R211 Discussion Thread

[Around the Horn]

If only there was a way to retrofit existing NTTs with open gangways...

I don't know if anyone else in the world has done that successfully yet. It would be a great capacity boost for Lex and QBL anyway. 

[XcelsiorBoii4888]

1 hour ago, Around the Horn said:

If only there was a way to retrofit existing NTTs with open gangways...

I don't know if anyone else in the world has done that successfully yet. It would be a great capacity boost for Lex and QBL anyway. 

Right, it would be nice to be able to retrofit the R211s that are coming in standard after the R211Ts succeed. 

[T to Dyre Avenue]

I’ve heard of retrofitting blind ends of cars with windows to see into the next car, like TFL in London did with their former C and D Stock trains, but I’ve never heard of retrofitting blind ends with inter-car open gangways. 

[shiznit1987]

One potential middle ground would be to put vestibule sheathing ala LIRR between the gangways and remove the end doors. 

[m2fwannabe]

On 12/31/2018 at 10:38 PM, Bosco said:

The R211 is actually the first time the pilot train will be built entirely in the US, in the same procedure as the production cars.  Only this prototype is supposed to be built in Japan.  As for the R46s, don't worry about getting rides on them just yet, there's still time before the swap begins.  And they definitely won't be retired for awhile.

That jibes with the explanation I received, which described the sighting as a (one-off) "detailed mock-up."  While visiting R-211 folk I also asked about status of the R-211T (i.e. prototype "gangway" or "snake" train) and was informed its still just something to try.  Likely not to be seriously considered until the homeless and/or hygiene (odor) problem can be mitigated or eliminated somehow.  Good luck with THAT one.  It's beyond NYCT's ability to control.

By final rides, me suspects the R-46's days at Jamaica are soon to be numbered.  The QBL CBTC project is still due in 2021 (just two years), and there are hundreds of NTTs yet to equip even if the deadline is extended a little bit.

[rbrome]

5 hours ago, m2fwannabe said:

... While visiting R-211 folk I also asked about status of the R-211T (i.e. prototype "gangway" or "snake" train) and was informed its still just something to try.  Likely not to be seriously considered until the homeless and/or hygiene (odor) problem can be mitigated or eliminated somehow.  ...

That may just be the personal opinion of those employees, then, because that's certainly not how Cuomo and the MTA have positioned it. From Cuomo's press release: 

"Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today unveiled the design features of 1,025 new and reimagined subway cars – including vital enhancements to the exteriors and interiors of regular cars, wider doors, as well as the addition of up to 750 “Open Car End” designed-cars, which will reduce wait times and increase capacity." 

"The MTA anticipates that out of 1,025 new cars, up to 750 will feature an Open Car End designed. The Open Car End design replaces the door between cars with an accordion-like connector in order to create longer, open spaces, allowing for greater passenger flow movement and increasing capacity in the process. These cars have become an international standard: in London 31 percent of cars will be Open Car End by the end of the year; in Paris the figure climbs to 37 percent; and in Toronto to 56 percent."

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-unveils-design-reimagined-mta-subway-cars-and-details-ambitious-plan-enhance

[rbrome]

5 hours ago, m2fwannabe said:

...not to be seriously considered until the homeless and/or hygiene (odor) problem can be mitigated or eliminated somehow.  Good luck with THAT one.  It's beyond NYCT's ability to control.

Man, I just don't get this argument at all. Every other major city around the world has homeless people on metro trains; NYC isn't unique that way. Those cities have open-gangway trains. It's not a problem. If anything, it's better because it's easier to move away from the smell. 

[JeremiahC99]

7 hours ago, rbrome said:

Man, I just don't get this argument at all. Every other major city around the world has homeless people on metro trains; NYC isn't unique that way. Those cities have open-gangway trains. It's not a problem. If anything, it's better because it's easier to move away from the smell. 

Also, I would like to add that it would also be very easy to move away from unsavory passengers on that car, such as this passenger who I saw on a downtown  train on my way home from a NYPIRG event last month doing what appears to be shaving his upper thigh, and right in front of the other passengers as well.

[m2fwannabe]

10 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Also, I would like to add that it would also be very easy to move away from unsavory passengers on that car, such as this passenger who I saw on a downtown  train on my way home from a NYPIRG event last month doing what appears to be shaving his upper thigh, and right in front of the other passengers as well.

In other cities around the world, these unfortunate parties are generally removed from trains, one way or another, at the first opportunity.  In 2017, Eric Garcetti made light of the subway homeless situation in NY, but apparently didn't realize that a) New York nights can be very cold (or hot) and miserable and b) the LA Metro closes most nights between Midnight and 5 AM.  In New York, largely by unwritten political policy, the homeless are often not forcefully removed from trains.  Depends on the relay circumstances for each line and some are worse than others.  Its why the has conventionally been known as the "Hotel," for example, and just about any 24-hour line with significant underground mileage can draw "crowds." 

In my long experience observing this phenomenon, I would cite , , , and as the most consistent, but depending on operational circumstances I've also seen (passed out) homeless being taken into non-public relays (against all rules) when necessary to avoid terminal delays.

The wrong person(s) in the wrong place for an indeterminate amount of time can now serve to publicly "embargo" that particular car, with the effects "sealed" into only that car (thus basically converting a 10-car train into 9½ useable cars).  With the open gangway design, there's no way to contain those effects into a confined area, which further diminishes the riding desireability (and potential capacity) of even more "cars" in a set.

Enforcement of this unwritten policy is dictated from above, but suffered by those below, in this case quite literally.  As stated, the gangways are apparently an idea to consider, but until there's some tangible (policy) action to secure the public space, not viewed as the best idea for the immediate future.

Governor Cuomo should try spending time with the riders who've been living with this situation every day for decades, then consider the detailed effects of such minutiae.

[WestFarms36]

16 hours ago, m2fwannabe said:

In other cities around the world, these unfortunate parties are generally removed from trains, one way or another, at the first opportunity.  In 2017, Eric Garcetti made light of the subway homeless situation in NY, but apparently didn't realize that a) New York nights can be very cold (or hot) and miserable and b) the LA Metro closes most nights between Midnight and 5 AM.  In New York, largely by unwritten political policy, the homeless are often not forcefully removed from trains.  Depends on the relay circumstances for each line and some are worse than others.  Its why the has conventionally been known as the "Hotel," for example, and just about any 24-hour line with significant underground mileage can draw "crowds." 

In my long experience observing this phenomenon, I would cite , , , and as the most consistent, but depending on operational circumstances I've also seen (passed out) homeless being taken into non-public relays (against all rules) when necessary to avoid terminal delays.

The wrong person(s) in the wrong place for an indeterminate amount of time can now serve to publicly "embargo" that particular car, with the effects "sealed" into only that car (thus basically converting a 10-car train into 9½ useable cars).  With the open gangway design, there's no way to contain those effects into a confined area, which further diminishes the riding desireability (and potential capacity) of even more "cars" in a set.

Enforcement of this unwritten policy is dictated from above, but suffered by those below, in this case quite literally.  As stated, the gangways are apparently an idea to consider, but until there's some tangible (policy) action to secure the public space, not viewed as the best idea for the immediate future.

Governor Cuomo should try spending time with the riders who've been living with this situation every day for decades, then consider the detailed effects of such minutiae.

Well we can't sacrifice the need of space over a homeless situation, at the end of the day ridership may be in decline now, but can skyrocket in the future. We can't keep these small bumps in the road divert us from progress, and as stingy as the smell could be it is up to the politicians to get themselves at work with that matter, and unfortunately there needs to be heavy enforcement of the homelessness crisis which has only been made worse by the current buffoon warming up that chair at city hall. I support open gangway cars, and they are a capacity solution, along with new signaling in the future, we can't let "people" taunt us into scrapping concepts that can have a drastic change in the way we commute. The 21st century is already here, no one in 2019 should say that its impossible to do many things which have now been facilitated by technology and advanced methods of oversight and execution. The solution is a competent administration in the city which brings in sets of laws meant to combat homelessness, improve the shelter system in the city which is deplorable; Increase security at these shelter's which are notorious for conflict. The NYPD also has to be held accountable because not only is it a safety risk, but a hygiene, and lawsuit on the way case... For the 's case, their hands are tied because they have no control on what to do with these people, let alone where in hell will the  move these people to if the city isn't willing to accept them in their shelter system. This crisis is to blame on this mayor, he is nothing but incompetent, inept for his job, and feels that he is entitled to do what he knows is wrong for the sole purpose of advancing his fascist agenda and shove it down everyone's throats; Just look at "Fair Fares" and we're just in day 4 of 2019... Things only seen in inept people... 

[m2fwannabe]

7 hours ago, WestFarms36 said:

Well we can't sacrifice the need of space over a homeless situation, at the end of the day ridership may be in decline now, but can skyrocket in the future. We can't keep these small bumps in the road divert us from progress, and as stingy as the smell could be it is up to the politicians to get themselves at work with that matter, and unfortunately there needs to be heavy enforcement of the homelessness crisis which has only been made worse by the current buffoon warming up that chair at city hall. I support open gangway cars, and they are a capacity solution, along with new signaling in the future, we can't let "people" taunt us into scrapping concepts that can have a drastic change in the way we commute. The 21st century is already here, no one in 2019 should say that its impossible to do many things which have now been facilitated by technology and advanced methods of oversight and execution. The solution is a competent administration in the city which brings in sets of laws meant to combat homelessness, improve the shelter system in the city which is deplorable; Increase security at these shelter's which are notorious for conflict. The NYPD also has to be held accountable because not only is it a safety risk, but a hygiene, and lawsuit on the way case... For the 's case, their hands are tied because they have no control on what to do with these people, let alone where in hell will the  move these people to if the city isn't willing to accept them in their shelter system. This crisis is to blame on this mayor, he is nothing but incompetent, inept for his job, and feels that he is entitled to do what he knows is wrong for the sole purpose of advancing his fascist agenda and shove it down everyone's throats; Just look at "Fair Fares" and we're just in day 4 of 2019... Things only seen in inept people... 

Absolutely agree.  All of it.

BUT, these political changes probably won't be made in time to get into the R-211 contract, without greatly risking undesired service adversities (and the adverse publicity that will accompany them).  There will be OTHER contracts in the years to come (i.e. R-62 and R-68 replacement).  Maybe circumstances will be more receptive by then.

[m7zanr160s]

So...don't have open gangway trains because of homeless people... Not cool at all. Not all homeless smell so bad that they stink up an entire car. And if they do, they have to be removed, that's a health hazard.

[HenryB]

.....not to mention oders diffuse, and each car has 2 HVAC units to handle that so it should be a problem 🤦‍♂️

 

[m2fwannabe]

 

2 hours ago, m7zanr160s said:

So...don't have open gangway trains because of homeless people... Not cool at all. Not all homeless smell so bad that they stink up an entire car. And if they do, they have to be removed, that's a health hazard.

OK, so the people of NYC will somehow have to "make" Mayor DiBlasio (i.e. city government) and the NYPD enforce these existing rules by removing them in short order upon discovery and resume such as a permanent policy.  Right now the city's stance seems to be that a) (artificial?) "compassion" is maximized by NOT removing them swiftly and b) the health and well being risk to others is somehow minimized or unimportant, not to mention the value of their customers' time.  Could it be that municipal governance is content in trying to "force" the public at large to endure what can be an extremely uncomfortable set of circumstances, to put it mildly?  All for what, please tell me again?

Until these issues work through, it is MTA's job to protect against the adverse effects of all ill behaviors (of which homelessness produces its share) on the general ridership population to the best of its ability.  Even if what they have to do wouldn't be "cool."

BTW, there's also an issue of current requirements that any subway car containing "identifiable body fluids, blood or vomit" must be isolated at the instant the crew is notified.  Those rules are very definitely being enforced, I can assure you.  If the fleet became significantly based on such "gangway" equipment, either said rule goes away or an entire 4- or 5-car set would have to be taken out of service every time someone threw up, cut themselves or otherwise was medically excreting something or other.  I have seen this undertaken in deliberate fashion by "customers" who were spitting purely for the pleasure of relieving their personal boredom.

As was observed from the day after the IRT opened (in 1904):  "This subway ain't the cleanest place in the world."

[WestFarms36]

4 hours ago, m2fwannabe said:

 

OK, so the people of NYC will somehow have to "make" Mayor DiBlasio (i.e. city government) and the NYPD enforce these existing rules by removing them in short order upon discovery and resume such as a permanent policy.  Right now the city's stance seems to be that a) (artificial?) "compassion" is maximized by NOT removing them swiftly and b) the health and well being risk to others is somehow minimized or unimportant, not to mention the value of their customers' time.  Could it be that municipal governance is content in trying to "force" the public at large to endure what can be an extremely uncomfortable set of circumstances, to put it mildly?  All for what, please tell me again?

Until these issues work through, it is MTA's job to protect against the adverse effects of all ill behaviors (of which homelessness produces its share) on the general ridership population to the best of its ability.  Even if what they have to do wouldn't be "cool."

BTW, there's also an issue of current requirements that any subway car containing "identifiable body fluids, blood or vomit" must be isolated at the instant the crew is notified.  Those rules are very definitely being enforced, I can assure you.  If the fleet became significantly based on such "gangway" equipment, either said rule goes away or an entire 4- or 5-car set would have to be taken out of service every time someone threw up, cut themselves or otherwise was medically excreting something or other.  I have seen this undertaken in deliberate fashion by "customers" who were spitting purely for the pleasure of relieving their personal boredom.

As was observed from the day after the IRT opened (in 1904):  "This subway ain't the cleanest place in the world."

There is nothing the  can do but call the NYPD if they are posing harm to passengers, the city won't accept these people into shelters either, so where do you expect  to place them anyway? Another thing is that  wouldn't want to risk transit employees dealing with those people regardless. The city puts regulation, and  employees in Transit do not have any rights to prosecute people.

[rbrome]

20 hours ago, m7zanr160s said:

So...don't have open gangway trains because of homeless people... Not cool at all. Not all homeless smell so bad that they stink up an entire car. And if they do, they have to be removed, that's a health hazard.

Yes! Thank you. If homeless people prevent open-gangway trains, (a premise I don't accept, but just for argument's sake,) then the way forward is addressing the homeless people problem, not giving up on a vastly better train design that adds necessary capacity. It's amazing to me how often New York (and American) exceptionalism is expressed as a defeatist attitude. Come on. We can do better. 

[m2fwannabe]

53 minutes ago, rbrome said:

Yes! Thank you. If homeless people prevent open-gangway trains, (a premise I don't accept, but just for argument's sake,) then the way forward is addressing the homeless people problem, not giving up on a vastly better train design that adds necessary capacity. It's amazing to me how often New York (and American) exceptionalism is expressed as a defeatist attitude. Come on. We can do better.

Sure can as long you know or better yet, show how instead of assuming that its always possible on someone else's part.  There's no app for addressing most of society's ills, yet leading sentiment seems to be there's always some unseen, unknown solution for all of the "bigger" problems "out there" somewhere.   The operative word in "doing" better is "do," not imagine or envision.  Real solutions usually represent far more work than thought and certainly more effort than dreaming up a "cool" vision of how things could be.  Positive (perhaps hard-nosed?)  leadership is needed in this case, not a form of idealism.  Again I ask, what is the real (vs. imaginary) urgency here?

Of necessity, true progress is captive to hard reality.  As stated, the necessary development and/or real enforcement of public policy might not permit the large-scale application of gangway trains in time for inclusion in the R-211 contract, but it won't be the last one for all time.  Work on real, practical (and political?) solutions to these issues that ensure the health and safety of the public at large, then come back and try again when the R-62's and R-68's (soon) come up for replacement.

[bobtehpanda]

On 1/5/2019 at 11:04 AM, m2fwannabe said:

Sure can as long you know or better yet, show how instead of assuming that its always possible on someone else's part.  There's no app for addressing most of society's ills, yet leading sentiment seems to be there's always some unseen, unknown solution for all of the "bigger" problems "out there" somewhere.   The operative word in "doing" better is "do," not imagine or envision.  Real solutions usually represent far more work than thought and certainly more effort than dreaming up a "cool" vision of how things could be.  Positive (perhaps hard-nosed?)  leadership is needed in this case, not a form of idealism.  Again I ask, what is the real (vs. imaginary) urgency here?

Of necessity, true progress is captive to hard reality.  As stated, the necessary development and/or real enforcement of public policy might not permit the large-scale application of gangway trains in time for inclusion in the R-211 contract, but it won't be the last one for all time.  Work on real, practical (and political?) solutions to these issues that ensure the health and safety of the public at large, then come back and try again when the R-62's and R-68's (soon) come up for replacement.

The urgency is we can't fit people on the damn trains, and open gangways provide quite a bit of space to do that with, and at the cost of not billions of dollars.

If this kind of myopic mindset was everywhere nothing would ever get done. To hell with that nonsense.

Edited January 6, 2019 by bobtehpanda

[HenryB]

On 1/1/2019 at 11:04 AM, Around the Horn said:

If only there was a way to retrofit existing NTTs with open gangways...

I don't know if anyone else in the world has done that successfully yet. It would be a great capacity boost for Lex and QBL anyway. 

doesn't seem too diffcult since the car end doors on NTTs are quite wide. But don't expect the modified gangways will be as wide as the pre-builts.  

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 1/2/2019 at 4:25 PM, rbrome said:

Man, I just don't get this argument at all. Every other major city around the world has homeless people on metro trains; NYC isn't unique that way. Those cities have open-gangway trains. It's not a problem. If anything, it's better because it's easier to move away from the smell. 

Neither do I. I’m no engineer or HVAC technician, but there must be a way to locate some sort of set of vents by the carbody ends that can exhaust out the unwanted smells, no? I would be very surprised if there isn’t, given that open gangway trains are used all over the world.

[Lance]

In my opinion, it's just another instance of this belief that if we didn't build, create or invent it here in New York, it'll never be viable here. Gotta love that "Can't Do" attitude.

[Jan2196]

On 1/2/2019 at 4:46 AM, T to Dyre Avenue said:

I’ve heard of retrofitting blind ends of cars with windows to see into the next car, like TFL in London did with their former C and D Stock trains, but I’ve never heard of retrofitting blind ends with inter-car open gangways. 

That has been done before. In Berlin the BVG retrofitted one two-car F84 unit (2770/2771) with an open gangway in the early 90s in order to test those for the H95 trains. Also in Hamburg the class 474/874 trains are undergoing a redesign right now where they are equipped with open gangways; before that all 474/874 cars had a blind end with a window.

[Around the Horn]

Updates on the R211 in this week's board materials (screenshots from Jose Martinez on Twitter)

(The front door looks a little odd but I like it)

[V886132]

I hate the yellow grab rails, and hope that they don't make it to the production trains...but other than that, the renderings look much better (and less cartoonish) than previous versions.

Edited January 24, 2019 by East New York

[VIP]

11 minutes ago, V886132 said:

I hate the yellow grab rails, and hope that they don't make it to the production trains...but other than that, the renderings look much better (and less cartoonish) than previous versions.

The R211’s will feature the yellow bars/looped stanchions as you may see on the newer buses.