My thoughts on gangway trains as a Torontonian

[MisterSG1]

As you guys are aware I'm sure, Toronto has had trainsets with the gangway in operation since 2011.

My question still to this day about these trainsets, is does the gangway overall serve a better purpose than keeping all the cars contained? Yes, in theory people should be able to stand in the gangway, and Toronto's gangways even have poles at all four corners of the gangway:

 

Standing in the gangway may seem ideal in theory during a crush load,  But try standing in the gangway during the "S-curve" which follows Spadina station southbound into St. George station and then into Museum. Or similarly, during the "horn" that surrounds Union station. I honestly don't see how anyone can stand safely there. Even a minor s curve of sorts which occurs immediately south of College Station, I nearly got thrown over from the gangway. Methinks that the MTA will probably have a lawsuit on their hands from someone being injured in a gangway.

 

While I haven't been downtown since COVID started, I used to take the subway from the 2017 extension, another side effect that comes with these open trains is for the panhandlers and other eccentrics to basically wander the whole train bothering everyone. At least with isolated units they couldn't wander the whole train. So yeah, if you find yourself in uncomfortable situations, the entire train is fair game rather than individual cars. There were times before in Toronto albeit rarely, where I made a mad dash at a stop to get to the next car.

 

Finally, from a transit enthusiast perspective, let's be honest, while this doesn't really matter functionality, these train sets as proposed removed the rail fan window, so gone are the days where you can look out the front and see the signals. (Which brings me to ATC, where signals would become almost pointless anyways). You can still kind of see through the one way mirror now on the Toronto Rocket but it's a very limited view.

 

So these are my thoughts on the gangway trains.

[Deucey]

55 minutes ago, MisterSG1 said:

Standing in the gangway may seem ideal in theory during a crush load,  But try standing in the gangway during the "S-curve" which follows Spadina station southbound into St. George station and then into Museum. Or similarly, during the "horn" that surrounds Union station. I honestly don't see how anyone can stand safely there. Even a minor s curve of sorts which occurs immediately south of College Station, I nearly got thrown over from the gangway. Methinks that the MTA will probably have a lawsuit on their hands from someone being injured in a gangway.

Meh. We survive on the articulated buses.

[Kamen Rider]

I mean the BMT pioneered the very concept. This isn’t as “new and unknown” as some people think. My soon to be 63 year old mother was 7 when the D Types were retired. There’s an entire generation who grew up riding the rails of the old BMT Southern Division on those cars.

[MisterSG1]

13 hours ago, Deucey said:

Meh. We survive on the articulated buses.

I've been on Brampton Transit's Zum Articulated buses plenty of times in the past. An express version of the route uses Hwy 407, and this bus is usually packed. Anyways, I remember standing up in the gangway there, which for starters was much smaller than a gangway seen in the Toronto Rocket or R211 mockup.

I've stood up in such a gangway before on a packed bus travelling down Hwy 407 at full speed. What I noticed about the articulated buses is that they don't seem to have the same kind of "swing" as the gangways in the subways do. A bus isn't going to hit a sudden s-curve in the tracks like a subway train can. Any full turns in a bus will be at very slow speeds. Meanwhile in Toronto, I'm not 100% sure of this, but the S-curve immediately south of College Station before reaching Dundas Station on Line 1 happens at a speed somewhere between 20-30 mph, possibly more.

I'm sure most of us on this site have a mental map of the trackage in our heads where we go, but for the vast majority of people who aren't transit geeks, unanticipated movements in the gangway can shock someone.

I don't know, with my experience of articulated buses (I have a friend who's father spent his whole life at the TTC and he called them 'slinky buses') is that they don't seem to have the same kind of "swing" and off balance feeling that the Toronto Rocket trains do.

 

12 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

I mean the BMT pioneered the very concept. This isn’t as “new and unknown” as some people think. My soon to be 63 year old mother was 7 when the D Types were retired. There’s an entire generation who grew up riding the rails of the old BMT Southern Division on those cars.

The difference here, from what I can see is that the old D Types had a gangway that was roughly the size of the passage between trains anyways. Standing in such a spot would not be encouraged at all. The gangway in the TR and R211 is much wider and with such wide space, it encourages the behavior of standing inside the gangway.

 

 

Also, regarding the Toronto Rocket, you can see in those photos how the trains were poorly designed, they had to add those rubber grips because many people complained that there's few spaces to "hang on" in those trains, particularly under the AC units.

[R10 2952]

2 hours ago, MisterSG1 said:

Also, regarding the Toronto Rocket, you can see in those photos how the trains were poorly designed, they had to add those rubber grips because many people complained that there's few spaces to "hang on" in those trains, particularly under the AC units.

Yes, I never liked the Rockets myself; the T1 series is a lot more practical in that regard.

[Trainmaster5]

16 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

I mean the BMT pioneered the very concept. This isn’t as “new and unknown” as some people think. My soon to be 63 year old mother was 7 when the D Types were retired. There’s an entire generation who grew up riding the rails of the old BMT Southern Division on those cars.

The " so-called" railfans are rather ignorant when it comes to certain things. Would this new concept be an improvement over the rolling stock now in use ? I don't pretend to know the answer. I do see the concept as limiting the option of running trainsets of differing lengths where full length trains aren't needed. Just my opinion. Carry on. 

[GojiMet86]

25 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

The " so-called" railfans are rather ignorant when it comes to certain things. Would this new concept be an improvement over the rolling stock now in use ? I don't pretend to know the answer. I do see the concept as limiting the option of running trainsets of differing lengths where full length trains aren't needed. Just my opinion. Carry on. 

I feel this has its roots in the old 2-car married pair system. Quite frankly, I always felt that the claims of the benefit of having 2-car sets vs. 5-car sets were overblown. It might have worked best in the past when there were very clear morning and afternoon peaks coupled with quiet middays, but with the future of the work force being the hybrid WFH-in-person, the number of passengers in the peak will be reduced. The need for rearranging sets hasn't even been a thing in decades and it certainly won't be needed now for almost all services (with the exception of the night shuttles).

 

19 hours ago, MisterSG1 said:

As you guys are aware I'm sure, Toronto has had trainsets with the gangway in operation since 2011.

My question still to this day about these trainsets, is does the gangway overall serve a better purpose than keeping all the cars contained? Yes, in theory people should be able to stand in the gangway, and Toronto's gangways even have poles at all four corners of the gangway:

Standing in the gangway may seem ideal in theory during a crush load,  But try standing in the gangway during the "S-curve" which follows Spadina station southbound into St. George station and then into Museum. Or similarly, during the "horn" that surrounds Union station. I honestly don't see how anyone can stand safely there. Even a minor s curve of sorts which occurs immediately south of College Station, I nearly got thrown over from the gangway. Methinks that the MTA will probably have a lawsuit on their hands from someone being injured in a gangway.

While I haven't been downtown since COVID started, I used to take the subway from the 2017 extension, another side effect that comes with these open trains is for the panhandlers and other eccentrics to basically wander the whole train bothering everyone. At least with isolated units they couldn't wander the whole train. So yeah, if you find yourself in uncomfortable situations, the entire train is fair game rather than individual cars. There were times before in Toronto albeit rarely, where I made a mad dash at a stop to get to the next car.

Finally, from a transit enthusiast perspective, let's be honest, while this doesn't really matter functionality, these train sets as proposed removed the rail fan window, so gone are the days where you can look out the front and see the signals. (Which brings me to ATC, where signals would become almost pointless anyways). You can still kind of see through the one way mirror now on the Toronto Rocket but it's a very limited view.

So these are my thoughts on the gangway trains.

The homeless/panhandler issue is something that people just love to raise. That's a city problem, it's not an inherently open-gangway problem.

The gangways might make it a little easier, but doors or no doors, they'll will always go from car to car. Doors haven't stopped panhandlers in wheelchairs from trying to pass between cars by using those doors.

But you know what doors have done?

They have stopped the normal, average wheechair user from going between cars. Your average Joe in the wheelchair doesn't exactly feel like risking it.

[Deucey]

4 hours ago, MisterSG1 said:

What I noticed about the articulated buses is that they don't seem to have the same kind of "swing" as the gangways in the subways do. A bus isn't going to hit a sudden s-curve in the tracks like a subway train can.

Ride the Bx12 SBS between Sedgwick and 10th Av and see if you feel the same way afterwards 

[40MntVrn]

19 hours ago, MisterSG1 said:

My question still to this day about these trainsets, is does the gangway overall serve a better purpose than keeping all the cars contained? Yes, in theory people should be able to stand in the gangway, and Toronto's gangways even have poles at all four corners of the gangway:

 

Standing in the gangway may seem ideal in theory during a crush load.

Not trying to bite your head off, but it's this sort of thinking that has kept one of largest transit agencies away from open gangways. London Underground (TfL) does nearly what MTA does with open-gangway sets.

It's not a theory. More space on a train is more space on a train.

Back when crush loads were still a thing, open-gangways would have provided additional space to straphangers where space didn't exist before.

There are just so many other areas to scrutinize. Like: Did CBTC really provide enhance service along the Flushing Line? Where are the benefits of closing the subway each night?

Instead, the circuitous question that keeps prevailing: will more space on a train provide more space on train?

[MisterSG1]

2 hours ago, R10 2952 said:

Yes, I never liked the Rockets myself; the T1 series is a lot more practical in that regard.

And better yet, the T-series are practically just a reincarnation of the now fully retired H-4, H-5, and H-6 train cars but with better operational features. Such as wider doors, the removal of ceiling to ground poles presumably for easier accessibility. They did however make an error in not attaching metal handles to the ceiling bar which the Toronto Rocket fixed. But other than that, I've always liked the T-1 more.

32 minutes ago, GojiMet86 said:

The homeless/panhandler issue is something that people just love to raise. That's a city problem, it's not an inherently open-gangway problem.

The gangways might make it a little easier, but doors or no doors, they'll will always go from car to car. Doors haven't stopped panhandlers in wheelchairs from trying to pass between cars by using those doors.

But you know what doors have done?

They have stopped the normal, average wheechair user from going between cars. Your average Joe in the wheelchair doesn't exactly feel like risking it.

I do commend your thoughts of accessibility, as that is an after thought often. But even so, accessibility on the Toronto Rocket is still a tricky maneuver. The actual train door frame I believe is higher than the platform. This is probably a fault on the part of Bombardier and the city, but it's rather funny (not in the amusing way) that the solution ended up becoming worse than the problem.

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2011/09/25/wheelchair_users_cant_always_roll_onto_the_rocket.html?rf

Going from car to car, this is a significant difference in rider behavior between both cities, but never in my life have I seen anyone walk between cars in Toronto. At a station or while the train is in motion. This is clearly illegal on the MTA but people still do it. The legal way to switch cars is to do the "mad dash" at the next station that I spoke of.

As for panhandling, a great frustration is that the TTC does absolutely nothing about it. In Toronto, the underground city known as the PATH, when making the walk through the various lower concourses of the buildings, you almost never saw any panhandling or eccentrics down there, because security got them out if they started. Indeed Toronto's PATH, at points crosses through the non-paid area of subway stations (specifically Dundas, Queen, King, St. Andrew, and Union) to connect to other buildings, and in these sections, yup, you always see those with their cardboard signs or freaking out or whatever even if you only have to walk about 30 feet in TTC property.

Indeed while it is a city problem, open gangways just allow for more annoyance from unruly passengers. Yes, anyone can follow you into the next car, but now there's no escaping an undesirable situation completely unless one gets off the train and waits for the next one to come.

[MisterSG1]

14 minutes ago, 40MntVrn said:

Instead, the circuitous question that keeps prevailing: will more space on a train provide more space on train?

Which I explained before, is it really safe to stand in that space? You can mention things from other cities, but you wouldn't catch me ever standing on that metal plate with nothing to hold on to. And by "in theory", I was no expert, but is there a net gain or loss of space, how far was each car apart from each other, maybe one foot apart? The metal plate looks to be about 3 feet long, so in theory, is there any more space? Yes, there is the cab that the driver and guard (I know you call it a conductor) used before which removed space, but the narrowness of the gangway almost seems to cancel out this limiting factor before.

[GojiMet86]

10 minutes ago, MisterSG1 said:

Indeed while it is a city problem, open gangways just allow for more annoyance from unruly passengers. Yes, anyone can follow you into the next car, but now there's no escaping an undesirable situation completely unless one gets off the train and waits for the next one to come.

 

And yet on the flip side, it makes it easier (theoretically) for the police to patrol. No need to wait until the next stop for the police to switch cars.

[MisterSG1]

7 minutes ago, GojiMet86 said:

 

And yet on the flip side, it makes it easier (theoretically) for the police to patrol. No need to wait until the next stop for the police to switch cars.

And with that thought process, how often are the Transit Police on trains, yes I know they have over 4,000 officers. Doing a hypothetical order of magnitude problem in your head means that you probably won't see at least transit cop on each train.

I guess it goes down to different attitudes of enforcement, the TTC doesn't have an actual police per se, the TTC Special Constables which aren't really a transit police. If a serious incident were to happen on the TTC, the Toronto Police would be involved of course.

[GojiMet86]

2 minutes ago, MisterSG1 said:

And with that thought process, how often are the Transit Police on trains, yes I know they have over 4,000 officers. Doing a hypothetical order of magnitude problem in your head means that you probably won't see at least transit cop on each train.

I guess it goes down to different attitudes of enforcement, the TTC doesn't have an actual police per se, the TTC Special Constables which aren't really a transit police. If a serious incident were to happen on the TTC, the Toronto Police would be involved of course.

 

And with that thought process, how often will a homeless guy just jump to you? How often will a random guy just start attacking you?

The chances of being with a New York City police officer are higher than being stuck with a deranged lunatic.

[bobtehpanda]

The trick to standing in a gangway is you gotta be in or out, not both. If you're in the gangway you have to be holding onto something in the gangway itself.

People take nasty spills outside the gangway too. But we haven't made the train one solid car from end to end because that's just plain silly.

25 minutes ago, GojiMet86 said:

I feel this has its roots in the old 2-car married pair system. Quite frankly, I always felt that the claims of the benefit of having 2-car sets vs. 5-car sets were overblown. It might have worked best in the past when there were very clear morning and afternoon peaks coupled with quiet middays, but with the future of the work force being the hybrid WFH-in-person, the number of passengers in the peak will be reduced. The need for rearranging sets hasn't even been a thing in decades and it certainly won't be needed now for almost all services (with the exception of the night shuttles).

To add onto this point, the main cost of providing service is not the length of the train (directly), but labor.

Half-length trains only saved money on the because OPTO. But notice that the MTA never cared to cut train lengths any shorter; because it really wasn't worth the trouble.

[bobtehpanda]

35 minutes ago, MisterSG1 said:

Which I explained before, is it really safe to stand in that space? You can mention things from other cities, but you wouldn't catch me ever standing on that metal plate with nothing to hold on to. And by "in theory", I was no expert, but is there a net gain or loss of space, how far was each car apart from each other, maybe one foot apart? The metal plate looks to be about 3 feet long, so in theory, is there any more space? Yes, there is the cab that the driver and guard (I know you call it a conductor) used before which removed space, but the narrowness of the gangway almost seems to cancel out this limiting factor before.

It mostly just sounds like you're fishing for people to go along with your excuses rather than actually engaging a debate. Three feet of space is three feet of space. Compared to a 60 foot car, that is 5% of space.

[Around the Horn]

3 hours ago, MisterSG1 said:

And with that thought process, how often are the Transit Police on trains, yes I know they have over 4,000 officers. Doing a hypothetical order of magnitude problem in your head means that you probably won't see at least transit cop on each train.

 

3 hours ago, MisterSG1 said:

Indeed while it is a city problem, open gangways just allow for more annoyance from unruly passengers. Yes, anyone can follow you into the next car, but now there's no escaping an undesirable situation completely unless one gets off the train and waits for the next one to come.

Hypothetically speaking (since the MTA's use of two person crews complicates this) if the system were entirely open gangway trains I could place one police officer on every train and because of the gangways they could respond to any issue in any car within seconds. i don't see the problem here.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 3/1/2021 at 11:08 PM, MisterSG1 said:

As you guys are aware I'm sure, Toronto has had trainsets with the gangway in operation since 2011.

My question still to this day about these trainsets, is does the gangway overall serve a better purpose than keeping all the cars contained? Yes, in theory people should be able to stand in the gangway, and Toronto's gangways even have poles at all four corners of the gangway:

 

Standing in the gangway may seem ideal in theory during a crush load,  But try standing in the gangway during the "S-curve" which follows Spadina station southbound into St. George station and then into Museum. Or similarly, during the "horn" that surrounds Union station. I honestly don't see how anyone can stand safely there. Even a minor s curve of sorts which occurs immediately south of College Station, I nearly got thrown over from the gangway. Methinks that the MTA will probably have a lawsuit on their hands from someone being injured in a gangway.

 

While I haven't been downtown since COVID started, I used to take the subway from the 2017 extension, another side effect that comes with these open trains is for the panhandlers and other eccentrics to basically wander the whole train bothering everyone. At least with isolated units they couldn't wander the whole train. So yeah, if you find yourself in uncomfortable situations, the entire train is fair game rather than individual cars. There were times before in Toronto albeit rarely, where I made a mad dash at a stop to get to the next car.

 

Finally, from a transit enthusiast perspective, let's be honest, while this doesn't really matter functionality, these train sets as proposed removed the rail fan window, so gone are the days where you can look out the front and see the signals. (Which brings me to ATC, where signals would become almost pointless anyways). You can still kind of see through the one way mirror now on the Toronto Rocket but it's a very limited view.

 

So these are my thoughts on the gangway trains.

Honestly I don’t think open gangway cars will be any worse than the 60-foot bendy buses we have now (and should have more of, especially in Brooklyn and Queens).

The last time I visited Toronto was in 2011, so I believe that was around the time the Rockets were first coming on line. So I haven’t ridden them yet, though I do like the looks of them. I do hope to get another chance to visit Toronto very soon - if both the US and Canada can get Mr. Corona under control and reopen the border. I am disappointed they put a one-way mirror in the cab door instead of clear glass. Or even polarized glass like we have on the New Tech Trains here, which is what I originally thought the Rockets were getting. 

4 hours ago, GojiMet86 said:

I feel this has its roots in the old 2-car married pair system. Quite frankly, I always felt that the claims of the benefit of having 2-car sets vs. 5-car sets were overblown. It might have worked best in the past when there were very clear morning and afternoon peaks coupled with quiet middays, but with the future of the work force being the hybrid WFH-in-person, the number of passengers in the peak will be reduced. The need for rearranging sets hasn't even been a thing in decades and it certainly won't be needed now for almost all services (with the exception of the night shuttles).

 

The homeless/panhandler issue is something that people just love to raise. That's a city problem, it's not an inherently open-gangway problem.

The gangways might make it a little easier, but doors or no doors, they'll will always go from car to car. Doors haven't stopped panhandlers in wheelchairs from trying to pass between cars by using those doors.

But you know what doors have done?

They have stopped the normal, average wheechair user from going between cars. Your average Joe in the wheelchair doesn't exactly feel like risking it.

Given we’ll be seeing hybrid WFH schedules resulting in fewer commuters during rush hours, I’ve sort of modified my position that going to perma-linked 4- and 5-car sets vs. 2-car pairs negates the whole point of going back to 60-foot cars. Though I wish they could have figured out an easier way to quickly take out a car to make a 5-car set into a 4-car set in case extra trains are needed on the  or , all of which are incapable of running 10-car trains due to platform length and have to have dedicated 4-car sets that can’t be used elsewhere in the B-Division without risking overcrowding on the trains (save for the  and  which currently run shorter trains, and even there you’ll hear complaints of crowding). Maybe something like equipping the 4th and 5th cars in every 5-car set with couplers at both ends instead of a link bar. The down side is you’d be left with trailer cars sitting in the yards unable to run in service, but I imagine this would be something that would only be done in emergency situations, so we don’t end up with car shortages, of which the B Division has had a lot of in recent years.

[Trainmaster5]

4 hours ago, GojiMet86 said:

I feel this has its roots in the old 2-car married pair system. Quite frankly, I always felt that the claims of the benefit of having 2-car sets vs. 5-car sets were overblown. It might have worked best in the past when there were very clear morning and afternoon peaks coupled with quiet middays, but with the future of the work force being the hybrid WFH-in-person, the number of passengers in the peak will be reduced. The need for rearranging sets hasn't even been a thing in decades and it certainly won't be needed now for almost all services (with the exception of the night shuttles).

 

 

Maybe my perspective is different than your take. You brought up the case of married pairs vs. 5 car units. I’ll take it even further. One car units aka “bastard married pairs “ which were coupled together. No link bars. Broken glass or non-working lights or AC ? We switched out that car instead of sidelining 4 perfectly good cars along with the the bad one. That’s the point I’m talking about. One bad order car takes out four good cars. Remember when someone was destroying cars on the  a while ago ? You would need a spare of five or six cars laying around in sufficient numbers or be forced to limit your consists to run replacement service. Unlike the railroads under the  we didn’t normally cut or add cars during the day. Last time I operated a short consist was Thanksgiving Day, 1988 when we ran 6 cars on the  line. I remember stopping at the 10 car marker at my first two stops and my conductor came up to me and whispered “ 6 “ cars. I admit that my experience with gangway cars are Triplexes on the BMT and the somewhat similar ( to me ) connected M3 and M7 LIRR equipment. My take. YMMV. Carry on.

[GojiMet86]

15 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Maybe my perspective is different than your take. You brought up the case of married pairs vs. 5 car units. I’ll take it even further. One car units aka “bastard married pairs “ which were coupled together. No link bars. Broken glass or non-working lights or AC ? We switched out that car instead of sidelining 4 perfectly good cars along with the the bad one. That’s the point I’m talking about. One bad order car takes out four good cars. Remember when someone was destroying cars on the  a while ago ? You would need a spare of five or six cars laying around in sufficient numbers or be forced to limit your consists to run replacement service. Unlike the railroads under the  we didn’t normally cut or add cars during the day. Last time I operated a short consist was Thanksgiving Day, 1988 when we ran 6 cars on the  line. I remember stopping at the 10 car marker at my first two stops and my conductor came up to me and whispered “ 6 “ cars. I admit that my experience with gangway cars are Triplexes on the BMT and the somewhat similar ( to me ) connected M3 and M7 LIRR equipment. My take. YMMV. Carry on.

Sure, in the immediate short-term, at the moment of the incident, that's true.

And yet in the 40-year long run, such occurances have not and never have been common enough to justify having cabs in each car. How many times in the history of the subway has there been a serial window smasher? If you recall, the problem (aside from an idiot) wasn't that there weren't enough cars in service, it was that there weren't enough spare windows.

The rest of the world clearly has no problem with longer sets. Notice shorter sets exist because of lesser demand. And it's the mainline railroads that put and break apart multiple sets.

Clearly, the benefits of longer sets outweigh both its detriments AND the benefits of married pairs.

[R10 2952]

14 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Maybe my perspective is different than your take. You brought up the case of married pairs vs. 5 car units. I’ll take it even further. One car units aka “bastard married pairs“ which were coupled together. No link bars. Broken glass or non-working lights or AC? We switched out that car instead of sidelining 4 perfectly good cars along with the the bad one. That’s the point I’m talking about. One bad order car takes out four good cars. Remember when someone was destroying cars on the  a while ago ? You would need a spare of five or six cars laying around in sufficient numbers or be forced to limit your consists to run replacement service. Unlike the railroads under the  we didn’t normally cut or add cars during the day. Last time I operated a short consist was Thanksgiving Day, 1988 when we ran 6 cars on the  line. I remember stopping at the 10 car marker at my first two stops and my conductor came up to me and whispered “ 6 “ cars. I admit that my experience with gangway cars are Triplexes on the BMT and the somewhat similar ( to me ) connected M3 and M7 LIRR equipment. My take. YMMV. Carry on.

THIS, this right here.  Appreciate you bringing it up; the various issues with the R44s alone were case in point. 

[R10 2952]

14 minutes ago, GojiMet86 said:

And yet in the 40-year long run, such occurances have not and never have been common enough to justify having cabs in each car. How many times in the history of the subway has there been a serial window smasher? If you recall, the problem (aside from an idiot) wasn't that there weren't enough cars in service, it was that there weren't enough spare windows.

The rest of the world clearly has no problem with longer sets. Notice shorter sets exist because of lesser demand. And it's the mainline railroads that put and break apart multiple sets.

1. Actually it was quite common back in the day; in the '80s on the Bronx IRT, it was practically endemic.  Why else do you think they replaced the rubber window gaskets with steel ones?

2. Married pairs are still the norm for many North American agencies, though- just look at MBTA, SEPTA, CTA, TTC, RTA Cleveland, Baltimore, Miami, LA.

Edited March 3, 2021 by R10 2952

[Trainmaster5]

34 minutes ago, R10 2952 said:

1. Actually it was quite common back in the day; in the '80s on the Bronx IRT, it was practically endemic.  Why else do you think they replaced the rubber window gaskets with steel ones?

2. Married pairs are still the norm for many North American agencies, though- just look at MBTA, SEPTA, CTA, TTC, RTA Cleveland, Baltimore, Miami, LA.

Point #1 is dead on the money 💰.

I’m not sure if I described bastard married pairs correctly to everyone. GojiMet86 and anyone else who is interested. Bastard married pairs were single cars with couplers on BOTH ends. For example car # 8805 could be coupled with # 8802 instead of # 8804 but to make that pair one car or both would have to be operated other than head end to connect them. Neither cab had a motorman’s operating position. In other words one conductor position to another with the operation being done from one to nine cars away. I’ve personally made moves in 239th Street yard where I was 17 cars away from my partner on the other end. I’m guessing that you remember consists where 7921 was mated with 7864. Most people only remember the married pairs being numbered consecutively but that was a rarity early in my career. The bastard term came about because of the numerology and that they were a bastard when making yard moves. Hard work but easier to remove and replace bad equipment. The other way to look at it was it requires less yard crews per shift moving 5 car units rather than one or two car units. Of course when things go wrong the yard dispatcher at 239 or 180 might be lucky enough to steal a  train coming from the car wash to make full rush hour service on the  or  . Save $$$ . Probably not because the car wash crew deadheaded back to Lenox or Livonia to avoid getting paid overtime but some other crew would have to come back after the rush and take the train back to it’s home. Plus night differential.  Just a little background from my perspective. Carry on.

[GojiMet86]

38 minutes ago, R10 2952 said:

1. Actually it was quite common back in the day; in the '80s on the Bronx IRT, it was practically endemic.  Why else do you think they replaced the rubber window gaskets with steel ones?

2. Married pairs are still the norm for many North American agencies, though- just look at MBTA, SEPTA, CTA, TTC, RTA Cleveland, Baltimore, Miami, LA.

 

So let's back up, it appears there's a conflation between several concepts, like open-gangways and flexibility.

1. Are we talking about open-gangways or no walking in between?

2. Are we talking about short 2-car sets or 4-5 car sets?

3. How about single cars like the Arnines?

 

See, a 2-car open-gangway set seems reasonable. But longer sets without open-gangways? Not so much.

 

2-car pairs with no walking in between for the metro system that has the highest ridership in the Western hemisphere is unreasonable to me. The only line that is limited to 2 cars is the Franklin shuttle. If you're going to have smaller sets, they better be open-gangway sets (unless the MTA actually does find them unfeasible because of curves). But I argue for longer sets in the rest of the system.

PATH is essentially one line with two of branches; longer-fixed sets might not work when their trains constantly vary between 7 and 8 (and eventually 9 and 10) cars, but shorter open-gangway sets might.

WMATA has stated they won't order open-gangways because of the curves and their longer cars, and their yards aren't made to work with longer sets, although they could theoretically order 2-car open-gangways instead. This is the same agency that constantly derails its trains, so smaller pairs make more sense.

CTA has really, really sharp turns.

Even though the other USA systems don't have the ridership, they are more than capable of doing 2-car open-gangways.

 

Toronto has decided to go forward with longer, open-gangway sets. The older T1 trains are always put into 6-car consists, peak or off-peak, so there goes the ridership argument.

Montreal has gone with longer, open-gangway sets, and the new light-rail REM will have 2-car open-gangways.

Mexico City has gone with longer, open-gangway sets.

Santiago has gone with longer, open-gangway sets.

Buenos Aires has moved to longer, open-gangway sets.

 

In Europe, SNCF in France has open-gangway commuter trains not only to improve flow, but to lessen crime. People legit feel safer when they have an option to run as far away as possible. Open-gangway makes it easier for people to run away. Same with the Paris Metro, which has been open-gangway for decades now.

London has moved to longer, open-gangway sets.

And open-gangway also means there are more eyes watching. Think of the older NYC stock that only had windows on the storm doors. Not much you can see.

And when crap hits the fan, everyone wishes they could run to the next car without anything blocking the way.

 

So notice then, that open-gangway, in and of itself, and regardless of the number of cars in a set, is much more beneficial than what NYC has now. This is in terms of passenger flow and passenger safety.

 

 

 

Now curiously, what I have seen no one here mention before, and that's because the discussion is almost always centered around stinky homeless people, crime, or cutting up trains, is that the biggest knock against open-gangways isn't about flow of passengers, or flexibility...

It's Fire.

Or more specifically, fire underground.

In an open-gangway train, fire can spread quicker because there's more oxygen, whereas in the closed design, the fire has less oxygen to burn.

In Japan, subways with underground portions do have open-gangways, BUT they have self-closing doors:

[Deucey]

7 hours ago, GojiMet86 said:

It's Fire.

Or more specifically, fire underground.

In an open-gangway train, fire can spread quicker because there's more oxygen, whereas in the closed design, the fire has less oxygen to burn.

In Japan, subways with underground portions do have open-gangways, BUT they have self-closing doors:

I’ve told this before, but in 2014 I was stuck on a  train held by a track fire at 207th Street. 20-30 minutes before the first car of the train inched into the platform so we could get out. Except the doors between cars on R46 trains are locked, and in that instance, they didn’t unlock.

So I and 50 people were trapped, and if the track fire was not contained, since the train couldn’t reverse because a train was right behind it, we could’ve had a very bad day.

While fires in car would spread faster, on open gangway cars, there’s only two choke points/failure points instead of 8 on R46 and R68 models - the cabs operators sit in and the exit door.