 6 (only have taken it from 125 St to Flatbush Av)

 - 5 (only taken it from Morrison/Soundview Ave to Brooklyn Bridge - the underground Bronx Section is pretty scary)

 - 6 (too much going on for it to be safe - a mixed bag of what you may get - taken it from end to end)

 - 7 (only have taken it from 207 St to Euclid Av - Brooklyn section kind of scary)

 - 8 (taken it from end to end - only scary part is how empty it is on Central Park West especially after rush hours)

 - 7 (taken it along the whole line - thee nearly empty brooklyn stations scare me)

 - 6 (taken it full route (the 205 St to Atlantic Av Portion as the regular  and the rest of the way as a rerouted via West End)) - the bronx section is pretty scary considering lower ridership compared to jerome av)

 - 5 (taken it from end to end) - lots of sketchy stuff east of 71 Av

 - 7 (taken it from 18 Av to Parsons Blvd - sketchy stuff east of 71 Av,  can't rank the Culver Section)

 - 7 (fairly safe  - just the Flushing Av, Myrtle-Willoughby Av stations are scary)

 - 3 (I almost got mugged once on this line with my grandmother and her friend) 

 - 6 (Ive ridden the line from end to end - riding west of Grand St I just have to worry about drunk bar hoppers, but east of Grand St, it gets pretty scary, even more so east of Broadway Jct - once I took the LIRR to Valley Stream from Atlantic Av / ENY Station, and making the transfer to the opposite platform because all LIRR trains were coming in on the Atlantic Terminal-bound track was one of the most frightening experiences. There was a group of people who CLEARLY looked like they wanted to mug me and I had to wait for someone else to come who was taking the LIRR to walk alongside them.

 - 8 (the sections between Myrtle-Wyckoff and Marcy Ave are pretty sketchy)

 - 10 (I've ridden the line from end-to-end and considering its my home line, I think the only scary part of the line is taking the train overnight)

 - 10 (This line is pretty safe)

 - 8 (Ive ridden this line in sections between 71 Av and 86 St, Brooklyn and its pretty safe -  just the queens section east of Steinway St gets scary)

 - 10 (pretty safe route, and considering its a branch of the , I give it the same score for the same reasons). However, if you ask me how thee line was in 2001-2004, I'd give it an 8 due to the Brooklyn stops along West End

 (42 St Shuttle) - 10 (only due to short route length)

(Franklin) - about 6 (the scary part is the low ridership and considering I took it after rush hour  in the winter time where its pitch-black outside)

 Rockaway - never taken it, so I can't rate the line

[RandomRider0101]

11 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Honestly, I feel like the  gets an unfair bad rep by NYers. The line serves a distinct and clear purpose, statically has good on-time performance, runs relatively frequently, and lacks merges with other lines (meaning less delays and more even trains). Also, it has had CBTC for the longest now, and was the first to get NTTs (the R143s are literally designed for the ). It's basically a B-division version of the  which everyone seems to like.

Actually the & were the first lines to get NTTs, which were the R142s & R142As respectively. The was the first line to get CBTC as the R143s were the first CBTC equipped cars.

Also keep in mind that Canarsie CBTC couldn't be activated until the arrival of the R160s, due to the 212 R143s not being enough cars to meet the growing ridership demands on the at that time.

 

[Chris89292]

3 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

I feel that. Ive noticed that based on safety (on a Scale of 1-10, with 10 being the safest and 1 being the most dangerous, I rank the lines as

 - 9 (safe along the whole line except late nights)

 - 6 (only have taken it from 135 St to Flatbush Av)

 - 6 (only have taken it from 135 St to Atlantic Av-Barclays Center)

 - 7 (only have taken it from Woodlawn to Franklin Av)

 - 6 (only have taken it from 125 St to Flatbush Av)

 - 5 (only taken it from Morrison/Soundview Ave to Brooklyn Bridge - the underground Bronx Section is pretty scary)

 - 6 (too much going on for it to be safe - a mixed bag of what you may get - taken it from end to end)

 - 7 (only have taken it from 207 St to Euclid Av - Brooklyn section kind of scary)

 - 8 (taken it from end to end - only scary part is how empty it is on Central Park West especially after rush hours)

 - 7 (taken it along the whole line - thee nearly empty brooklyn stations scare me)

 - 6 (taken it full route (the 205 St to Atlantic Av Portion as the regular  and the rest of the way as a rerouted via West End)) - the bronx section is pretty scary considering lower ridership compared to jerome av)

 - 5 (taken it from end to end) - lots of sketchy stuff east of 71 Av

 - 7 (taken it from 18 Av to Parsons Blvd - sketchy stuff east of 71 Av,  can't rank the Culver Section)

 - 7 (fairly safe  - just the Flushing Av, Myrtle-Willoughby Av stations are scary)

 - 3 (I almost got mugged once on this line with my grandmother and her friend) 

 - 6 (Ive ridden the line from end to end - riding west of Grand St I just have to worry about drunk bar hoppers, but east of Grand St, it gets pretty scary, even more so east of Broadway Jct - once I took the LIRR to Valley Stream from Atlantic Av / ENY Station, and making the transfer to the opposite platform because all LIRR trains were coming in on the Atlantic Terminal-bound track was one of the most frightening experiences. There was a group of people who CLEARLY looked like they wanted to mug me and I had to wait for someone else to come who was taking the LIRR to walk alongside them.

 - 8 (the sections between Myrtle-Wyckoff and Marcy Ave are pretty sketchy)

 - 10 (I've ridden the line from end-to-end and considering its my home line, I think the only scary part of the line is taking the train overnight)

 - 10 (This line is pretty safe)

 - 8 (Ive ridden this line in sections between 71 Av and 86 St, Brooklyn and its pretty safe -  just the queens section east of Steinway St gets scary)

 - 10 (pretty safe route, and considering its a branch of the , I give it the same score for the same reasons). However, if you ask me how thee line was in 2001-2004, I'd give it an 8 due to the Brooklyn stops along West End

 (42 St Shuttle) - 10 (only due to short route length)

(Franklin) - about 6 (the scary part is the low ridership and considering I took it after rush hour  in the winter time where its pitch-black outside)

 Rockaway - never taken it, so I can't rate the line

Yeah, I kinda agree with the  rating, sometimes it be pretty chill, and sometimes they’ll be some sort of people that just look sketchy walking around back and forth for no reason, and at late night, the  is a spot to get robbed, especially in the areas of Jackson heights and Corona, 11 PM and beyond the  will be empty and expect to get mugged 

[Bill from Maspeth]

LET'S GET BACK ON TOPIC PLEASE AND TALK ABOUT THE R211.

[zacster]

2 minutes ago, Bill from Maspeth said:

LET'S GET BACK ON TOPIC PLEASE AND TALK ABOUT THE R211.

Today marks 2 weeks of the R211 in the 30 day test! 

[RandomRider0101]

17 minutes ago, zacster said:

Today marks 2 weeks of the R211 in the 30 day test! 

Yeah, things seem to be going really well so far. I look forward to seeing more sets entering service soon.

[darkstar8983]

5 hours ago, RandomRider0101 said:

Yeah, things seem to be going really well so far. I look forward to seeing more sets entering service soon.

Good thing everything is going well so far. Also for those who still want to find it, there’s a Reddit page still advertising the live location of the R211 on its various trips. They run it on the Lefferts  train until the very last trip.

[Kamen Rider]

So… the order hath come down from on high….

 

we’re not supposed to use the CCTV system unless explicitly told to do so by supervison.

 

that was obviously going to happen but it does beg the question… why put it where it will be easy for us to use in the first place? Why give it an entire screen on the console? 

[foggymetro28]

R211A Production cars 4070-4074 transferred to Pitkin Yard. Looks more similar to R211T https://youtu.be/XdZNICWu9ZU

Also, didn't they promise touchscreen maps? 

 

12:20 into this video here

https://youtu.be/gjhpFbCoeNM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rbrome]

18 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

So… the order hath come down from on high….

 

we’re not supposed to use the CCTV system unless explicitly told to do so by supervison.

 

that was obviously going to happen but it does beg the question… why put it where it will be easy for us to use in the first place? Why give it an entire screen on the console? 

What is the rationale? To keep you from getting distracted? I can imagine a lot of not-uncommon situations where it would be helpful to have those eyes throughout the train. 

[Princelex]

18 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

So… the order hath come down from on high….

 

we’re not supposed to use the CCTV system unless explicitly told to do so by supervison.

 

that was obviously going to happen but it does beg the question… why put it where it will be easy for us to use in the first place? Why give it an entire screen on the console? 

Why put cameras & screens where you can’t do anything with it? That is as idiotic as it gets, but then again, this is MTA management at its finest again 🙄. 

[Princelex]

I’ve been on the R211 3 times now and the more I’ve ridden it, the more impressed I am with the train. It’s like an updated R160, which already runs fabulously. The lighting, from the overhead to the lights at the door are fantastic. I’m not a fan of less seats but I talked to someone at the MTA about that and they said they anticipate more people in wheelchairs riding the train as more stations get elevators, so I can’t argue with that.  I’m very pleased with these trains and I can’t wait for more of them to arrive and to see where else they will go in the system.