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There will be no N trains between 86 St Brooklyn and Coney Island-Stillwell October 21, 2019 to Spring 2020


Union Tpke

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On 9/18/2019 at 4:49 PM, CenSin said:

Apparently, it was supposed to be a terminal with track connections to the mainline, much like the (H)’s Court Street terminal. The IND had this idea that through trains would be express and local trains would remain within the borough.

As a side note, it's worth noting that at the time of IND construction, reunification of Brooklyn and Manhattan was only 40 years before. Brooklyn hadn't yet lost its massive amounts of waterfront jobs.

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On 9/18/2019 at 11:03 PM, M5viaRiverside said:

Wasn't the (N) cut back to 86th Street back when they reconstructed Stillwell Av in the 2000's? Must be frustrating for recurring Sea Beach riders to have to deal with this again albeit for a different issue this time.

It was late 2001-2002. I'd say an 18 year gap is more than reasonable.


Now I will say, the Sea Beach Riders who had to deal with the temporary stations took a decent hit, but this service outage shouldn't effect the same group in terms of Peak Service. Intra Sea Beach ridership will feel it however. 

The people who will actually get hit by this are Brighton, anyone at CI for Broadway will jump on the (Q) which will be fun...

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1 hour ago, Deucey said:

So you close stations for a year and change to rebuild, but you couldn’t do that simultaneously with this ‘fix and fortify’?

I feel like we can’t have nice things because no one thinks anything through.

My recollection is that the 62nd St transfer to the (D) wasn't completed until the end of those station closures and the (F) ran CI express for most of that time meaning anyone wanting to go to CI via train had to back ride all the way to 36th and then take the West end or go to the (F) and back ride to 18th St. Crowding becomes an issue in that scenario. I have yet to see exactly what they'll take out of service for the fix and fortify but balancing service with one direction going Super-express and the other direction going local with a single track relay is going to make unreliable service. Service was pretty erratic with the original work, imagine adding on having a single pocket where the train basically has to depart whenever it shows up.

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21 hours ago, Deucey said:

So you close stations for a year and change to rebuild, but you couldn’t do that simultaneously with this ‘fix and fortify’?

I feel like we can’t have nice things because no one thinks anything through.

From my understanding, they couldn't do both at the same time because of how trains were running Sea Beach express, as trains would have had to terminate at Bay Parkway or start from Bay Parkway, which would have caused delays throughout the line. Add that with the 4th Av Express Pillar Work, and the Astoria rebuild, service would have never been reliable.

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7 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

From my understanding, they couldn't do both at the same time because of how trains were running Sea Beach express, as trains would have had to terminate at Bay Parkway or start from Bay Parkway, which would have caused delays throughout the line. Add that with the 4th Av Express Pillar Work, and the Astoria rebuild, service would have never been reliable.

I mean, service isn't even really reliable these days, so at this point getting all the pain over with is probably the preferable option.

Though I haven't heard anything of Fastracks and Cuomo stopped the L shutdown, so I suppose it's out of style.

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15 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

From my understanding, they couldn't do both at the same time because of how trains were running Sea Beach express, as trains would have had to terminate at Bay Parkway or start from Bay Parkway, which would have caused delays throughout the line. Add that with the 4th Av Express Pillar Work, and the Astoria rebuild, service would have never been reliable.

It’s a three track setup down there - train gets to Bay Pkwy, train on the test/express track for turnback until NB platform clears - similar to (6) at Bk Bridge, (2)(4)(5) and (6) in Bx.

Is there something Ops or tech related I’m missing that made this not an option?

Edited by Deucey
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4 hours ago, Deucey said:

It’s a three track setup down there - train gets to Bay Pkwy, train on the test/express track for turnback until NB platform clears - similar to (6) at Bk Bridge, (2)(4)(5) and (6) in Bx.

Is there something Ops or tech related I’m missing that made this not an option?

Sea Beach only had two active tracks during the rehab period and the closest interlocking is further down the line at Kings Highway. That long relay would have killed reliability even more than the express in one direction, local in the other actually did.

Not to mention that the main transfer point that they're trying to get everyone to use for this round of work was completely closed to install elevators and trains on the express track skipped it anyway which really makes this idea a non starter.

Edited by Around the Horn
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33 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

Sea Beach only had two active tracks during the rehab period and the closest interlocking is further down the line at Kings Highway. That long relay would have killed reliability even more than the express in one direction, local in the other actually did.

Not to mention that the main transfer point that they're trying to get everyone to use for this round of work was completely closed to install elevators and trains on the express track skipped it anyway which really makes this idea a non starter.

The proximity of Sea Beach to its alternatives, the insane, access-driven duration of the station work, and the fact that travel patterns were being seriously disrupted anyway would suggest that a full shutdown may have been a net positive here. (N)s via West End (or to Bay Ridge), shuttle buses, increased (R) service, etc and just be done with it ASAP and all at once. 

Would have likely saved some serious $$$ too. 

Edited by RR503
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32 minutes ago, RR503 said:

The proximity of Sea Beach to its alternatives, the insane, access-driven duration of the station work, and the fact that travel patterns were being seriously disrupted anyway would suggest that a full shutdown may have been a net positive here. (N)s via West End (or to Bay Ridge), shuttle buses, increased (R) service, etc and just be done with it ASAP and all at once. 

Would have likely saved some serious $$$ too. 

The same should have been done for Dyre Avenue, which in recent years has had its signal system replaced, structural work (Dyre), station rehabs (Gun Hill Road), track work, and maybe other work I have not been aware of. They have undergone too many years of nonstop GOs.

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3 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

The same should have been done for Dyre Avenue, which in recent years has had its signal system replaced, structural work (Dyre), station rehabs (Gun Hill Road), track work, and maybe other work I have not been aware of. They have undergone too many years of nonstop GOs.

Agree, though the grid up there isn't all that conducive to efficient shuttle replacement service. The treatment of the Astoria line has likewise been shameful -- switch replacement projects, station renewals, ADA Astoria Boulevard, track panel replacement and now CBTC happening essentially without GO coordination. Some of this, to be fair, was a consequence of opacity as to future initiatives, but that's a controllable flaw -- a major project on a line should trigger conversations about potential concurrent initiatives. 

Edited by RR503
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2 minutes ago, RR503 said:

Agree, though the grid up there isn't all that conducive to efficient shuttle replacement service. The treatment of the Astoria line has likewise been shameful -- switch replacement projects, station renewals, ADA Astoria Boulevard, track panel replacement and now CBTC happening essentially without GO coordination. Some of this, to be fair, was a consequence of opacity as to future initiatives, but that's a controllable flaw -- a major project on a line should trigger conversations about potential concurrent initiatives. 

I realize that the grid isn't conducive, but it could still be done. Don't forget the addition of elevators at Broadway.

I think that closing the Culver Line full time south of Church Avenue would have been a great use of a full shutdown. There is CBTC work, station rehabilitation work, interlocking work (Church, 18th, Kings Highway), and now ADA work (Neptune, Avenue I). This was one of the corridors that was proposed for overnight shuttle bus service in the 1990s.

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9 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

I think that closing the Culver Line full time south of Church Avenue would have been a great use of a full shutdown. There is CBTC work, station rehabilitation work, interlocking work (Church, 18th, Kings Highway), and now ADA work (Neptune, Avenue I). This was one of the corridors that was proposed for overnight shuttle bus service in the 1990s.

Absolutely, and in the case of Culver they knew about everything but the ADA initiative well in advance. The issues with Culver shutdown, though, are more real than with those other two lines. You have terminal capacity and yard access problems. On the former issue, even if you did double end every train and eliminate train clearing, you'd still get the +25 seconds from DGTs, along with speed penalties from the 3-yellow move to the yard, the GT10s on the yard ramp, and the AKs in the yard itself. Especially since those issues get worse with longer trains, I dunno if you could do full (F) service out of that terminal.

As for yard access, unlike Dyre and Sea Beach where yards are either not on the line or are accessible via alternate routes, there's no way for (F)s to access CI if lower Culver is shut. You could fill the express tracks north of Church with layups like they do for the cold weather plan, but that's not great for crews and may not provide adequate layup capacity. There's also the issue of you having to keep lower Culver open to at least 18th to get trains out of those tracks and onto the local, unless you wanna come south from 4th Ave. 

These issues are likely tractable--you could keep 18th Ave open as an overflow terminal and hope that takes enough of a load off of Church (if not, 2nd Ave), and you could just bite the bullet on layups--but they're issues nonetheless.

Edited by RR503
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1 minute ago, RR503 said:

Absolutely, and in the case of Culver they knew about everything but the ADA initiative well in advance. The only issue I see with a Culver shutdown is the garbage signal system at Church Avenue and yard access. On the former issue, even if you did double end every train and eliminate train clearing, you'd still get the +25 seconds from DGTs, along with speed penalties from the 3-yellow move to the yard, the GT10s on the yard ramp, and the AKs in the yard itself. Especially since those issues get worse with longer trains, I dunno if you could do full (F) service out of that terminal.

As for yard access, unlike Dyre and Sea Beach where yards are either not on the line or are accessible via alternate routes, there's no way for (F)s to access CI if lower Culver is shut. You could fill the express tracks north of Church with layups like they do for the cold weather plan, but that's not great for crews and may not provide adequate layup capacity. There's also the issue of you having to keep lower Culver open to at least 18th to get trains out of those tracks and onto the local, unless you wanna come south from 4th Ave. 

These issues are likely tractable--you could keep 18th Ave open as an overflow terminal and hope that takes enough of a load off of Church (if not, 2nd Ave), and you could just bite the bullet on layups--but they're issues nonetheless.

Do you think that any minimal capacity could be gained by using Smith-Ninth to turn trains? Every line should be evaluated for the possibility of full-time closures, and the tradeoffs should be looked at for each option.

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2 hours ago, Union Tpke said:

Do you think that any minimal capacity could be gained by using Smith-Ninth to turn trains? Every line should be evaluated for the possibility of full-time closures, and the tradeoffs should be looked at for each option.

Yes, provided that there's staffing at the terminal to double-end trains. I would minimize the use of that one, though. 4th and 7th are super popular stops. You'd probably end up with 7.5tph to 18th Ave, (G) to Church + maybe 4tph (F) and then a mix of Smith-9th, Jay (long relay to Bergen lower) and 2nd Ave for the rest. 

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On 9/20/2019 at 2:40 AM, Jsunflyguy said:

It was late 2001-2002. I'd say an 18 year gap is more than reasonable.


Now I will say, the Sea Beach Riders who had to deal with the temporary stations took a decent hit, but this service outage shouldn't effect the same group in terms of Peak Service. Intra Sea Beach ridership will feel it however. 

The people who will actually get hit by this are Brighton, anyone at CI for Broadway will jump on the (Q) which will be fun...

The (N) was cut off from Coney Island from 1994-1995, and 2001-2005. Long gaps, yeah, but still annoying.

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12 hours ago, R32s said:

The (N) was cut off from Coney Island from 1994-1995, and 2001-2005. Long gaps, yeah, but still annoying.

I don’t get why they don’t just fundraise for a few years and then just spend some months or a year with a full shutdown and rebuild.

I understand not doing that on Lex or B-way past 207th St, and QBL, but if the system’s old and decrepit, why not do the full rebuild and buy 30 years of life instead of this haphazard and expensive piecemeal stuff.

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