Supposedly R32s are now retired

[4P3607]

The R42s were pulled from retirement after they "officially" made their last run. The same is always possible with the 32s in the future if needed although not likely (much less due to the politicians and those in management who wanted them gone by "Q1 2020"). This is unless the individuals who are in control of what happens to them change.

It's just going to be a wait and see game as things progress over the next few months. There seems to be way much more speculation as to what could happen meanwhile we haven't had a pandemic scenario like this in our lifetimes so the outcome of how this will effect transit is something we'll just have to observe. Although is it thought provoking to imagine what the possible outcomes of all this might be it doesn't solve anything to become heated over. 2020 has been a very different year to us.

Maybe they'll be smart and keep more than a few pairs of R32s as a movie / charter train. As of now a total of 0 R32s (and R42s) are going anywhere off property until there's any word about a scrap contract - of which both that and the R211 production are obviously on hold and delayed at this point. 

Don't forget an R32 garbage train still runs almost every day somewhere in the system. It's not the same as riding one in service but at least it's a sight...

Personally I'm a little more alarmed that some still believe that a vaccine will "eliminate" and be a fix-all for the virus and that Bill Gates surely has our best interests in mind. But that's something to look into for another discussion in another place. 

P.S.: although this is considerably random, I'm hoping to make an R32 tribute pin for anyone who wants (similar to the R42 retirement pin but much more detailed).

Long live those 32s, and The Budd Company for really building things to last ! 🇺🇲

[MHV9218]

48 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Here are the differences:

1) Terror attacks are not exactly frequent, and are easier to “get over” - to use a poor cliche. Contagions aren’t, since while COVID-19 is an exceptional illness/pandemic, flus, colds, legionnaires, etc, are fairly regular and amplified by density whether airborne or in a localized water source (legionnaires). That factors into peoples’ thinking.

2) For 60 days at least now, people have been working remotely. When you add that to #1, if the fear of contagion spread outweighs “New York is awesome”, why would people stay in the boroughs when they could lower risk and pocket money by living outside the boroughs and still be as productive via Slack than in Midtown?

 If it makes you feel better regarding your position, I’ve had an uptick in inquiries about the UES apartment I’ve been the agent of record on since February, so there are still people looking to move to Manhattan despite all this. But that may not translate to 6 million people riding the subway daily again by May 15, 2021.

The kind of exodus-by-choice you're talking about, I see that as possible at the very high end (people with second houses, Hampton houses, etc. stay there more often), but like we were talking about earlier, working remotely is an only an option for a tiny sliver of jobs in New York City, and a great number of people don't have the wealth or resources to pick up their lives and go. Anybody in the service industry, trades, etc., remote work is not an option. Just looking at the top 5 largest employers in NYC: the City, the DOE, the MTA, the US Government (federal employees), and HHC, essentially none of those are conducive to remote work. Schools, hospitals, those are the major companies in NYC. I count 2/10 employers on that list (both banks) that could feasibly switch a significant portion of their employees remote work.

If we have no vaccine on this for a really long time, I think you're very right. But if we have a vaccine within a year (plus a few months), I don't think people are going to leave New York. I actually think there's an argument that a terror attack is more likely to make people flee, just since there's no proven remedy like a vaccine, and it inspires fear and neurosis that can't be pacified. If there's a functional vaccine, I don't think that will be there. 

2021, subway ridership will absolutely be down, particularly if we have a serious second bout over the winter season. Ridership could be down for the whole year. But 2022, 2023?

[Deucey]

14 minutes ago, MHV9218 said:

2021, subway ridership will absolutely be down, particularly if we have a serious second bout over the winter season. Ridership could be down for the whole year. But 2022, 2023?

It really depends. Right now the inquiries I’m getting are for people still interested in moving to NYC (vs rich people looking to park money into an empty apartment).

I got two rental inquiries via Reddit in the last week for people looking to get out of a roommate situation.

We also have the non-native New Yorker not in a government job on unemployment. NYC alone is 4.4%. Out of ~8.6 million people within the boroughs, that’s under 430,000 - or the entirety of Staten Island.

Doesn't break down by industry, but if a good number of those are in the service sector (sales and all that), and those folks can’t find replacement income long term, and they move, and their roommates have to figure something out because they can’t pay that $4k Williamsburg rent on their own...

And we haven’t factored in the knock-on effects - businesses cutting spending because consumers start saving money to maintain what they have, and vendors shut down because businesses cutback...

So 2022/23 could see depressed numbers too - compared to 2018/19.

The thing is we don’t know what to expect since 1) the last global pandemic still had most of NY and America transitioning from agrarian to industrial and commercial labor forces, and 2) we have an incompetent administration on Penn Ave making things worse epidemiologically and economically. (And that’s not a partisan statement.)

I used to be a heavy gambler when I was a Californian. What would Deucey in 2012 bet on in this situation? Not a doggone thing since the spreads and over/unders all suck.

[Lex]

2 hours ago, Deucey said:

Here are the differences:

1) Terror attacks are not exactly frequent, and are easier to “get over” - to use a poor cliche. Contagions aren’t, since while COVID-19 is an exceptional illness/pandemic, flus, colds, legionnaires, etc, are fairly regular and amplified by density whether airborne or in a localized water source (legionnaires). That factors into peoples’ thinking.

2) For 60 days at least now, people have been working remotely. When you add that to #1, if the fear of contagion spread outweighs “New York is awesome”, why would people stay in the boroughs when they could lower risk and pocket money by living outside the boroughs and still be as productive via Slack than in Midtown?

 If it makes you feel better regarding your position, I’ve had an uptick in inquiries about the UES apartment I’ve been the agent of record on since February, so there are still people looking to move to Manhattan despite all this. But that may not translate to 6 million people riding the subway daily again by May 15, 2021.

Not to mention the astronomical health care costs in this country...

[Deucey]

36 minutes ago, Lex said:

Not to mention the astronomical health care costs in this country...

I’m pretty sure that as long as the South or flyover country doesn’t do something stupid in November, the winter uptick combined with all the hospital bills to patients is gonna lead Congress to turn Medicaid Share of Cost into a universal emergency or catastrophic coverage program.

If they do vote for the UV Light and disinfectant injection proponent, watch medical bankruptcies go even higher than this wave of COVID will cause.

[bobtehpanda]

7 hours ago, Deucey said:

For 60 days at least now, people have been working remotely. When you add that to #1, if the fear of contagion spread outweighs “New York is awesome”, why would people stay in the boroughs when they could lower risk and pocket money by living outside the boroughs and still be as productive via Slack than in Midtown?

Define "just as productive." Because anecdotally, I know many people with complaints about how much remote work sucks, particularly with meetings, work/life balance, etc.

The end of New York caused by technology has been predicted for the past few decades. It turns out that in a lot of industries, New York is actually quite strategically located due to

• the large talent pool, and correspondingly large job pool; if you do anything that could be remotely specialized, New York offers one of the easiest places to switch jobs in the country, and is one of the easiest places to hire out of. It's also very easy to rub shoulders with other people who do work like you do, and the network makes it even easier to switch jobs or hear about new things.
• its position at the end of the transatlantic cables to Europe; all those trading firms will pay billions of dollars to shave microseconds off their transactions and beat their competitors to the punch at the London Stock Exchange. If you've got to rely on a VPN to do this kind of work, it will break you. In recent years, these fast communication links have also proven a boon for tech.

[bobtehpanda]

6 hours ago, Deucey said:

We also have the non-native New Yorker not in a government job on unemployment. NYC alone is 4.4%. Out of ~8.6 million people within the boroughs, that’s under 430,000 - or the entirety of Staten Island.

Doesn't break down by industry, but if a good number of those are in the service sector (sales and all that), and those folks can’t find replacement income long term, and they move, and their roommates have to figure something out because they can’t pay that $4k Williamsburg rent on their own...

And we haven’t factored in the knock-on effects - businesses cutting spending because consumers start saving money to maintain what they have, and vendors shut down because businesses cutback...

So 2022/23 could see depressed numbers too - compared to 2018/19.

The thing is we don’t know what to expect since 1) the last global pandemic still had most of NY and America transitioning from agrarian to industrial and commercial labor forces, and 2) we have an incompetent administration on Penn Ave making things worse epidemiologically and economically. (And that’s not a partisan statement.)

I used to be a heavy gambler when I was a Californian. What would Deucey in 2012 bet on in this situation? Not a doggone thing since the spreads and over/unders all suck.

"Full unemployment" is a myth due to the fact that you need some slack for natural staff turnover; any lower and you start seeing rapid wage growth and inflation. Most urban areas "natural unemployment" rate track slightly higher than the national one. 4.4% is actually very low by historical standards; just before the 2007 recession, NYC had hit a historic unemployment rate of 4.6%. The historic low matches anecdotes about how the city's labor supply and housing supply is tight.

What you should be betting on is CDs and savings accounts, because that FDIC insurance system has never been broken. (Money markets will leave you wiped out because those aren't covered.)

[Yankees4life]

Now watch them take them out of retirement when the R179 shits the bed again

[+Young+]

On 4/28/2020 at 12:22 AM, bobtehpanda said:

"Full unemployment" is a myth due to the fact that you need some slack for natural staff turnover; any lower and you start seeing rapid wage growth and inflation. Most urban areas "natural unemployment" rate track slightly higher than the national one. 4.4% is actually very low by historical standards; just before the 2007 recession, NYC had hit a historic unemployment rate of 4.6%. The historic low matches anecdotes about how the city's labor supply and housing supply is tight.

What you should be betting on is CDs and savings accounts, because that FDIC insurance system has never been broken. (Money markets will leave you wiped out because those aren't covered.)

As per the guidelines of the website, can we please stay on-topic? Thank you...

15 minutes ago, Yankees4life said:

Now watch them take them out of retirement when the R179 shits the bed again

Yeah, providing they are still on the property and suitable for passenger service. I saw a few recent pictures and, to my knowledge, some of them were already being scrapped...including a few others that had graffiti on them as well.

Edited April 30, 2020 by +Young+

[MHV9218]

22 minutes ago, +Young+ said:

As per the guidelines of the website, can we please stay on-topic? Thank you...

I think this is a actually rare occasion where larger socioeconomic and political talk turns out to be right on topic, since we're discussing a fleet whose necessity is totally dependent on ridership needs that will be entirely determined by the pandemic and resultant economic slowdown.

I would also wager with a lot of confidence that no scrapping has begun of the 32s removed from service in the past few weeks. Nothing is getting scrapped right now, not even the R42s that have been sitting still for months. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by MHV9218

[R32 3838]

1 hour ago, MHV9218 said:

I think this is a actually rare occasion where larger socioeconomic and political talk turns out to be right on topic, since we're discussing a fleet whose necessity is totally dependent on ridership needs that will be entirely determined by the pandemic and resultant economic slowdown.

I would also wager with a lot of confidence that no scrapping has begun of the 32s removed from service in the past few weeks. Nothing is getting scrapped right now, not even the R42s that have been sitting still for months. 

 

a small chunk of cars were stripped already, since they need parts

[+Young+]

24 minutes ago, R32 3838 said:

a small chunk of cars were stripped already, since they need parts

Thank you!!

On 4/28/2020 at 12:22 AM, bobtehpanda said:

What you should be betting on is CDs and savings accounts, because that FDIC insurance system has never been broken. (Money markets will leave you wiped out because those aren't covered.)

And @MHV9218, this is the part that I was specifically referring to. My apologies for quoting the entire thing earlier.

[R68ACTrain]

So the R32 is officially retired?  Wow they will be missed. As I'm stuck upstate..

[Fresh Pond]

About damn time lol

[Wallyhorse]

On 4/27/2020 at 6:05 PM, Deucey said:

It really depends. Right now the inquiries I’m getting are for people still interested in moving to NYC (vs rich people looking to park money into an empty apartment).

I got two rental inquiries via Reddit in the last week for people looking to get out of a roommate situation.

We also have the non-native New Yorker not in a government job on unemployment. NYC alone is 4.4%. Out of ~8.6 million people within the boroughs, that’s under 430,000 - or the entirety of Staten Island.

Doesn't break down by industry, but if a good number of those are in the service sector (sales and all that), and those folks can’t find replacement income long term, and they move, and their roommates have to figure something out because they can’t pay that $4k Williamsburg rent on their own...

And we haven’t factored in the knock-on effects - businesses cutting spending because consumers start saving money to maintain what they have, and vendors shut down because businesses cutback...

So 2022/23 could see depressed numbers too - compared to 2018/19.

The thing is we don’t know what to expect since 1) the last global pandemic still had most of NY and America transitioning from agrarian to industrial and commercial labor forces, and 2) we have an incompetent administration on Penn Ave making things worse epidemiologically and economically. (And that’s not a partisan statement.)

I used to be a heavy gambler when I was a Californian. What would Deucey in 2012 bet on in this situation? Not a doggone thing since the spreads and over/unders all suck.

Actually, the Hong Kong Flu Pandemic in 1968-'69 brought on in the US the 1969-'70 recession which to that point was the worst recession since the Great Depression 40 years earlier.  That recession severely weakened New York, setting things up following a record stock market (for that time in early 1973) for the 1973-'75 recession that caused NYC to teeter on bankruptcy and Ford's infamous headline.  

This obviously is far worse than that Pandemic. 

[MHV9218]

On 5/8/2020 at 6:24 PM, Wallyhorse said:

Actually, the Hong Kong Flu Pandemic in 1968-'69 brought on in the US the 1969-'70 recession which to that point was the worst recession since the Great Depression 40 years earlier.  That recession severely weakened New York, setting things up following a record stock market (for that time in early 1973) for the 1973-'75 recession that caused NYC to teeter on bankruptcy and Ford's infamous headline.  

This obviously is far worse than that Pandemic. 

These things are not connected as you imply. The 1969 recession came from monetary and fiscal policy related to Vietnam, not the flu. There were no broad societal changes because of that flu that are comparable to this pandemic. New York was more reliant on federal funding then, and white flight was occurring just as the 70s fiscal crisis arrived. The '75 recession came from a number of fiscal disasters relating to rising deficits, sloppy bookkeeping, federal cuts, economic tightening, and the oil crisis. 

[Wallyhorse]

11 hours ago, MHV9218 said:

These things are not connected as you imply. The 1969 recession came from monetary and fiscal policy related to Vietnam, not the flu. There were no broad societal changes because of that flu that are comparable to this pandemic. New York was more reliant on federal funding then, and white flight was occurring just as the 70s fiscal crisis arrived. The '75 recession came from a number of fiscal disasters relating to rising deficits, sloppy bookkeeping, federal cuts, economic tightening, and the oil crisis. 

All of that as well as corruption, actions by Robert Moses and so forth, however, the pandemic likely did make some re-think and move to the suburbs.  White flight had by that point been a serious issue for years.  

[checkmatechamp13]

 

On 4/26/2020 at 11:10 PM, MHV9218 said:

People aren't just going to opt out of the subway unless they have a darn good reason. I agree with you that a lot may change in New York, but the subway will remain a necessity for the vast majority of people. 

 

On 4/26/2020 at 11:49 PM, MHV9218 said:

Right, but I think that skews towards a crowd who doesn't use the subway as much. Employees in most fields will still have to report; it's basically just people who can work from a laptop that will be working from home. Back in 2014, the stat was a median household income of $58k a year for subway-only riders and $39.6k for bus-and-subway riders. The telecommuting crowd are largely finance, tech, data, and some creative fields. The first three of those are generally making a lot more than that household number, though admittedly the fourth (some friends of mine!) are probably within that dataset.

I think you're underestimating the number of people who can work from home. Even some things that require hands-on work have components that can be done remotely (e.g. Inspect a bridge and write the inspection report...instead of writing that report in the office, you do it at home which means you can leave the site at 1pm instead of 3pm which leads to less peak ridership). Compressed work schedules exist in all fields...instead of 5 days of 8 hours each you can do 4 days of 10 hours each and save a day of commuting. I think a long-term 30% ridership seems reasonable to expect.

[bobtehpanda]

On 5/11/2020 at 6:21 AM, checkmatechamp13 said:

I think you're underestimating the number of people who can work from home. Even some things that require hands-on work have components that can be done remotely (e.g. Inspect a bridge and write the inspection report...instead of writing that report in the office, you do it at home which means you can leave the site at 1pm instead of 3pm which leads to less peak ridership). Compressed work schedules exist in all fields...instead of 5 days of 8 hours each you can do 4 days of 10 hours each and save a day of commuting. I think a long-term 30% ridership seems reasonable to expect.

WFH will probably become more prevalent, but I see it more of as "you can work from home some days of the week if you want" rather than "we are moving the entire back-office to Tulsa."

30pc decline also might not reduce car needs as much as you might expect, since the subway was running well over capacity before peak. 30pc decline in demand would not reduce the amount of sets you need to run on say, the Lex. In fact, 30pc decline from today's numbers would bring us back to 1999 ridership levels, back when the MTA was running billion dollar surpluses.

[shiznit1987]

On 4/27/2020 at 5:32 PM, MHV9218 said:

The kind of exodus-by-choice you're talking about, I see that as possible at the very high end (people with second houses, Hampton houses, etc. stay there more often), but like we were talking about earlier, working remotely is an only an option for a tiny sliver of jobs in New York City, and a great number of people don't have the wealth or resources to pick up their lives and go. Anybody in the service industry, trades, etc., remote work is not an option. Just looking at the top 5 largest employers in NYC: the City, the DOE, the MTA, the US Government (federal employees), and HHC, essentially none of those are conducive to remote work. Schools, hospitals, those are the major companies in NYC. I count 2/10 employers on that list (both banks) that could feasibly switch a significant portion of their employees remote work.

If we have no vaccine on this for a really long time, I think you're very right. But if we have a vaccine within a year (plus a few months), I don't think people are going to leave New York. I actually think there's an argument that a terror attack is more likely to make people flee, just since there's no proven remedy like a vaccine, and it inspires fear and neurosis that can't be pacified. If there's a functional vaccine, I don't think that will be there. 

2021, subway ridership will absolutely be down, particularly if we have a serious second bout over the winter season. Ridership could be down for the whole year. But 2022, 2023?

The problem lies with the dominio effect. Of the 5 top employers you listed 4 of them (City, DOE, MTA and HHC) are wholly dependent on NYC/NYS taxpayers. Any large scale exodus from NYC would put those jobs in major jeopardy, along with putting the kabosh on any large scale recovery of the service industry locally. If Wall St were to go totally remote, the loss of tax revenue from commerical real estate plus their employees pulling up stakes for other locales would be catastrophic. 

 

Do I think this will happen? No, for a few reasons. However, there's a certain arrogance in NYC that somehow people will put up with anything because "It's New York". The 1960s thru early 1980s dispelled that thoroughly. 

[R10 2952]

1 hour ago, shiznit1987 said:

However, there's a certain arrogance in NYC that somehow people will put up with anything because "It's New York". The 1960s thru early 1980s dispelled that thoroughly. 

THIS.  No idea what will happen this time around, but personally I wouldn't be surprised if current events resulted in at least some people leaving NYC for areas that are less dense, less expensive, less polluted and less dysfunctional.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

Apparently, it’s not over yet for the R32s. The Daily News reports that they are going back into service on the  and  on Wednesday.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-l-train-normal-service-covid-19-20200628-lntxyjbwdbhizky4sw5i6dbjgq-story.html 

Edited June 29, 2020 by T to Dyre Avenue