R211 Discussion Thread

[Kamen Rider]

1 hour ago, ABOGbrooklyn said:

Why? 

Because they have to be able to play back the same audio files.

 

[CenSin]

3 hours ago, ABOGbrooklyn said:

Yes but these were made when 1TB already exist.. there should be enough room for all programs and more.. (in theory)

1 TB of what?

Among the memory products out there, the industrial memory products are always lower capacity and slower. Take the MicroSD card for example. This form of memory powers many embedded computing platforms like the Raspberry Pi. Normal MicroSD cards like the kind you would use in a phone or camera are designed to be fast and expendable high-capacity storage chips. The industrial kind are slow, low-capacity, but reliable. Remember that the trains have to go through rain and sunshine, hellfire and hell freezing over, while meeting reliability levels greater than can be provided by consumer-grade electronics.

[ABOGbrooklyn]

13 minutes ago, CenSin said:

1 TB of what?

Among the memory products out there, the industrial memory products are always lower capacity and slower. Take the MicroSD card for example. This form of memory powers many embedded computing platforms like the Raspberry Pi. Normal MicroSD cards like the kind you would use in a phone or camera are designed to be fast and expendable high-capacity storage chips. The industrial kind are slow, low-capacity, but reliable. Remember that the trains have to go through rain and sunshine, hellfire and hell freezing over, while meeting reliability levels greater than can be provided by consumer-grade electronics.

So you're saying that maybe a few 100  voice clips are more than enough to take so much space and that they can't put atleast a 128GB the size of a micro SD card memory inside the computers in the R211s..

[CenSin]

1 hour ago, ABOGbrooklyn said:

So you're saying that maybe a few 100  voice clips are more than enough to take so much space and that they can't put atleast a 128GB the size of a micro SD card memory inside the computers in the R211s..

128 GB industrial SLC MicroSD cards don’t exist. In fact, 64 GB only just came out. And a few years back, the highest capacity was a mere 16 GB. Now, it’s only speculation that the MTA uses MicroSD cards for its embedded storage, but the same performance/capacity characteristics apply to pretty much any memory you’d use in critical equipment. I would keep this in mind:

5 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

i mean these aren't top of the line gaming PCs we're talking about. these things need to be simple, given the environment they're designed to work in. Imagine if the only place to put you computer was on top of a dryer that has a broken vibration suppression system, causing it to shake violently. Not a conducive environment for advanced electronics...

Also keep in mind that just because something new came out now doesn’t mean they can just switch to it. New components require costly validation cycles to make sure everything works together. The trains rolling onto the tracks now are probably trains designed when even 16 GB cards weren’t on the market.

If you’ve ever checked out the market for Wi-Fi routers, you’d notice that every couple years, a faster Wi-Fi standard gets announced, and somehow the likes of Netgear has a product supporting it before the standard’s even finalized.  Often, these products end up not working the way the standard intended and have problems down the line. That kind of bleeding edge is for people like you and I who can just go out to Best Buy and switch out a shoddily designed router when the internet goes down. You can live for a couple hours without Netflix or League of Legends. Not so for hospitals, banks, vehicles, etc.

Edited June 10, 2023 by CenSin

[zacster]

That cell phone you have in your hand?  That has enough power to run the entire world's subway announcements without breaking a sweat.  This is all tiny, even the audio.  The original CD was designed to play Beethoven's 9th on one disk, that's about 75 minutes at 16/44100 or 1411000 bits/second.  That's approximately 800MB of data.  Let's say they need 100 times this, and that's a big exaggeration and you are talking 80GB.  Oh, and that is stereo too, I don't think this needs stereo.  It just isn't that much.  And if they are limited in the number of lines because of the software, they need to rewrite the software.  Never, ever do you limit how many entries can be made.  As soon as you do that you'll need one more.  This isn't new thinking either. 

I'm not saying we use a cellphone here, but that's where the tech is at, and it was there even when the R211 was designed.

 

[CenSin]

You would be amazed how slow tech moves in some industries. There are also many considerations besides “it can be done.” For example: what has been working and shouldn’t be touched? That’s why you find ancient programming languages like COBOL being used in financial systems or nuclear weapons systems still reliant on floppy disks.

The same is true for consumer markets. ECC RAM exists to prevent memory corruption from irreversibly ruining digital archives (e.g., your family videos, tax returns PDFs, etc.). Market segmentation prevented most consumers from benefiting from it even though it’s been used for decades in the enterprise and industrial segments.

Perhaps the MTA leans a little too conservatively and needs to make a clean break with its past.

[BenTheMiner]

R211S at Pitkin Yard presumably to test on the flats

[darkstar8983]

A lot of the MTA route announcements are redundant, such as when a route is curtailed due to construction. Why not just find the full route code and set to the stop the train is at:

Example of unnecessary announcements:

 - Lefferts Blvd Shuttle - use normal Lefferts Blvd announcements from 207 St

 - announcements for trains that start at 145 St

 - shuttle announcements to Bedford Nostrand Avs from Hoyt-Schemerhorn (use announcements for trips originating at Church Av)

 - shuttle announcements from Broadway Junction to Canarsie,  announcements for trips that originate at Union Square or Lorimer St, instead of 8 Av, or  shuttle trips that originate at Lorimer St bound for 8 Av.

- all Metropolitan Av bound announcements that do not originate at either 96 St/2 Av or 71 Av

 - shuttle announcements from Queensboro Plaza to Astoria (will display Astoria-Ditmars, then the word shuttle). Use either normal announcements originating from Whitehall St or use  announcements 

[Kamen Rider]

because it's a LOT of extra button pushes that can only be done when the train is stopped. 

 

If we enter say, A to Lefferts into the system, the computer always assumes we're at the first stop of that route and will play the appropriate announcements. We would have to go in and manually scroll through the stop list to get to the proper one. in the case of the A, that adds up to more than 25 extra button presses on the control consoles every single time. 

[Vulturious]

First video of the R211S testing along West End middle track yesterday (R211A production set was also running around on West End as well) with the second video of the R211S being transferred to Pitkin.

[Ale188]

24 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

First video of the R211S testing along West End middle track yesterday (R211A production set was also running around on West End as well) with the second video of the R211S being transferred to Pitkin.

All that’s left at Coney are all the 211Ts. I wonder what that set is gonna do next…

[darkstar8983]

1 hour ago, Kamen Rider said:

because it's a LOT of extra button pushes that can only be done when the train is stopped. 

 

If we enter say, A to Lefferts into the system, the computer always assumes we're at the first stop of that route and will play the appropriate announcements. We would have to go in and manually scroll through the stop list to get to the proper one. in the case of the A, that adds up to more than 25 extra button presses on the control consoles every single time. 

How do some conductors do it so fast when on the road that it seems almost seamless? Just for my curiosity. Some conductors and operators do it so fast or maybe there’s a “fast key” that does it faster.

 

soemthing else I don’t know is why on the  at 8 Av, conductors take SO long to open doors. I end up missing connections to the uptown  in the mornings because the conductor changes cars, and then sits down st the terminal to set the announcements going the opposite way instead of just opening the doors like the conductors on the  do at Hudson Yards or Flushing Main St. It seems that conductors on the  are allergic to hearing “this is the last stop on this train”

[Jchambers2120]

7 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

How do some conductors do it so fast when on the road that it seems almost seamless? Just for my curiosity. Some conductors and operators do it so fast or maybe there’s a “fast key” that does it faster.

 

soemthing else I don’t know is why on the  at 8 Av, conductors take SO long to open doors. I end up missing connections to the uptown  in the mornings because the conductor changes cars, and then sits down st the terminal to set the announcements going the opposite way instead of just opening the doors like the conductors on the  do at Hudson Yards or Flushing Main St. It seems that conductors on the  are allergic to hearing “this is the last stop on this train”

On R142 equipment you can program the TOD enroute with the train in motion, it’s just a touch screen & it really doesn’t take long to scroll/select the route option. 
 

Conductors on the L have to De-Zone & set up the new position for the next conductor taking over whereas on the 7 it isn’t done because C/Rs remain in the same operating position regardless of the direction the train is traveling. 
 

I don’t want to digress too much this thread is supposed to be about the R211.

[darkstar8983]

1 minute ago, Jchambers2120 said:

On R142 equipment you can program the TOD enroute with the train in motion, it’s just a touch screen & it really doesn’t take long to scroll/select the route option. 
 

Conductors on the L have to De-Zone & set up the new position for the next conductor taking over whereas on the 7 it isn’t done because C/Rs remain in the same operating position regardless of the direction the train is traveling. 
 

I don’t want to digress too much this thread is supposed to be about the R211.

Thank you thank you for addressing my comment despite deviating away from the topic at hand.

[trainfan22]

The SI R211 doesn't have the WABCO AA2 horns like the R44s do

 

 

Was hoping they kept the same horns like PATH did with the PA5.

[Kamen Rider]

8 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

How do some conductors do it so fast when on the road that it seems almost seamless? Just for my curiosity. Some conductors and operators do it so fast or maybe there’s a “fast key” that does it faster.

 

soemthing else I don’t know is why on the  at 8 Av, conductors take SO long to open doors. I end up missing connections to the uptown  in the mornings because the conductor changes cars, and then sits down st the terminal to set the announcements going the opposite way instead of just opening the doors like the conductors on the  do at Hudson Yards or Flushing Main St. It seems that conductors on the  are allergic to hearing “this is the last stop on this train”

You can do some changes while the train is moving, but for the cars I work with on the B division, getting the train to accept a completely newly selected program requires the train to be stopped and the doors open.

that doesn’t have much to do with your original point, thought, about trying to save space by just having the one program.

 

 

[zacster]

On 6/11/2023 at 8:55 PM, CenSin said:

You would be amazed how slow tech moves in some industries. There are also many considerations besides “it can be done.” For example: what has been working and shouldn’t be touched? That’s why you find ancient programming languages like COBOL being used in financial systems or nuclear weapons systems still reliant on floppy disks.

The same is true for consumer markets. ECC RAM exists to prevent memory corruption from irreversibly ruining digital archives (e.g., your family videos, tax returns PDFs, etc.). Market segmentation prevented most consumers from benefiting from it even though it’s been used for decades in the enterprise and industrial segments.

Perhaps the MTA leans a little too conservatively and needs to make a clean break with its past.

But nothing new would be done in COBOL or use a floppy disk.  Not even 10 years ago, probably not even 20.  I was in IT and we'd be laughed out of the room to even suggest it. 

At the end of the cold war, when the USSR and the USA allowed inspections of each other's nuclear sites, we were shocked to find that the USSR was still using vacuum tubes to navigate their nukes.  Luckily for audiophiles, they flooded the market with tubes for our audio gear and guitar amps!  I use them myself.

Edited June 13, 2023 by zacster

[RedLine]

The staten island train went back to Coney

[AZthefoamer]

Does anyone know if all four production sets (4070-4089) have all completed burn-in testing and are ready for service when (Hopefully) the pilot set passes in a few days?

[Ale188]

26 minutes ago, AZthefoamer said:

Does anyone know if all four production sets (4070-4089) have all completed burn-in testing and are ready for service when (Hopefully) the pilot set passes in a few days?

Well, 4070-79 did some operator training on June 8th on the F, so that’s good news.

[Ale188]

Also to everyone, the R211S pilot did some railway testing on Broad channel yesterday, it was signed up as a SI local to Great Kills as the last stop. So that’s  just a heads up for that set

Edited June 13, 2023 by Ale188

[Lawrence St]

Has anyone else noticed the R211S's have that camera mounted on the top left of the drivers window which isn't on the A's or T's?

[Ale188]

Just now, Lawrence St said:

Has anyone else noticed the R211S's have that camera mounted on the top left of the drivers window which isn't on the A's or T's?

Heh, no. I didn’t see it. I must be blind or some in.

[Kamen Rider]

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Has anyone else noticed the R211S's have that camera mounted on the top left of the drivers window which isn't on the A's or T's?

They have them. 

[CenSin]

6 hours ago, zacster said:

But nothing new would be done in COBOL or use a floppy disk.  Not even 10 years ago, probably not even 20.  I was in IT and we'd be laughed out of the room to even suggest it. 

I mean… that’s still consistent with what I said. The solution (software, hardware, configuration) remains the same, but the data that it processes (i.e., the audio files) changes.

All it takes is one weak link in the chain requiring backwards compatibility to spoil the potential tech advancement options for the rest. For example, the original SD standard capped memory cards to 2 GB. If some hardware were developed around a platform that hadn’t updated its controllers, then every future product developed around that platform would be held back on SD card capacity.