R211 Discussion Thread

[Lance]

So they have changed the announcement sets. Apparently, it's not a straight lift from the 179 program.

I actually don't hate it. Though that could be due to the fact I can't stand the D's automated announcements. They along with the and announcements all sound like Catherine fell asleep in the booth while recording these stations.

Seriously though, if they decide to consolidate the announcement sets, I'd recommend keeping the Broadway set, the one for the Eastern Division and have everything else use the 8th Avenue (and 6th Avenue if necessary) recordings, including for reroutes and have said reroutes use the home-line versions instead of the ones specifically created for the rerouted lines. Right now, there are seven different versions of station announcements, most of which have their own versions of station recordings for reroutes:

• Rockaway Park / Franklin Ave
• 
• (uses Broadway version of "next stop", but slower recordings than Broadway stations)
• 
• (which sounds slightly different than the A / C version)
• (some stations are announced differently, but most share the set)
• 

Using this weekend's service changes, any train on Fulton St will use one of the four known recordings, with only the using the actual announcements. via Fulton St currently has its own set, as does the and reroutes in that area. Same for anything rerouted on to the Culver line. The and will use its own version, as with the and . There's no need for that. I can actually understand if the computers have limited capacity if there's this much bloat installed on them. They can use those three main sets I mentioned and treat rerouted trains like they do on the 142s (but retain the relevant "next stop / this is" portions)

[Lawrence St]

4 hours ago, Lance said:

So they have changed the announcement sets. Apparently, it's not a straight lift from the 179 program.

I actually don't hate it. Though that could be due to the fact I can't stand the D's automated announcements. They along with the and announcements all sound like Catherine fell asleep in the booth while recording these stations.

Seriously though, if they decide to consolidate the announcement sets, I'd recommend keeping the Broadway set, the one for the Eastern Division and have everything else use the 8th Avenue (and 6th Avenue if necessary) recordings, including for reroutes and have said reroutes use the home-line versions instead of the ones specifically created for the rerouted lines. Right now, there are seven different versions of station announcements, most of which have their own versions of station recordings for reroutes:

• Rockaway Park / Franklin Ave
• 
• (uses Broadway version of "next stop", but slower recordings than Broadway stations)
• 
• (which sounds slightly different than the A / C version)
• (some stations are announced differently, but most share the set)
• 

Using this weekend's service changes, any train on Fulton St will use one of the four known recordings, with only the using the actual announcements. via Fulton St currently has its own set, as does the and reroutes in that area. Same for anything rerouted on to the Culver line. The and will use its own version, as with the and . There's no need for that. I can actually understand if the computers have limited capacity if there's this much bloat installed on them. They can use those three main sets I mentioned and treat rerouted trains like they do on the 142s (but retain the relevant "next stop / this is" portions)

So according to the new videos on YouTube, any line that has stations announced by whoever does the , is now the set default for those station announcements. For example, that means the  in it's entirety is no longer announced by Catherine, with the exception for the destination announcements.

[subwaycommuter1983]

11 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

So according to the new videos on YouTube, any line that has stations announced by whoever does the , is now the set default for those station announcements. For example, that means the  in it's entirety is no longer announced by Catherine, with the exception for the destination announcements.

Are they testing these announcements on all B division lines or just on the lines that are potentially getting the r211's (all option orders included)??

[footechicken]

On 8/7/2021 at 5:42 PM, Lance said:

So they have changed the announcement sets. Apparently, it's not a straight lift from the 179 program.

 

On 8/7/2021 at 10:22 PM, Lawrence St said:

So according to the new videos on YouTube, any line that has stations announced by whoever does the , is now the set default for those station announcements. For example, that means the  in it's entirety is no longer announced by Catherine, with the exception for the destination announcements.

One oddity I noticed is that the  program used the  announcement for Rector St, and I'm not really sure why that is happening since it doesn't seem like something they'd change on purpose (especially this early into testing).

I'm guessing that this is the same glitch that the R179s have with the next stop announcements where the computer can't find the line-specific announcements and defaults to whichever file is listed first (in this case the one for the  to/from Whitehall). I also wouldn't be surprised if the files are listed in alphabetical order (based on which line they are used for) since all the other announcement videos from the R211 used the station announcement for the alphabetically lowest line that had an announcement for the station in the video, all of which just happened to be from the  or . (in other words, what I'm saying is that I think the announcements might be organized by the alphabetical order of the lines and the system is defaulting to whichever line comes first in this list for any given station.)

At the same time the Culver reroute programs on the R160s use the  announcements by default even though there are  announcements so I have no idea if my guess is completely wrong or if the Culver announcements are just set up differently

[Lawrence St]

21 minutes ago, footechicken said:

 

One oddity I noticed is that the  program used the  announcement for Rector St, and I'm not really sure why that is happening since it doesn't seem like something they'd change on purpose (especially this early into testing).

I'm guessing that this is the same glitch that the R179s have with the next stop announcements where the computer can't find the line-specific announcements and defaults to whichever file is listed first (in this case the one for the  to/from Whitehall). I also wouldn't be surprised if the files are listed in alphabetical order (based on which line they are used for) since all the other announcement videos from the R211 used the station announcement for the alphabetically lowest line that had an announcement for the station in the video, all of which just happened to be from the  or . (in other words, what I'm saying is that I think the announcements might be organized by the alphabetical order of the lines and the system is defaulting to whichever line comes first in this list for any given station.)

At the same time the Culver reroute programs on the R160s use the  announcements by default even though there are  announcements so I have no idea if my guess is completely wrong or if the Culver announcements are just set up differently

That's because the R160's don't have that "glitch" - yet. 

The R179's, even though they have the next stop glitch, don't have the station announcement glitch. This is evidenced by when the R179's were burn in testing on the line and they were signed up as the to Euclid, which used the 's station announcements for all of Fulton St.

The R211's do have this glitch, which is why Rector St from the was used on the , since it is the first recording in the list. Once that train reaches Queensboro, it will default back to the 's regular announcement since there's no other variation.

[7-express]

New MTA video about the R211 is up.

 

[Lawrence St]

1 hour ago, 7-express said:

New MTA video about the R211 is up.

 

I really dont get how the interior seating is an "improvement". It's a step backwards with less seating.

[BenTheMiner]

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I really dont get how the interior seating is an "improvement". It's a step backwards with less seating.

Less seating allows for more standing room, more capacity. And that will increase even further with the open gangways on the R211T. Not to mention more flip seats for more wheelchair areas.

Edited August 13, 2021 by BenTheMiner

[Around the Horn]

7 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I really dont get how the interior seating is an "improvement". It's a step backwards with less seating.

There are more designated priority seats and more room for people in wheelchairs to move around compared to previous cars.

[Maxwell179]

9 hours ago, 7-express said:

New MTA video about the R211 is up.

 

Does anyone know if they’re still including the USB ports and Wi-Fi ?

[BenTheMiner]

8 hours ago, Maxwell179 said:

Does anyone know if they’re still including the USB ports and Wi-Fi ?

A YouTube commenter said that they ditched the USB ports. I believe they do have Wi-Fi, though.

[rbrome]

9 hours ago, BenTheMiner said:

I believe they do have Wi-Fi, though.

I don't understand how that will work or what the point is. What connects the train to the internet? There's no cellular or Wi-Fi in the tunnels. And if there were, passengers could just connect to that directly, so what is the point of putting Wi-Fi on the train? 

[BenTheMiner]

21 minutes ago, rbrome said:

I don't understand how that will work or what the point is. What connects the train to the internet? There's no cellular or Wi-Fi in the tunnels. And if there were, passengers could just connect to that directly, so what is the point of putting Wi-Fi on the train? 

I don't know either, but I know they did that with the R160.

[Lex]

1 hour ago, rbrome said:

I don't understand how that will work or what the point is. What connects the train to the internet? There's no cellular or Wi-Fi in the tunnels. And if there were, passengers could just connect to that directly, so what is the point of putting Wi-Fi on the train? 

Much of the network sits outside of tunnels.

[Lance]

Also, aren't there long-term plans to wire the tunnels for WiFi? Or have those plans been scuttled?

[rbrome]

19 hours ago, Lex said:

Much of the network sits outside of tunnels.

...where everyone can get cellular service just fine. So again, what's the point?

[Q44 SBS]

So it looks like the R211 exterior LED sign on the A won’t include “8 Ave Exp” and “Fulton St Exp”. Instead, it just displays “Far Rockaway” and then “Via JFK Airport”. I guess people will have to rely on the FIND display then.

[Vulturious]

18 minutes ago, Q44 SBS said:

So it looks like the R211 exterior LED sign on the A won’t include “8 Ave Exp” and “Fulton St Exp”. Instead, it just displays “Far Rockaway” and then “Via JFK Airport”. I guess people will have to rely on the FIND display then.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions, it could be programmed to be somewhere along the line where it's already in Queens. Who knows for sure until we see it truly in action it's running simulated train service (no idea what they call it) or the 30-day Revenue testing service.

[Metro CSW]

22 minutes ago, Q44 SBS said:

So it looks like the R211 exterior LED sign on the A won’t include “8 Ave Exp” and “Fulton St Exp”. Instead, it just displays “Far Rockaway” and then “Via JFK Airport”. I guess people will have to rely on the FIND display then.

That's the A Shuttle program.....

[Vulturious]

8 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

I wouldn't jump to conclusions, it could be programmed to be somewhere along the line where it's already in Queens. Who knows for sure until we see it truly in action it's running simulated train service (no idea what they call it) or the 30-day Revenue testing service.

6 minutes ago, Metro CSW said:

That's the A Shuttle program.....

Well, I was clearly wrong.

 

[BenTheMiner]

1 hour ago, Metro CSW said:

That's the A Shuttle program.....

So the same case for the Inwood-207 program that only says 8th Av Express?

[BenTheMiner]

Just now, BenTheMiner said:

So the same case for the Inwood-207 program that only says 8th Av Express?

Never mind, just double checked and the program isn't supposed to say anything else.

Edited August 15, 2021 by BenTheMiner

[R32 3838]

2 hours ago, Q44 SBS said:

So it looks like the R211 exterior LED sign on the A won’t include “8 Ave Exp” and “Fulton St Exp”. Instead, it just displays “Far Rockaway” and then “Via JFK Airport”. I guess people will have to rely on the FIND display then.

 

It's Better to just keep the destination at the Front instead of it saying Far Rockaway then via 8th ave Express.

 

 

[Lex]

5 hours ago, rbrome said:

...where everyone can get cellular service just fine. So again, what's the point?

Did it ever occur to you that people may want to limit their data use on those networks or that they don't have access to those networks in the first place?

Edited August 16, 2021 by Lex

[BenTheMiner]

3 minutes ago, Lex said:

Did it ever occur to you that people may want to limit their data use on those networks or that they don't have access to those networks in the first place?

I don't have cellular data, so I would find transit Wi-Fi useful wherever it is.