If you've read Harry Potter, you know what this is about... :)
BTW there should be a Hogwarts Express fan trip. Does anybody know if they actually have such a thing in the UK?
By the way, does that bus have an elevator?
:-)
G1RD
John
So, as another post said, the Hogwarts fantrip would be quite long and circuitous.
"Hogwarts Castle", the locomotive, is actually a Great Western Railway (GWR) loco, but perversely it is not a GWR Castle class one, but a Hall class. And even worse, the adult edition of the first book shows a photo of an *American* loco on the cover! (Maybe a Subtalker can identify it.) The original children's edition has a drawing rather than a photo, and at least the loco looks English.
Too bad there are no New Zealand trains to be seen in Lord of the Rings (8-) .
Hmmmmm... it would be quite fun...
King's X to Finsbury Park
REVERSE
Finsbury Park to Canonbury
REVERSE
Canonbury to Camden Town
REVERSE
Camden Town to St Pancras
REVERSE
Saint Pancras via Leicester, Alfreton, Sheffield, Pontefract, York, Newcastle Central, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street LL to Oban
REVERSE
Oban via Glasgow Central LL, Carstairs, Carlisle, Settle and Keighley to Oxenhope
Actually, that would be a great railfan tour. Someone should offer that!
I like the idea for the “Knight Bus” though!
Does anyone know what kind of NYC subway car this is?
This was copied, without permission, from the Railway Technical pages, no photographer was given, and it's available at:
http://www.trainweb.org/railwaytechnical/etracp.html
avid
I suppose I could take Douce Man's advice and just ask if anyone knows the type of truck it is. Anyone know that?
til next time
Completely different, different suspension, different shoe, different side frames. The R142/R143 were about the only ones I had ruled out.
BTW: I never realized that the R142s had psuedo-GM10B sideframes, very cool, I thought those frames died with that monster.
Photo by Steve Kreisler, reproduced without permission, located on the NYCsubway.org R142/142A page
Sorry for the bad news.
Robert
Picture of Unca Selkirk at Atlantic Avenue performing ritual to save Snediker El (212K)
Now since the LAST time I was out that way, got some R143 handle time, be happy to come down and remove the curse so the el can go for a little MORE handle time, or the el can stay. Of course since we can't afford to get down there, some travel allowance might be necessary to make this all possible :)
Chuck Greene
What exactly did you say when you put that curse? "Let it be on your head," or similar?:)
Yeah, it drizzled most of the day, but it DID get a bit windy and a good deal wet, not that you noticed. Heh. And many of the Arnine trips SINCE Unca Selkirk showed up were similar. This year too. Nah, Nancy and I and other subtalkers who shall remain nameless unless they want to come forward and say "Yeah, I was there, and I saw him DO that" (and they're MAJOR names here) can attest that I spotted NYCTA gloves from MY day on that trackway - I brought them with me to Branford when YOU were there - and my little ritual after Nancy got all misty eyed over the Snediker came down, comforted by the same subtalkers, and I said "not going to happen, a POX on anyone who tries to cut this steel." I was only kidding, but the Lord provides I s'pose. We were momentarily relieved of our grief by some handle time on a Brooklyn bound L train ... but on the return trip late that night, as we passed along it, took a few minutes to lean over the edge at Atlantic and SPIT.
And before anyone thinks I'm any crazier than I already AM, I didn't INTEND to put a curse on it, but strange things DO happen. Needless to say, I'm QUITE pleased that the el is as stubborn as I am. :)
It didn't pour all day long last fall, anyway. Yes, 6688 made a token appearance (how could I forget you mooing into the mike?) and was promptly put away. One of my group pics was aboard Stef's baby. You and Nancy are both in it. BTW you told me about the gloves last year, too. Something about two left hand gloves, IIRC?
Now you know why I prefer to play conductor.:)
It looks like the Weather Gods can't make up their minds if they're railfans or not... constant anti-railfan weather get keeping the El in service.
You might as well. At this point, I have had about 5 "last" last rides on the el and through Atlantic. At the rate we're going, I'll probably have a few more.
Bill "Newkirk"
1) Have a picnic/cookout;
2) Wash your car.
Now we can add a third one:
3) Tear down the Snediker el.
Which other piece of demolished rail history would you be glad to see gone, just to ride a new connection?
The most recent work train I saw was back on January 31, at Times Square, uptown express track. The train still had its "Redbird" paint scheme except parts of the front were painted with diagonal black stripes.
Hey Fred, look in the mirror. Your trips were not on public transportation. How many times a week do you take public transportation to go anywhere? You could have caught an East/West bus to Rosemead, where you could have transferred to a 266 south to Florence and caught a 460 right to Disneyland's front entrance, relaxing all the way crowded in with others on the hard narrow seats for the 2 ½ hour journey, but you chose the frustration of driving with just your immediate family in the comfort of your automobile and despite the delays probably arrived in less than 2 ½ hours. As one who has used both public and private transportation in Southern California, it is no mystery to me why so many choose the crowded freeways.
Tom
Rah Rah Rah, at least you have public transportation
Off to NYC this Sunday most likely
Be good to see you in person, hang 10 on what we call the WORLD'S GREATEST SUBWAY LINE.
Give 'em a few weeks and they'll get used to it.
I've lived right next to a major mainline railroad for over ten years now and I don't even notice the trains....or for that matter, the 737's and 757's 600' above my roof going into a regional airport every six or seven minutes!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An alternative might be 24 hour service from 7th St/Metro Center to Willow Station with a timed transfer to either the MTA 60 (does it run 24 hours to downtown Long Beach?) or to new owl service on the Long Beach Transit 5 line.
Give 'em a few weeks and they'll get used to it.
I've lived right next to a major mainline railroad for over ten years now and I don't even notice the trains....or for that matter, the 737's and 757's 600' above my roof going into a regional airport every six or seven minutes!!!
Once in Brooklyn, remember there is no weekend service over the MB. Also there will be no local service in 4th Avenue.
I Wonder if we may get to run the Brighton to CI, or if they will not want us to use the one track available to access CI Yard. They may not want us going down 4th Ave either with only the express track open.
If we get to CI, I hope we get routed by the Culver to the IND, and spend the rest of the trip on the IND.
We won't get to go to the Rockaways, there is a GO there too. Also the inbound local track on the QB line will be closed. Maybe we will get to run the Concourse express.
Just trying to guess. It's been a long time since I have been on a subway fan trip. Let's hope for good weather.
Typically, the single-track Essex-Chambers shuttle has exclusive access to the SB track, terminating on the SB wall track at Chambers.
That means the MOD train will have to load up on the NB wall track and wrong-rail to Broad before continuing to Brooklyn (or, in theory, continuing past Broad and changing ends into Whitehall).
Perhaps the J GO will be modified, and shuttle trains will be using the SB "express" track instead. Then the MOD train can use the SB wall track.
None of this rules out the possibility of going out to Jamaica, although I'll admit it's unlikely. We could run down one of the routes to Coney Island (I don't think 4th Avenue will be a problem, since my hunch is that the N will be cut back to 36th and the W will stop on the express track there, but we might go Brighton anyway), up the Culver into Manhattan, and back south through the Chrystie Street cut to the Williamsburg Bridge.
It had better not rain. Todd, do something!
This is my first trip EVAR! And I'll be traveling over 120 miles in the dead of night on a Grayhound bus in order to get to NYC in time for the 6/8 trip, on which we will ride AMUE cars, but I don't know what AMUE stands for :(
Automatic Motor Universal Electropneumatic
It is the designation for the air brake system used on R1-R9 cars,
also on Low-Vs, ABs, D types, SIRT ME-1s, Broad St cars, and a
whole bunch more.
Webshots photos including the Baldwin and a beautiful caboose, painted "Reading", but caboose red.
The adult appearing in a couple of the photos is the conductor.
BTW, Railpace just happens to have a feature on SMS's Baldwins in the June issue. Nice to see them still alive & well.
The Baldwin at Morrisville is in top condition. I was there when the engine was started up cold a month or two ago, and it started instantly.
I was hoping to run into some SubTalkers at the East Penn trolley meet on April 3 and offer to take them to Morrisville, but my granddaughter was born that morning and my plans for the day were altered.
I also attended the SMS Baldwin Field Day that was written up in Railpace, but I left before lunch.
Speaking of Railpace, I'm impressed each month with Sparky's write-up on the Shore Line Trolley Museum. The first time I read it, went right to the acknowlegements to see whether I knew the author, and lo and behold, Sparky was listed as a contributor.
I've tryed to get them to publish some photos, but they are very fussy about what they use :-( You can see the results of that in the quality of the magazine.
BTW, the back cover has a nice shot of a freight on the Hell Gate Bridge & inside are several photos of the HBLR ext. construction.
The paintings were going to a restorer near Columbus Circle when they were left of the platform. The story says a reward will be offered for the paintings, but doesn't say how much it will be.
Jimmy
A few months ago I saw a large dining room table on a northbound 1 train somewhere north of Dyckman. I hope it was going to 242nd, since the other stations in the 200's only have HEET's and HXT's on the northbound platforms.
I propose this solution (?)
Place the machines ON THE PLATFORM at or about THE C/R POSITION so
that when the train makes a Station stop, the C/R can peer out the
window and glance to see if the MACHINE is WORKING OR NOT..
OTOH, the MNRR C/R tends to step-off the TRAIN to check platform
vacancy.... so then have the ASSISTANT C/R do the machine peeking.
This way they'll KNOW if we're pulling their (prosthetic) leg or not
when we tell them the machine was broken.
Having the machines at the TOP OF A WINDING STAIRCASE is pathethic
(HudsoncoughcoughLine)... to think it were a SR CITIZEN passenger making
the trek down the long stairs.... train wont wait... Billy Blue has
another hour to sit and be late to Bingo!.
Platform the Machine, boiz.
Chapter 11 Choo Choo (Lyrics)
www.railfanwindow.com
I don't know if it's policy at Metro North, but at NJ Transit, seniors and disabled riders are exempt from the on-board surcharge at all times.
MN has the same policy.
>>
You can't always tell by glancing at the machine. You have to try to make a transaction sometimes.
AM extra 2-3 <5> service to South Ferry, interlining with (1) service(possible 1/9 interline to <5> in the AM restoring the off peak <5>)
PM extra 2-3 (1) service from W 238 Street to South Ferry, changes to a <5> to E 238 Street (possible <5> PM interline to South Ferry into 1/9 creating another off peak <5>)
Elias
Can you explain? I don't think you mean that the manned locomotive was stopped while putting chickens on the switch, but that's what you appear to have said.
Due to continuing unhappiness by potential tour attendees over the new NYCT photo policy, the tour is canceled.
Sorry. There will be no more tours..
A fairy tale: there was a poor couple who one day found a goose and wanted to kill it. They were told if they kept the goose (alive) they'd get a golden egg each day. They agreed and sure enough every day they got a golden egg. One day the wife got greedy and persuaded the husband to kill the goose so they'd be rich by getting all the golden eggs. They found all the eggs were ordinary eggs.
The lesson from the story: I tried to salvage the tour but the participants were greedy. I did not make the policy.
Too bad, I enjoyed the tours. Do your own tours and get arrested. At least I keep my job and save my time by not hosting tours for greedy people.
This decision is final.
any mail from subtalkers requesting a change of heart will be rejected as junk e-mail. and a filter written to reject the e-mail. :-(
I feel terrible because I posted a slight joke at the whole photography thing, suggesting that we all go in there armed with several cameras apiece and just snap away. I fall into the category of 'wasn't going to go' and I am truely sorry for being at least a small part of the problem.
The best responce from Peggy is to let the assholes be assholes and if they wanted to take photographs at whatever stations might pose a problem that is their perogitive. However, Peggy is running the tour and where she goes the tour goes, even if it leaves the assholes behind on the platform.
You know, when you announce things on a public forum, even if you are providing the greatest service in the world, you have absolutely no expectation that kindness will be given in return. I am getting sick and tired of people who seem to think the opposite. Assholes are a fact of life, the only thing that we can control is our responce to them and I am disappointed in Peggy for her responce.
As I type this in Oakland Ca I could not have gone, but am sad at the outcome.
--Mark
Um, no it's not.
That is not the same as saying picture taking is not allowed. It means you must reportpicture taking, not demand that it stop and confiscate the camera. Those are different actions.
It's not his place to publish a TA memo on a web site.
-Stef
I believe him. But I'm not gonna acknowledge that a new policy exists until the MTA openly and truthfully tells me about it. Besides, he says he got the memo a week after the first memo, but he never told us about it. Not that he has to, but since he didn't, he nad other MTA employees here can't be mad at us for not knowing about it.
It's not his place to publish a TA memo on a web site.
I didn't say it was. That's why I wrote "you/they" and "telling/showing".
And who got mad at who for not knowing what? I didn't see any hostile words over this memo.
I'll explain why: If the MTA implements a new policy/rule saying No Photography, it is the MTA's responsibility to inform the public, which they haven't yet, to the best of my knowledge. It is not Mark W's responsibility or place to do this on the MTA's behalf. This is why I don't think his word should suffice because it shouldn't have to. This is something the MTA should be doing itself.
-Robert King
But ya'd THINK ... Nah, not in state governance.
If the MTA has a rule, then POST IT ON mta.info! Send an email to the webmaster ... hell, send one to Larry Reuter, if he isn't face down in the curb. One would THINK, given all here honked off, that a MASS CAMPAIGN to the webmeister of the MTA wouldn't GET some "get out of my FACE page" posted toute suite (pardon my french).
In fact there is a memo out saying employees are NOT to do such things as internal memos are just that and such employees will be dealt with.
The HELL with that I AM GOING, SCREW THE MTA AND NYCT.
If they tell you no pictures, take it from there.
I agree with you, it would deinitely be a shame not to be able to take pictures.
Unfortunately I can't go, but depending on my assignment that day I will be at Howard Beach, camera in hand.
If they tell me no pictures I will demand a full refund - Pictures are the MAIN reason I am going on the MOD trips. Unless someone with a permit cares to give me the pictures he/she takes without copyright restrictions - I didn't think so ;-)
Hell - maybe I just have to get me one of these ;-) WristWatch Camera
-Stef
Just look at something and press a button on a pen or something, and no one is the wiser. :-)
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=139575&category=FRONTPG&newsdate=6/3/2003 TimesUnion, no subscription required. Article is entitled, "Not merely a diary, a multimedia event - Pentagon's LifeLog project aims to digitize a person's every experience"
Like I said, no joke ... WOW.
That's up to you. Basically I was saying "Do what you gotta do." Personally I'd do the same.
what I'm saying is, that anyone important enough to tell us everything, knows better than to do so.
See my post 505277 for more details on who you should call at MTA for photography in the subway.
-Stef
-Stef
Any terrorist (foreign or domestic) who wants pictures of the New York Subway system has already taken them, and nobody noticed. The subway system doesn't change every year. The tunnels and station were there five, ten, fifteen, twenty or more years before, in exactly the same place.
It's more "bedsheet/Depends" stuff.
Their motto, "we can't find Osama, we can't find Saddam, therefore we're coming for *YOU*" ... :(
And that's the point of all this foolishness. You can take pictures. What you don't want to do is be beligerant about it. Even before the bastards attacked us you could expect a cop to confront you if your activities had a possiblity of being a "public nuisance". Some people just want to split hairs for dumb reasons. Show a little restraint, show some respect for the surroundings, and you'll be looking at your photographs the same night. Be a knucklehead and get what you deserve.
There is one exception. If someone asks me not to take his picture, I won't. I may still take a picture, but I'll point the camera away from him.
But I don't see anything wrong with standing up for my legal rights.
Which state law? 21 NYCRR 1050? That's not a law. Laws are passed by legislators. NYCRR, New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations, does not include laws.
So what is 21 NYCRR 1050? It's a set of rules. Rules can be written by anyone. In this case, the rules are created by NYCTA. Authority to do so is granted by Public Authorities law. Authority to amend rules is also granted (1204.5-a).
(I am not aware that the rules have been amended at this point, but this minor point is of no significance for the purposes of this discussion. At this point, you can probably tell where I'm heading. Like you said, don't shoot the messenger.)
Now, examine the rules a bit more closely. Yes, they do explicitly grant the right to take photographs on NYCTA property (1050.9(c)). They also state that NYCTA has the authority to "suspend, modify, or revoke the application of any or all of the rules as it deems necessary or desirable" (1050.3(d)). And, as always, you must comply with directives (1050.6(d)).
So, to recap:
It's not a law, it's a rule.The rules can be amended at the discretion of NYCTA.The rules can be quietly changed.
For those interested:
Article 5, Title 9, Public Authorities Law, New York City Transit Authority
21 NYCRR 1050, New York City Transit Authority
Mark
It is not a minor point, it is a major point. There is no doubt that there is a right to amend the rules, but fundamental due process requires that such amendment be published to the public that is expected to follow the rules. There cannot be secret changes which will be used as a "gottcha" against those conducting themselves under the published rules.
I have not bothered to read the specific NY law regarding amendments to the rules, but typically they require at least advance notice of a rules change, and possibly public hearings to give those affected a chance to object to the change. In an emergency there may be a temporary suspension of rules to meet the emergency, but when it is practical to give notice it must be given.
Tom
I have not bothered to read the specific NY law regarding amendments to the rules, but typically they require at least advance notice of a rules change, and possibly public hearings to give those affected a chance to object to the change. In an emergency there may be a temporary suspension of rules to meet the emergency, but when it is practical to give notice it must be given.
The above is all correct. I say that it's a minor point because there seemed to be a general attitude of invincibility, and that the rule as it is thought to exist today is immutable. The point of my post was to correct this notion, and not to give advice on whether or not people may or should take photographs on NYCTA property.
Mark
Then how are we suppsoed to know if the rules change? Shouldn't they tell us somehow? I mean they KNOW where all the railfans hang out. If they change the "rule" they better tell us officially via this board. Although it still doesn't mean anyone will follow the new rule. But at least we'll know it officially exists.
Before any change is made to the rules, a hearing is required if there is any public opposition. At each stage of the game, notice (of proposed rulemaking, of adoption, etc.) is given by publication in the State Register. An exception is granted for rules temporarily adopted on an emergency basis, although notice is still required.
This procedure applies to nearly all state administrative rulemaking.
I mean they KNOW where all the railfans hang out. If they change the "rule" they better tell us officially via this board. Although it still doesn't mean anyone will follow the new rule. But at least we'll know it officially exists.
Delusions of SubTalk grandeur? Sounds like a fantasy world to me.
Like I said, I'm not aware that anyone involved has moved to change the rules, but if and when it happens, don't expect to find out about it from an NYCTA-sponsored posting here.
Remember, you've still got to comply with directives issued by authorized people. And don't run your mouth off about "fundamental rights" or "state laws" or even "the rules" when someone so challenges you. The rules can be changed easily, don't give them a reason to do so.
Mark
When prominent "no photography" signs go up at my local station, I will have received a directive from an official source.
THAT LAW STILL EXISTS!
And good stories can be told ANYWHERE ... even if Ashcroft's listening. We'll whip a blue curtain over the monitor, and nobody'll be any the wiser. :)
Still, it CHEWS that she had to make the choice. November 2004 can't come SOON ENOUGH! :(
The same way that the average person finds out about laws and rules in general: you follow common sense, you do what you're told, and you challenge things that seem inappropriate. "Challenge" includes doing your homework and presenting a case in an appropriate venue that has been provided for this purpose by the law. It does NOT include whining at the officer asking you to put your camera away. It's not personal, don't make it personal, and don't diminish your credibility by carrying on.
There are many railfans out there, and the vast majority probably don't read SubTalk. I know many subfans who have never even clicked on SubTalk. How would they know whether the MTA allows it or not? I think everyone here is making a bigger deal out of this than it really should be. The MTA does not require you to read SubTalk in order for you know what their laws are.
That's right. SubTalk, or any other SubTalk-like forum, is NOT an official venue for you to find out about laws and rules. For all anyone knows, the "rules" that people have posted here might be entirely made-up.
At the same time, the rules that do exist are written and enforced (ideally) in accordance with the law. Ignorance is not a defense. Do you think that the IRS would look the other way if you "didn't know" you owed taxes? Do you think that whether or not they post the Internal Revenue Code on IRSTalk makes a difference?
Finally, a photography restriction would be less motivated by "railfan photography" than many people reading seem to believe. NYCTA rules apply to everyone, not just y'all.
Mark
David-
That's fine, and as I said, I haven't seen any applicable proposed or emergency rules fly by (but that doesn't mean that they didn't while my head was turned). I just wanted to point out that the rules are not immutable, and power to change the rules lies in hands that some may not have expected.
Mark
Right. Anyway, in the general scheme of things, railfans taking pictures will NEVER be any part of any decision-making process regarding the legality of same. Railfans as members of the public CAN input their thoughts in any available public forum concerning those decisions. But they're not a "block" by any means.
It's a transportation system. Not a train set. Current technology can allow someone to get his/her photos without making a big deal out of it. We all know this. And I'm sure most cops know this too. Put yourself in their place. If something goes wrong nobody's gonna come running to YOU (meaning anybody else but the cop) screaming for help. Hell, the cop is the one person who could help you if some knucklehead tries to snatch your fine and fancy camera. Why some guys want to make that job even harder is beyond me.
It's not a law, it's a rule.
The rules can be amended at the discretion of NYCTA.
The rules can be quietly changed."
Violation of any of these "rules" may result in arrest, fine or ejection. Most cases are violations (maximum 15 days) so they ARE LAWS legally speaking. The MTA Board, not NYCT, has final say on any amendment to any of these "rules".
And if they can change ANY LAW, imagine if they made public speaking anywhere a violation (non-transit activity, similar to another activity we are discussing that is a "no-no")? The Supreme Court will be all over this travesty.
One thing has nothing to do with the other. Rules can be authorized by law to carry the force of law. Violations of rules can also be authorized by law to be punishable by fines or imprisonment. ("Violation" is used here in its common meaning and not as it is used in the penal code.)
The MTA Board, not NYCT, has final say on any amendment to any of these "rules".
We're speaking legally, right? NYCTA. It just so happens that the chairman of the MTA is the chairman of NYCTA, and that under the current environment, the latter is increasingly becoming a puppet for the former.
And if they can change ANY LAW, imagine if they made public speaking anywhere a violation (non-transit activity, similar to another activity we are discussing that is a "no-no")? The Supreme Court will be all over this travesty.
Apples. Oranges. I didn't realize that photography was a Constitutionally-protected right. You might be surprised with what the Supreme Court would decide, anyway.
The way it "should be" isn't always the way it is. (Cue SelkirkTMO.)
Mark
David: There is indeed such a law and it pre-dates the current situation by about thirty years. It was published in pamplet form back in the seventies.
It reads as follows.
XVII. CODES, RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK GOVERNING THE NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY
CHAPTER XXI METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHROITY
SUBCHAPTER F
NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY
PART 1051 PROHIBITED USES
PART 1051.9 EFF SEP 1, 1974
Photographs, peddling, etc. b) No person except members of the working press who hold working press identification cards issued by the New York City Police Department shall take moving pictures or photographs within the limits of the New York City transit system.
This law was never really enforced but to the best of my knowledge it has never been rescinded. Certainly the TA does not prohibit the taking of phots on fantrips.
Many old laws remain on the books when the rationale for their existence has long passed. It is still against the law to herd sheep south of 14 Street in Manhattan and you can't hang a man with a wooden leg in the State of New Jersey.
Best Wishes, Larry, Redbird R33
PS Caps are not mine. They are the way that I copied it from the book.
NYCRR Part 1050.9
Under NYCRR Chapter XXI, Part 1050.9, Restricted Areas and Activities:
(c) Photography. filming or video recording in any facility or conveyance is permitted except that ancillary equipment such as lights, reflectors or tripods may not bc used. Members of the press holding valid identification issued by the New York City Police Department are hereby authorized to use necessary ancillary equipment. All photographic activity must be conducted in accordance with the provisions of this Part...
...Historical Note
Sec. filed May 24, 1985; amds. filed: March 31, 1993: Sept. 26, l994 eff. Oct. 12,1994
...Historical Note
Sec. filed May 24, 1985; amds. filed: March 31, 1993: Sept. 26, l994 eff. Oct. 12,1994
Mike: I see from your post that the law was amended to permit photography. I think the common sense rule applies here. Someone standing on a platfrom can certainly take a picture and should give a couteous answer to a TA employee or policeman if questioned. However someone standing twenty feet inside a tunnel or wandering around on the lower level of City Hall station is clearly out of bounds.
Thanks for the update;
Larry, RedbirdR33
But that's the case whether or not the wanderer is a photographer.
I really do think that if the MTA moved to a no photo policy they would post it like on the MTBA or on the PATH. On every system you ride the rules and regulations are clearly posted. A good example is the DC Metro and its no food policy.
AFAIAC the rule currently in effect is 21NYCRR 1050.9 which specifically allows for non-commercial photography.
Um, I think you missed where Greenberger stepped away from that statement. And if you wanted to be of help, you should have explained why his statement was untrue, like others took the time to do.
The nice lady was willing to go way the hell out of her way to lead a buncha train geeks like ourselves into places we might never get to see. So what happened?
"Whaaaagggggghhhhhh!!! We Wanna Take Pichures!! When We Wanna!! Where We Wanna!! Screw The Rules!!! We Wanna Take Pichures!!!"
So there you are. Happy?
This is a sad turn of events for those new to the hobby because Peggy's tours provided a lot of detail for those who took the time to stop, look & listen. It was my first time on PATH several years ago with her and another railfan, and part time Museum Tour guide, that realy hooked me on the hobby. The TA seems to be on a anti-railfan compain of late, so maybe these organized tours should go into hibernation for a while.
The TERRORISTS who MIGHT blow up or gas the subway some day (and I *pray* that they're "foreigners" that would do it and not a modern Reichstag number, like those ex-Navy pilots who claim that an angled maneuver into tall skyscrapers and STILL flying straight is suspicious - UFO swamp gas theories) have ALREADY GOTTEN THEIR PICTURES of the "infrastructure" and unless they're planning on bombing the new Canarsie alignment, they don't NEED to take any "new" pictures ...
While I'm not one on pictures of the system (I *prefer* my hazy memories, they're PRETTIER) myself, I can't FATHOM the mentality of people who would chase away buffs with cameras ... MANY major police mysteries have been solved over decades by the "errant nut with a camera who captured this crime in progress in the background of their photo" ... any COP will tell ya this happens often. So what do they do? Chase away those who could be a HELP ...
I JUST don't get this policy. Round up the undocumented foreigners on the "DO NOT ADMIT TO THE UNITED STATES" list, and I'd bet we'll never suffer a terrorist incident AGAIN. Nope - THESE morons are hassling YOU AND ME. That's what boild my butt here about all this. How DARE they come after US when we ain't seen Osama's head on a stick yet? :(
Ain't that the truth. I for one don't believe we are getting our moneys worth from the military/CIA/FBI/etc. They certainly don't seem to have the skills you might think from watching movies. Maybe George Lucus ought to teach them a few things ?
"... I JUST don't get this policy ..."
Some suit thinks he ought to be doing SOMETHING.
He's going to be re-elected. Why kill yourself for another 5+ years with this irrational hatred? The terrorists must be laughing at how some Americans have turned their anger on their own president.
I don't agree. Not a bit. In 50 years we should finally have fusion power down pat. Which will lead to the beginning of our settling parts of the Solar System. And make the OPC redundant and about as significant as buggy-whip manufacturers. But that song CAPTAIN AMERICA CALLING keeps coming to mind:
"Well I'm telling all people from all over the world this is Captain America calling (calling)
I picked you up when you were DOWN ON YOUR KNEES won't you help me now I'm falling (falling)"
Guess I'm just a sucker but that song always gets to me.
Actually, the story goes that there are no eggs at all after they kill the goose.
GEEEZUZZ!! Don't you guys ever quit? Why would you say such a rude thing? How many tours have YOU led? Show some dignity....and respect the lady.
She stopped posting after rude behavior toward her by other SubTalkers.
Tom
I feel so bad for Peggy that she even had to EXPLAIN this to anyone. If you WORK for the government, and you're NOT "with the program" then you can go to JAIL ... or worse. THAT'S why Unca Selkirk piped off the good ship Paturkey. Republicans eat their young. :(
Peggy seems to be concerned that posting messages on SubTalk might get her into trouble with her employer. Okay, I can understand that. But having other people post messages on her behalf isn't likely to help her if NYCT management finds out about a posting and is opposed to what's been said. She'd be better off posting directly, or not posting at all on anything controversial if she's worried about job repercussions.
Maybe THAT'S why someone else had to post it as HEARSAY? :(
wayne
WHY are you the messenger, that's the question?
Ummmmm you're a good one!!!!
Way to go, guys.
wayne
Don't worry, I have a feeling that, due to popular demand, the tours will be back, and soon :) Her tours are great and she knows it.
Unfortunately TA employees like Peggy don't.
Wake up, John. She did not give in to anything. She decided she did not want to lead a group which might contain people who were willing to risk her job to prove they had certain rights. I admire those who volunteer to put their own job on the line to stand up for their rights. I do not admire those who volunteer someone else at no risk to themselves.
Tom
I have come to the conclusion it's hard for some children to grow up here. Some of those children are trapped in the bodies of adults.
-Stef
-Stef
No such thing as the pefect society where all people think alike! Let's leave room for dissension.
-Stef
That's right. Stand up for your rights everyone. At least as long as it's good weather.
Thank goodness it was a 72 degrees and sunny when Washington crossed the Delaware...
If Peggy's job was truely in danger we cannot expect her to risk it for a group of railfans. However this does not tie her hands. Peggy has something that as of yet no corporation or government agency can stimie or take away and that is knowledge. While it would not have been the same, peggy could have transcirbed her knowledge to paper (or a Word document) and then sent out a self-guided tour. Taking the complexity up a notch Peggy could have produced an audio tour of the line (which she might have been able to sell in the gift shoppe), its not that hard, I did one when I diagramed the MFL signaling. Either way Peggy could have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat (and at the same time made her knowledge available to a far greater pool of people).
So......send her some flowers. Make a donation for material costs. Offer your own knowledge of how to accomplish those things you mentioned. Make a personal appeal to Transit on her behalf. Buy her a computer. Or give her yours. Walk her dogs. Paint her apartment. ISTM that might be equal to what you're requesting. Otherwise, maybe we should cut the lady some slack. It's not like she HAS to do anything for rail enthusiasts.
However, it's up to Peggy to decide if she wants to go through the trouble.
One cool addition to subway.org would be a set of downloadable walking tour guides to transit systems.
Gee, Mike, I hadn't realized Peggy had a contractual obligation to spend 4-6 hours for the benefit of some group of railfans. I was under the mistaken belief that she guided these tours because she liked interacting with other railfans on a live basis. She has already made significant written contributions to this site. She does not owe us anything. I hope some time in the future when the general atmosphere in the subway improves, along with the maturity of those wishing to take a tour, she will see her way clear to offering another tour.
Tom
Oh boy, you're gonna get it now. I posted a similar statement last week and Peggy just emailed me saying that we SubTalkers "can all go to where the devil is supposed to lvie[sic]." Like you, I was just trying to be optimistic. My question now is if the devil isn't where he is supposed to be, then where is he?
Awwww. Well, at least now I know where I'm gonna go when I go....
The details.
Thank you Big Dig for making me vent in the wrong time. I will snap away and risk myself getting arrested.
But don't blame "Big Dig" ... the childish responses to the issue from MANY here were part of the problem - the OTHEr part of the problem is that if you WORK for the MTA and "enable terrorism by flagrant violation of Mein Kampf" then you not only get FIRED, but could end up with a vacation at a fine Cuban resort because you "aided and abetted" or are "SUSPECTED of being a participant" ...
CIA, FBI and INS let people on the *LIST* of "do not let these criminals into the country" enter the US and fly planes into WTC. Because of republican congress budget cuts, they didn't have the people to interfere with their entry into this country. NOW *WE* HAVE TO PAY THE PRICE ... yep, can't blame the republican congress - that tax cut gonna make us RICH. :(
PEGGY did the right thing though ... :( :( :(
That's too bad, though. I prefer taking pics in groups in tours like these where it looks like a bunch of tourists rather than by myself and take a chance with the cops. I tend to slide a lot on a lot of things and don't want to continue pushing my luck in the midst of the ticketing binge and the debate over whether or not photography is legal and where and how and to what extent or under what circumstances.
Peggy's last tour was great (my first) and I feel sorry for those who missed out on the chance to experience one. I only hope that someone, somewhere, can fill the void now left behind, so there are more such gatherings in the future.
I believe we figured out three things:
1) As indicated in your Eagle article, the term "Trolley Dodgers" was first used in the mid-1890s;
2) There was not a matrix of trolleys very close by Eastern Park, the only really nearby tracks were on the Long Island Rail Road.
3) The term "trolley dodgers" has become a generic term for Brooklynites, and from that origin was applied to the team.
Thanks for posting the reference. Can you describe in what context they use "Trolley Dodgers"?
I continue to find it hard to believe the name was only a general term for Brooklynites. The idea that the team would become the "trolley dodgers" at a park where when there were only freight and passenger trains to dodge is hard to believe.
It's an article about the loss of a game to Boston. The team is referred to as the "Grooms" in the article title. However later on it reads: "...but the lead secured by the Bostons through timely hitting, some costly misplays and a yellow decision by Umpire Sheridan, proved too much for the Trolley Dodgers." [As usual we was robbed]
The service does not have all the bugs out yet. It should permit us to settle a lot of arguments, when it is ready. It features not only a digital search but photo copies of the entire papers - including advertisements. It should be a real treasure when it's fully operational.
The other references were in 1895 but they split the words trolley and dodger. So, 1896 was the earliest to use the term "Trolley Dodgers" in any context.
Amazing. Exhibit A for why the web is great.
The beta version of this program has a few kinks, but what a treasure trove. Looking around a bit, I find that "trolley" first appears in 1889 as a new technology, and is ubiquitous by 1890.
The term "dodger" starts appearing in 1884, naturally enough mostly in reference to various scam artists, from Dickens' Artful Dodger. Maybe this meaning has some import for the team, an early version of "bums."
For sports, the earliest references to "dodger" were actually in regards to crafty running half backs of the game of "foot ball." Here is the first one (3rd paragraph), though there are several others:
http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMailGifMSIE&Type=text/html&Path=BEG/1894/10/02&ID=Ar00501&ChunkNum=0
Later, thre was even a boxer named "Dodger Donohue." Here is the, uh, final clip, of several:
http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMailGifMSIE&Type=text/html&Path=BEG/1896/07/14&ID=Ar00116&ChunkNum=0
(Thus the nickname was freed up the use of the team a month later?)
In most instances, early references to "dodger" meant "handbill." Here is story referring to a "dodger" about trolleys in Flushing (first paragraph):
http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMailGifMSIE&Type=text/html&Path=BEG/1894/03/23&ID=Ar00614&ChunkNum=0
And so it goes. I look forward to what others find. No doubt this new resource will get mined heavily.
Throughout the 1913 season, the Eagle ran a feature in their Sunday edition on how to play the various field position, written (in theory) by the guy who played that spot. The article on how to play centerfield was written by one Charley Stengel (they hadn't gotten around to calling him Casey at that point). The season before, they ran an article about Casey, in which they quoted him on what he had done before he got to the majors. Some of it sounded very familiar, and then it dawned on me--it was some of the lines Casey had used when he was mananging the Mets half a century later. He already had the shtick down pat.
Even better, there were a few ads for vaudeville shows at that point that featured appearances by Victor Moore of 74th Street-Broaway fame.
It now appears to have been during the Eastern Park days afterall, and the nickname referred to the City's residents, not their fans going to games.
----
I have a book called "baseball Uniforms Of The 20th Century" that shows all the Major League uniforms through the years. Here's what it shows:
1937: "Brooklyn" in block letters on both the home and road uniforms.
1938: "Dodgers" in the familiar script, on both the home and road uniforms.
1939-1945: "Dodgers" on home uniform, "Brooklyn" in script on the road uniforms. The 1944 Dodgers also had an alternate uniform, used both at home and on the road strictly for night games: It was made out of shiny, powder-blue satin instead of wool flannel, and had "Brooklyn" across the front.
1946-1957: "Dodgers" on both the home and road uniforms; "Brooklyn" would never appear again on a Dodger uniform.
The 1958 and 1970-1999 Los Angeles Dodgers also used "Dodgers" on both the home and road uniforms; the 1959-69 uniforms and the 2000-2001 uniforms had/have "Los Angeles" in script letters.
The team playing in Los Angeles has no more right to the name Dodgers than it does to the name Lakers. The team is properly referred to as the Los Angels O'Malley's named for the subhuman not content enough to making a mint in Brookyn decided he wanted to make a mint and a half in Tinseltown. At least Art Modell had the decency to leave the name Browns in Cleveland. O'Malley, the creature from hell, should have been forced to do the same.
Ooohh, nice phrasing! Too bad that plan to build a new stadium near the LIRR Flatbush Terminal never came to pass. I imagine the area would look a little different with a major league baseball stadium in the neighborhood. I could just see the Atlantic Avenue trains filled with Long Islanders going to games. Better access than Shea Stadium has, at least by rail. The Atlantic/Pacific cluster f**k would probably have been redone decades ago. And it sure would have made following a Subway Series easier. One seat ride from stadium to stadium.
Ah well.
I came upon this article in the Brooklyn Eagle from 12 Aug 1894, while referencing Eastern Park. It looks like trolleys may have been received a bum rap.
To summarize, it appears that the term did in fact start at a park without trolleys, oddly enough. However, use was sporadic, rotating with a bunch of other nicknames. "Dodgers" actually stuck later, while at Ebbets. If they hadn't gone to a park where real dodging was part of the deal, the nickname that finally attached would have been something else, like the Grooms, Superbas, Robins, or Blue Sox, etc.
Medford's one of the ever-diminishing number of stations where parking's both free and unrestricted. It's super convenient for me, being just a couple of miles from my house, of course it would be even more convenient if the LIRR actually decided to provide a reasonable level of service.
As a general rule, that's certainly true, however it's very unlikely that a paved lot is going to encourage any more people to use Medford. More frequent service is what's needed. As long as the last train connecting to Medford leaves Penn at 5:41, using Medford simply isn't an option for many people. I can use it only because (1) it's almost never necessary for me to stay at work after 5:00, and (2) I'm only a few stops away on the 1/9.
In any event, the old lot was perfectly adequate.
I've been mighty lucky in six years of using the station. Especially since my wife works 3 to 11:30 most evenings and therefore can't pick me up at Ronkonkoma. If I ended up missing the last train, I'd probably hang around the city until about 9 and then get a Pt. Jefferson train to Stony Brook, where my wife works and can pick me up after her shift. Or I'd have to taxi it from Ronkonkoma, which I think is about $20.
I should add that every so often, maybe three or four days a year, I'll know in advance that I might have to work a little late. In those cases, I'll take the train from Ronkokoma, Patchogue or Stony Brook, just to be safe.
There are other ways you pay for "free." There is a huge free parking lot (owned by Suffolk County, IIRC) at new Deer Park station. The police don't have the resources to provide the kind of security such a huge lot requires, and the railroad refuses to police it--it isn't their lot. Plus the "free" makes it so popular that parkers overflow into the local (mostly industrial streets).
Aside from the vandalism/theft problem, I knew one woman who worked a late shift who refused to use Deer Park despite its being only about a half-mile from her front door. She drove all the way to Babylon (about 20 minutes) and paid for a town parking permit rather than use her "free" home station.
Ronkonkoma's south lot is free, and usually doesn't fill until about 8:00. People arriving after that time can park (also for free) in an undeveloped lot on the north side of the station, to the west, although it can be a very long walk to the platforms. That lot never fills.
There are other ways you pay for "free." There is a huge free parking lot (owned by Suffolk County, IIRC) at new Deer Park station. The police don't have the resources to provide the kind of security such a huge lot requires, and the railroad refuses to police it--it isn't their lot. Plus the "free" makes it so popular that parkers overflow into the local (mostly industrial streets).
Aside from the vandalism/theft problem, I knew one woman who worked a late shift who refused to use Deer Park despite its being only about a half-mile from her front door. She drove all the way to Babylon (about 20 minutes) and paid for a town parking permit rather than use her "free" home station.
The main lot at Brentwood, not far from new Deer Park, is free and unrestricted and never fills. It's harder to get to than Deer Park, and of course Brentwood has a bad reputation - though as your friend has figured out, parking at Deer Park's not always the smartest idea.
Here's another one for you: The LIRR reconstructed the Broadway station house, which was in OK condition to begin with. It's only open a few hours 5 days a week. Meanwhile, the rain sheds reek of urine and the Broadway platforms crumble to the tracks. Oh, the LIRR DID come up with a solution to that one: It closed down a staircase and an especially bad section of platform.
So, they did unnecessary repairs on a stationhouse and refuse to fix crumbling platforms.
The LIRR is nuts.
I'd take a picture of the platform and send it to a local politician, but the cops would probably arrest me.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Actually, I'm still trying to determine why Merrick needed a whole new, larger ticket office and waiting room built to the west of the late 1970's-era office. The one in Baldwin, for example, was a 1950's model and was also replaced but in the same location and is about the same size as the previous office. I'd have figured a 1970's model to have been in need of perhaps a paint job and new tile rather than total replacement.
As for Medford, perhaps the LIRR has plans for additional service, maybe when dual-mode locomotives finally have all the bugs fixed and direct service from Riverhead or Greenport is implemented. Either that or an influential legislator lives near Medford.
Your second guess is probably a lot more likely. I've heard nothing at all about expanded service east of Ronkonkoma, even though it would be an excellent idea. Waiting until the dual-modes are running properly is likely to be a very long wait :(
If they build it, they will come.....
I personally think they wasted money elevating Merrick!!
Awww, c'mon man! That section of railroad from Valley Stream to Massapequa Park is one of the best commuter lines in the world. It would have been nuts to let Merrick remain street level. Remember when Massapequa Park was all wood? That was an interesting diversion and I appreciated the red wood. (Hmmm. Was it real "redwood"?) But I was more pleased with the large elevated station that replaced it. I even remember when they built the stretch between Amityville and Lindenhurst. Had local contests to decide what color bricks would be used at each station. I "toured" Amityville and Lindenhurst before they were officially opened. Felt like a real explorer. Just a knucklehead kid nosin' around the place. It was real cool!! :-}
That line would be among the most dangerous anywhere if it still had grade crossings. It would also complicate traffic movements on Sunrise Highway. The grade crossings had to go. You'd agree if you had a mother who shouted "Don't stop me on those railroad tracks!" anytime we slowed near a grade crossing.
It varies. Medford's parking area is owned by the LIRR, except possible for the eastern end which has the Triangle Building Products freight ramp.
GP38 Chris already pointed out that Medford's very sparse service is the reason for low ridership. Installing the TVM surely did nothing for ridership because almost everyone using the station has a monthly or weekly. The TVM is one of the single-fare-only types, and in the month or so since it's been installed I've seen it being used once.
As far as the parking is concerned, while Medford's lot was somewhat rough, though nothing too bad, it also allows one to park within 50 feet of the platform stairs. Try finding that at a busier station.
Amazingly, this is only the second DE30 I have ever photographed. I have hundreds of photos of the old LIRR equipment, but never really got back into the new equipment. I figure I'd better start to like them.
Well, here's Holtsville with a GP38-2. It's about 10 years old, but I don't have a current view of the area. There wasn't much there to begin with. All it was was a shed, a cinder platfom, and a gravel parking lot. All they did was just remove the shed. (Sorry the photos are a bit dark, but it was a really dreary day that day).
Actually, Holtsville had a bit more than the old Medford. Medford didn't even have a shed! Compare that with the newer shots of Medford.
I liked Holtsville station and used it whenever possible. A really rustic looking location. I would take a train to Holtsville and walk down Waverly Avenue into Patchogue, see a movie there and walk down to the Patchogue station and head back west.
What I'd like to see would be pictures of the Holbrook Station, which was gone before I became aware of its existence. You'd think there might be good reasons to reopen both Holbrook and Holtsville so as to encourage alternate traffic patterns amidst that growing area. But Medford is funny; in appearance and design the area around the station has elements resembling closer-in areas of Nassau County. The grid pattern of the streets. The fact of the proper sidewalk along Medford Avenue. The busy traffic and many business along the avenue. Yet there's still that old rural Suffolk mentality in full effect. I can't define it exactly, it's sort of like how it "feels" in the Shirley Mastic area. It's like, you can sense the possibility of having some trouble or confrontations with the local folk. Nobody seems to want to go out of there way to be accomodating. In my jaded opinion, anyway. I still do the circle tour thing when I can, with Medford and Patchogue. But I don't act like an asshole as I wander the streets either. Dudes'll drive up on you and whatnot....
Land use in Medford mostly reflects post-World War II development patterns as there was very little development in the area before the war. You'll note that there's no real downtown and few older houses. Medford's in sharp contrast with nearby Patchogue, which has a much more defined downtown and many older houses - of course, considering the sorry state of much of downtown Patchogue, Medford may be luckier.
As far as the "old rural Suffolk mentality" is concerned, I have no idea what you mean.
Uh, well maybe it's related to the fact that during the time of the American Revolution Suffolk County was strongly in favor of revolution while Nassau had plenty of Tory sympathizers. Also, the classic rural mindset is an understandable suspicion of outsiders and city slickers. I know Medford isn't rural anymore. But you know feelings like that linger for generations.
BTW, Patchogue really isn't in that bad a shape. Sunrise Hwy just took away too much of the shopping. I wish it, and Bay Shore well. It is possible to have a viable Main Street area on Long Island. Look at Sayville and Islip. Both towns have nice places to go to, and both have movie houses.
The Main Street area east of 112 is in really bad shape, full of vacant and rundown storefronts. West of 112, which is the main part of downtown, is in better shape, though there still are many vacancies.
Sayville and Islip have nice downtown areas, but they're both considerably more affluent than Patchogue so it's no surprise.
...which is due in part to the stubborness of so many Long Islanders who seem to genetically obhor anything that looks city-like. Take Medford Avenue from Main Street to Sunrise Hwy. A nice broad boulevard. Two lanes in each direction, flanked by wide city scale sidewalks on both sides, and parking lanes too. Decent level of protected pedestrian crosswalk signals. A bus line traversing it, going right to train stations on three LIRR branches. Yet, the developmental level along it is static. ISTM there is where we should be seeing any new multistory office buildings being built.
I lived in Patchogue for about 2 years in the mid-seventies. It was starting to fade then but still had two movie theatres, shoe stores, book stores, even a Grants. There was a real old Brooklyn style magazine store right up the block from me. So was the Swezeys Dept. Store around the corner. And that small bowling alley/grill across the street from the former Shands farm store. It was still a farm store when I lived there; sold seeds, hoes, tools and such. But the people do love their parking lots, eh?!!
East of 112 is dusty looking but it does have a pulse. The abandoned movie theatre is a weird little statement in itself, I grant you. (Seen a few movies there). But you'll see it get better down the road. For Patchogue the main thing is to make sure the housing close to downtown doesn't get in such bad shape. I'm not sure how this could be done exactly; seems worth thinking about though.
To bring this back on topic, West Main St is undergoing a major resurfacing project. They have grinded up years of pavement, and the trolley tracks are now fully exposed along the Main street, and North Ocean Ave. Wven the "interlocking" of the two routes is exposed. Pretty cool. Something not seen since Patchogue's heyday in the 50's.
The opening of the new Swezey's Department Store a couple of years ago was the classic mixed blessing, as far as downtown Patchogue is concerned. It's a nice new structure and replaced an unsightly abandoned factory. Unfortunately, it resulted in the vacancy of a number of storefronts around the W.Main/No.Ocean intersection, and moreover could be said to be too far west to be a real part of downtown.
I agree, though, W.Main is in reasonably decent shape, with few buildings being run-down or unsightly. If some of the vacancies could be filled, that part of downtown would be even better. E.Main looks like a hopeless case, unfortunately.
NASSAU had nothing!
Hempstead was full of royalists, while northern Hempstead was full of patriots. After the revolution, the state split the town of Hempstead in two.
They weren't creative enough to give North Hempstead a new name.
At least they were creative enough 110 years later to give Nassau County its own name instead of East Queens or something.
In the case of the LIRR, we have a 10 and a 12 car platform at Lynbrook, and of course they chose the wrong one to make the longer, and Rosedale platform extending to 10 cars even though Valley Stream has higher ridership and Valley Stream got rebuilt with 8 cars. That is management's stupid priorities, nothing more, nothing less.
I'm fairly certain that a bunch of stripped redbird hulks, consisting mostly of empty air weigh that much. Thus it couldn't be argued that the increased weight increased the draught and thus accounts for the changing freeboard.
It looks like right above the stern on the deck is a deckhouse. This could actually be the bridge of a tugboat fitted inside the slot in the back of the tugboat. This arrangement is known as an Articulated Tug & Barge or AT/B (do note that the link is to some guy's model boat site, he's making a model of one, but theres good background info, and the site does play a sound when loaded).
Photo by Daniel Choy Boyar, reproduced without authority, located at NYRail.org.
Chip
Chapter 11 Choo Choo (Lyrics)
www.railfanwindow.com
Well, not for me, at least before they weren't. I'm guessing it was a server problem.
Can you be more specific?
They weren't working, i.e. they weren't showing. Can't get any more specific than that! ;-) Anyway, the pictures are working now and they're fine. I admire the El's aesthetic features.
Color Commentary by David J. Greenberger
I didn't see any comments made by the aforementioned. David, an explanation?
Chapter 11 Choo Choo (Lyrics)
www.railfanwindow.com
You've got me beat... I never get the cool starburst lens flare.
Nah, it isn't that hard. You just take the photo when you think it looks good, then look at the photo on the LCD screen and see that it has that cool effect! As I was taking it I actually thought there would be a streak ogflight across the whole photo. It must have taken the photo a split second later. I totally did not plan on creating that effect!!! Anyhow, remember, you're Mr. Underground and I'm Mr. Aboveground :)
Chapter 11 Choo Choo (Lyrics)
www.railfanwindow.com
AcelaExpress2005 - R160
---Chapter 11 Choo Choo
http://www.railfanwindow.com/gallery/album80?page=1
Hey Fred, look in the mirror. Your trips were not on public transportation. How many times a week do you take public transportation to go anywhere? You could have caught an East/West bus to Rosemead, where you could have transferred to a 266 south to Florence and caught a 460 right to Disneyland's front entrance, relaxing all the way crowded in with others on the hard narrow seats for the 2 ½ hour journey, but you chose the frustration of driving with just your immediate family in the comfort of your automobile and despite the delays probably arrived in less than 2 ½ hours. As one who has used both public and private transportation in Southern California, it is no mystery to me why so many choose the crowded freeways.
Tom
Rah Rah Rah, at least you have public transportation
Off to NYC this Sunday most likely
Be good to see you in person, hang 10 on what we call the WORLD'S GREATEST SUBWAY LINE.
That's easy to say when you're not a Transit Employee.
-Stef
But if you visit www.ebay.com and search for Subway Sign
(two words no quotations) I think you'll find some
PRETTY--------Interesting items there...
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nysub023312109jun02,0,492127.column?coll=ny%2Dnews%2Dcolumnists
Linked: http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nysub023312109jun02,0,492127.column?coll=ny%2Dnews%2Dcolumnists
THANK YOU for posting it. Wasn't at ALL hard to copy and paste the link you provided and USE it. No MBA required. THANK YOU!
(and for those whose noses are out of joint, maybe just maybe it's time to move out of "Terror City" ... takes STONES to live in NYC)
But until then, I'll GLADLY forgive folks who post interesting stuff who don't know how to make a link work here. So I'll do MY bit here, for the common good ... a HISTORY of the INTERNET as the first module in HTML 101 ...
HISTORY OF ... DA NET!
1969- ARPANET (precursor to internet) invented. (If anyone makes any
overused Al Gore jokes they will be beaten unconscious with a 300 baud
modem)
1972- Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack get stoned out of their minds and build
a computer that costs a fortune and runs no software. "Everyone will want
one of these!", says Jobs.
1976- Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe develops Ethernet, later to be replaced by
SodiumPentatholNet.
1977- E-mail invented. most common message: "Let me know when you're there
so I can call you"
1978- Dan Bricklin invents the spreadsheet. It will be 5 more years before
anyone knows what they're for, and another decade before anyone knows how to
use them.
1979- Bill Gates embarks on heroic and lifelong quest to piss off every
person in America.
1983- Researchers develop TCP/IP, DNS, IAB, and other important internet
acronyms.
1985- Apple's low-cost computers for schools offers an affordable way to
give kids training in software they will never use.
1990- Scientists develop sexy buzzword "Internet" to replace awkward term
"ARPANET"
1991- First ISP created. Business is slow due to the fact that the Internet
has no purpose, nobody knows about it, and more people own Betamax machines
than computers.
1992- World-Wide Web released by CERN. Group suggests someone invent a web
browser so people can use it.
1992- Mosaic - the first major web browser - is released. Users complain
that it should support animated gifs, or at least a tag. Yeah, that
would look AWESOME!
1992- DOOM is released, slowing the network to a near stop, and worker
productivity to a total stop.
1993- Parents rejoice as the release of the game frees them from all
responsibility for how their kids behave.
1994- First piece of spam appears in USENET newsgroups and is quickly
removed. "Well, that should be the last of that", say users.
1995- AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, and other on-line services take off, making
heaps of cash. Microsoft execs begin thinking: "Maybe we should look into
this internet thing".
1995- Support for animated .GIF files and MIDI music on webpages becomes
widespread. "Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!", scream users.
1995- Release of Windows 95 and Internet Explorer bring sharp rise in memory
sales, profanity use.
1995- Real Audio released, allowing users to listen to halting bursts of
static in real time.
1996- Instant messaging created as a way for people all over the world to
interrupt each other.
1996- US Robotics releases the 56k modem, allowing users to download even
more data before their next random disconnect.
1996- AOL begins its efforts to make sure that no human being on planet
earth is without an AOL sign-up disk.
1996- Parenting groups become concerned that spending extended time online
is depriving children of important time spent watching television.
1997- Internet introduced to businesses. Worker productivity up 35%
1997- Internet Porn introduced to businesses. Worker productivity down 97%
1997- Scam e-mails replace oil as the chief export of Nigeria.
1998- 3lit3 hax0rz, d00d: Teens become most prolific illiterate writers in
history.
1999- Internet gold rush. Silicon valley geeks crushed to death under heaps
of investment money
1999- Napster introduced. Rampant piracy drives Metallica to life of abject
poverty as wandering minstrels. Other artists soon to follow.
1999- Everquest Released. People give up repetitive, boring, normal lives in
exchange for repetitive, boring, virtual lives.
1999- FARK introduced as a service to help teenage boys locate pictures of
breasts on the internet.
2000- Year 2k apocalypse averted. Populace comes out of bunkers, goes back
to playing Everquest as if nothing ever happened.
2000- The internet is finally given purpose when Scientists Mathew Chapman
and Michael Chapman complete their research and bring Homestarrunner
technology to the internet.
2000- EPA warns that entire surface of the earth will be completely
blanketed with AOL CDs by the end of 2007
2001- Blogging invented. Promises to change the way people bore strangers
with banal anecdotes about their pets.
2001- Napster collapses. Music industry suddenly profitable again, and able
to meet insatiable public demand for more boy bands.
2001- Internet bubble bursts. Investors take back money and hide it under a
mattress. Geeks go back to Burger King.
2001- Cats becomes sole proprietor of all your base. Every Zig moved.
2002- Instapundit replaces search engines as primary way for users to find
content on the net.
2002- With the fall of Napster, numerous other P2P networks rise to allow
users to share movies as well as music. "I guess we should have seen that
coming", says entertainment industry.
2003- After 43.2 million spams, and over 2.3 billion pop-up ads worldwide,
someone buys an X-10 mini cam.
2004- Still operating after more than three years of service, Zombo.com is
the only successful dot-com to date.
2005- Progress: Since its inception almost 30 years ago, the internet has
been transformed from a primitive device for sharing thoughts and ideas,
into a massive network where people pay to connect and read advertisements
they don't want, while calling each other "asshats".
300 baud was "HIGH speed" at the time of traditional 55 and 110 baud "loop" communications. So here we are today with broadband, and all I seem to see is jugs and kazoos. :(
REMEMBER the ad campaign...I Adore my 64?
Peace,
ANDEE
And here we are decades later with all sorts of technical whizbang with Billy reducing it all right back to the days of the ALTAIR, which was doomed because it was Bill Gates' first hoseup. :)
But the (BLINK) tag (exclusive to Netscape) has got to be the most ANNOYING function there is - wrongly used, it can make a whole PAGE FLASH on and off, making it impossible to read. Aiyee had its equivalent to the BLINK tag though, that Netscape never did ... called
TRY to read this ... now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party ... lambs eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy
(if you were viewing the above in Macrosuck Aiyee, you'd go dizzy)
Netscape is FUSSY ... if you don't OPEN a tag and properly CLOSE EACH tag, then pieces of a page, or the whole page would FAIL to display. But like any Catholic can explain, "special dispensation" applied to that freaking BLINK tag ... it'd do it no matter WHAT. :(
As for the BLINK tag, the text blinked where you had inserted it, stopped where you closed it, and then BLINKed again at the very bpttom of the screen. Usually when someone forgets to close a tag, everything from the tag downwards assumes the tag characteristic.
I was a CHARTER member of Mozilla.org myself - my contributions while Netscape Communications Corp still existed lives on in Mozilla to this DATE (Netscape 6 and 7) ... I wrote the "cookie manager" part of the code (the geniuses have screwed it up since) as well as the "clear history" and "clear caches" buttons (all based on our NSClean product with limitations that DON'T exist in NSClean such as SECURE wipes of the data - in Mozilla, it's SIMPLE deletes which CAN be recovered by your employer, spouse, etc with Norton) ... but the weenies writing Mozilla NOW have had some INTERESTING problems ... I won't TOUCH the newer Netscapes, though our NSClean thingy will take care of YOURS. :)
But yeah, that which you saw SHOULDN'T have displayed that way - yet ANOTHER bug in the Mozilla code. :(
----
You forgot to put down all the other times they did that after 1972.
-Robert King
There's really not much for an FAQ. Maybe there could be just a small box above or below the "Message:" box.
There are relatively few useful tags to SubTalk, being A, IMG, B, I, and FONT (half of which are depreciated in HTML 4 anyway). Do you reaally want every SubTalker knowing about BLINK, MARQUEE and the other annoying tags?
Anyway, for those who need the help:
The SubTalk HTML FAQ
A< A HREF="website address"> What you want the link to say< /A>
IMG< IMG SRC="image URL" WIDTH=x HEIGHT=y> < /IMG> (closing tag optional) Width and Height do not have to be the same as the image's actual dimensions
B< B> Text to appear in bold< /B>
I< I> Text to appear in intalics< /I>
U< B> Text to appear unterlined< /U>
FONT< FONT COLOR="#RRGGBB"> Text to appear in a different color. RR GG and BB are the color values in Hexadecimal (0-F, F being highest)< /U>
Anyone else think of any other tags useful to SubTalk please add to this, but don't add them because they exist in HTML. I do have a simple program I wrote for myself that generates HTML 4 compliant code for posting (I did this because its a bit more than typing "< B> < /B> ", if you want it email me.
But they really, really should be.
If they're bigger, the image will be resized using the quick-and-dirty algorithm in the viewer's browser rather than the superior one in your image processing software.
If they're smaller, you're forcing the viewer to sit through a long download of a large file only to have the browser display a shrunken version of it. If you want to shrink the file, do it beforehand.
But they really, really should be.
Otherwise Broadway-Lafayette could end up looking like this:
Its useful for scaling down an image to fit the browser window if it doesn't mean too much greater of a loading time. ok?
I know, but it's also fun...
Hey, I've got proff IRT cars are wider than BMT cars:
What's wrong with that?
If expecting people to know HOW to do HTML to make it all neat and pretty, then perhaps a "SUBTALK FAQ" on how to do it ... I'm sure if someone WROTE it, Dave would post it somewhere as "tips and tricks to make your internet experience glorious." :)
But until then, I'll GLADLY forgive folks who post interesting stuff who don't know how to make a link work here. So I'll do MY bit here, for the common good ... a HISTORY of the INTERNET as the first module in HTML 101 ...
HISTORY OF ... DA NET!
1969- ARPANET (precursor to internet) invented. (If anyone makes any
overused Al Gore jokes they will be beaten unconscious with a 300 baud
modem)
1972- Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack get stoned out of their minds and build
a computer that costs a fortune and runs no software. "Everyone will want
one of these!", says Jobs.
1976- Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe develops Ethernet, later to be replaced by
SodiumPentatholNet.
1977- E-mail invented. most common message: "Let me know when you're there
so I can call you"
1978- Dan Bricklin invents the spreadsheet. It will be 5 more years before
anyone knows what they're for, and another decade before anyone knows how to
use them.
1979- Bill Gates embarks on heroic and lifelong quest to piss off every
person in America.
1983- Researchers develop TCP/IP, DNS, IAB, and other important internet
acronyms.
1985- Apple's low-cost computers for schools offers an affordable way to
give kids training in software they will never use.
1990- Scientists develop sexy buzzword "Internet" to replace awkward term
"ARPANET"
1991- First ISP created. Business is slow due to the fact that the Internet
has no purpose, nobody knows about it, and more people own Betamax machines
than computers.
1992- World-Wide Web released by CERN. Group suggests someone invent a web
browser so people can use it.
1992- Mosaic - the first major web browser - is released. Users complain
that it should support animated gifs, or at least a (BLINK) tag. Yeah, that
would look AWESOME!
1992- DOOM is released, slowing the network to a near stop, and worker
productivity to a total stop.
1993- Parents rejoice as the release of the game frees them from all
responsibility for how their kids behave.
1994- First piece of spam appears in USENET newsgroups and is quickly
removed. "Well, that should be the last of that", say users.
1995- AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, and other on-line services take off, making
heaps of cash. Microsoft execs begin thinking: "Maybe we should look into
this internet thing".
1995- Support for animated .GIF files and MIDI music on webpages becomes
widespread. "Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!", scream users.
1995- Release of Windows 95 and Internet Explorer bring sharp rise in memory
sales, profanity use.
1995- Real Audio released, allowing users to listen to halting bursts of
static in real time.
1996- Instant messaging created as a way for people all over the world to
interrupt each other.
1996- US Robotics releases the 56k modem, allowing users to download even
more data before their next random disconnect.
1996- AOL begins its efforts to make sure that no human being on planet
earth is without an AOL sign-up disk.
1996- Parenting groups become concerned that spending extended time online
is depriving children of important time spent watching television.
1997- Internet introduced to businesses. Worker productivity up 35%
1997- Internet Porn introduced to businesses. Worker productivity down 97%
1997- Scam e-mails replace oil as the chief export of Nigeria.
1998- 3lit3 hax0rz, d00d: Teens become most prolific illiterate writers in
history.
1999- Internet gold rush. Silicon valley geeks crushed to death under heaps
of investment money
1999- Napster introduced. Rampant piracy drives Metallica to life of abject
poverty as wandering minstrels. Other artists soon to follow.
1999- Everquest Released. People give up repetitive, boring, normal lives in
exchange for repetitive, boring, virtual lives.
1999- FARK introduced as a service to help teenage boys locate pictures of
breasts on the internet.
2000- Year 2k apocalypse averted. Populace comes out of bunkers, goes back
to playing Everquest as if nothing ever happened.
2000- The internet is finally given purpose when Scientists Mathew Chapman
and Michael Chapman complete their research and bring Homestarrunner
technology to the internet.
2000- EPA warns that entire surface of the earth will be completely
blanketed with AOL CDs by the end of 2007
2001- Blogging invented. Promises to change the way people bore strangers
with banal anecdotes about their pets.
2001- Napster collapses. Music industry suddenly profitable again, and able
to meet insatiable public demand for more boy bands.
2001- Internet bubble bursts. Investors take back money and hide it under a
mattress. Geeks go back to Burger King.
2001- Cats becomes sole proprietor of all your base. Every Zig moved.
2002- Instapundit replaces search engines as primary way for users to find
content on the net.
2002- With the fall of Napster, numerous other P2P networks rise to allow
users to share movies as well as music. "I guess we should have seen that
coming", says entertainment industry.
2003- After 43.2 million spams, and over 2.3 billion pop-up ads worldwide,
someone buys an X-10 mini cam.
2004- Still operating after more than three years of service, Zombo.com is
the only successful dot-com to date.
2005- Progress: Since its inception almost 30 years ago, the internet has
been transformed from a primitive device for sharing thoughts and ideas,
into a massive network where people pay to connect and read advertisements
they don't want, while calling each other "asshats".
>>>1969- ARPANET (precursor to internet) invented. (If anyone makes any
overused Al Gore jokes they will be beaten unconscious with a 300 baud
modem)<<<
Peace,
ANDEE
If you have the time and knowledge to post a link, that's very kind. But there's no need to apologize for not doing it. It does take longer to post it as a link, and you've done enough for Subtalk by just listing it as text.
-Robert King
HINT TO ASHCROFT!
The TERRORISTS ALREADY HAVE THE TRACKMAPS! They will NOT be fooled by them vanishing, they ALREADY HAVE THEM! If Unca Peter isn't interested, hand me $4 million, and I'll generate FAKE trackmaps with every single signal number and every vertical column of steel falsely marked! I'll even upload them to Al Jazeera! Hell ... "tax cut discount!" I'll do it for only TWO million! Limited time offer, void where prohibited by logic. :(
Robert
Yes, it's very beautful.
I like the Red Birds being pulled up by an angle, up to heaven. Will this is what it look like they were doing.
Not really. The R17 signed as a '6-Lex' was more like a hot-air balloon.
Probably the axiflow fans were keeping the R-17 afloat !!
Bill "Newkirk"
Incognito
Bill "Newkirk"
Jimmy
So when are you coming by to pay the old gal a visit?
-Stef
When the weather gets warmer and the weekends get drier !
Bill "Newkirk"
-Stef
Jimmy
-Stef
Subway tracks next?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An alternative might be 24 hour service from 7th St/Metro Center to Willow Station with a timed transfer to either the MTA 60 (does it run 24 hours to downtown Long Beach?) or to new owl service on the Long Beach Transit 5 line.
One more weekend to go, just think another weekend forecast calls for rain? We'll see later this week what happens.
"Then subway fares rose last month by 50 cents a ride, and Mr. Messina had to come up with an extra $5 a week for his daily commute."
How is it that Mr. Messina spends an extra $5 a week?
If he used tokens, he spent $15. If he used a pay per ride Metrocard, he spent $13.36.
Now he is forced to use a Metrocard, and surely he can't be so ignorant as to buy in increments of less than $10. So now he spends $16.67 a week.
If he used a weekly then and now (even though not economical if all he does is go to work 5 days a week), his fare went up from $17 to $21. The reporter could have done him a kindness and pointed out the advantages of pay per ride for 10 rides per week.
None of this means that the Messinas have an easy time of life. It is unfair for the Times to emphasize the subway as a big cause, though.
Of course the Times isn't doing real well right now as "The Newspaper of Record."
Hardly the people we should feel sorry for. They are the type that put no money into their surroundings becasue they can't wait to get the hell out.
They have been paying taxes in New York.
Hair dressers often don't pay taxes. Plus they are pulling money out of the economy. On the money they amount of money they were quoted to be making in the NYTIMES article ($32,000) if they are legal residents they are not paying any income tax and are likely getting earned income tax credits if they had any children of up to $5000
My point peter is that their is one class of immigrants who take money out of the economy. It was reported that illegal mexican workers sent $12 million in wages back to mexico from work performed in nyc.
These guys are stealing jobs away from new yorkers, driving up rents on lower end units that the lower working class needs becasue landlords often charge per person. They also drive down the quality of the housing stock becasue slumlords know they are not going to complain becasue they are illegal.
Add to the fact that becasue they are sending a good portion of thier money back to thie country, they are not spending the money in the neigborhood creating addtional economic activity and not spending money improving the apartments they live and the world around them
Removing $12 million from the economy results in $36 million in lost economic activity.
How? The $12 million if spent results in salary for workers at the place spent resulting in the money being spent again in the economy
If placed in the bank, the bank lends out 4/5 of the money to homeowners and businesses in the areas creating addtioanl economic activity(thier is an exct formula for which I don't remeber of the top of my head)
To sum up, parasite immigrants are removing more money from the economy then they are contributing. If they have children add in the education expese and the balance is further off course.
If they are sending money home, they are not spending it hear and they are taking low skilled jobs away from the working class and driving down salaries as well. Take a look at many small construction jobs and you will be hard pressed to find a native workers.
It's not yet certain that they will. First the Court of Appeals needs to hear the case. If they agree with Judge York that the MTA did not follow the law, and if they agree that rolling back the fares is the proper remedy, then it could happen.
For instance, there was a sidebar in Newsday that analyzed how many trips you need to take for a daily/weekly/monthly card to save you money, but its point of comparison was the $2.00 single fare. In fact, if you have $21 to spend for a weekly card, the relevant comparison is a 20% discounted PPR MetroCard.
Cutting the "fare" to $1.45 while eliminating all the discounts should have been one of the options. Adjusting the fare upward by the rate of inflation, beginning with the $1.25 when Pataki took office should have been another. The MTA is the victim of a misleading PR campaign.
S/B 1 train to TS (get the express if it's at 72nd st)
Transfer to any S/B Broadway BMT train to 14th st/U.S.
Transfer again to any IRT express train to BB-CH
He wouldn't, and I had to pay another fare. One of the trip organizers said that the station agent was told in advance to let people bearing fantrip tickets in without paying. But there was no time to make an issue over $1.50. (Besides, Randy Kennedy was interviewing people and I wanted to see my name in the Times.)
Now I have a Premium Transitcheck, so exiting the system is never an issue. As for you, if you have a pay-per-ride card it's best to take the M86 over to Lexington and then the 4 or 5 downtown.
http://www.coraopolisstar.com/estory.asp?ID=9944
An of course State Rep Kotik would rather that area get an LRT line, or an Expressway. Way to go! Perfect way to think about the future demands of the area which you serve, I'm sure your consituants will just love the new highway running right through town!
Strictly speaking, that's not legal either. However, people selling batteries are most likely not potential terrorists; they're merely a nuisance. Therefore not a lot of effort is devoted to stopping them.
Mind you, I'm not sure that the rule against photography would pose that much of an obstacle to the determined terrorist anyway. Nevertheless, that's the rationale. You aren't allowed to take photos at international borders either, for similar reasons.
People taking photographs are most likely not potential terrorists, nor are they usually a nuisance.
People taking photographs are most likely not potential terrorists, nor are they usually a nuisance.
Alright, let me make it clearer. There's no plausible connection at all between selling batteries and being a terrorist. If anything, there's a negative correlation (a terrorist is unlikely to be wasting his time selling batteries to "infidels"). It is, however, plausible, however remotely, that a terrorist would want to take photographs of a potential target.
Jeez.
Jeez.
Not that I want to be on the "wrong side" here but don't want to see someone getting a ticket for this crap either because one part of the law is well known while the other tends to be overlooked.
Who knows, maybe the latest policy changes aren't for security but to contribute to the ticket blitz. If this is indeed their new policy I have failed to see anything posted anywhere. How does the average tourist know they have to get permission? When they get a ticket for it?
I've given up trying to comprehend the rise in terrorism fears. As we get closer to the 2-year anniversary of 9/11, there have been precisely zero additional terrorist attacks in the United States and precisely zero credible threats thereof. al-Qaeda is being systematically dismantled and more and more of its leaders are being captured or exterminated. In a rational world, we'd be breathing a big sigh of relief and putting the Depends back on the shelves. Yet people seem to be getting more and more frightened of additional attacks, and the government overreacts as usual. I'd like to know how long it's going to take for these overblown worries to end. Five years? Ten years? When the last person with living memory of 9/11 kicks the bucket?
Probably about that time we'll have a "safe" subway.
(P.S. The case is same as saying that the economy in Hong Kong won't get better until the Chief Executive, Tung Chee Hwa, is retired or dismissed. Could you see any logic in this?)
as soon as you do, we will get hit again
Part of the reason there has been no addtional attacks is that the govenment shut down many of the easy routes.
As much as it is an inconvience to not be able to take photo's, Terrorists could easily take photo's to use to plan an engagement
You need to open your eyes to see this
I am concerned about the vulnerability of mass transit, but I am not sure sure that a ban on photography poses much of an obstacle to the would-be attacker. A very slight obstacle, perhaps, but one that could be overcome quite easily.
the problem is that the infrastructure pre 9/11 was public knowledge
Pictures could illustrate where CCTB camera's are, where electical boxes, vents etc
An evil mind could use it to thier advantage.
Is it a major hardship not to take pictures at certain stations.
In the grand scheme of things it is not. I am sorry to say that no-one is going to die if us railfans don't get pictures in the subway.
Not ban it per se, but consider it "suspicious activity" and detain the person. Remember, folks; if you see anyone with a note pad on the subway, especially if the carrier of the pad looks like he recently shaved off a beard, call (800) NYC-SAFE and report it. We must be vigilant in these difficult times or something like that.
Oh Great!!! Now detain every kid who is cramming for a test on his way to school and make him miss the test.. Or doing homework on the train like I used to do ;-)
Jotting down arrival and departure times has been specifically cited as potential terrorist activity. Best not be caught with a timetable...
If this is New York today, sorry ... I'm too well to attend. :(
Not only suspicious activity but also you'd know when your train was late something the TA doesn't want you to know. So throw it under "terrorist activity" to try preserve their creative record keeping.
There is a 1976 color code somewhere on this website.
It's a great excuse! :) I can see it already: "You were arrested for doing your homework on the train? It served you right; it's called homework because you're supposed to do it at home."
Ah crap I knew I shouldn't have shaved this morning.
But where do you draw the line? How long is it going to be before nobody is allowed to be a tourist in this country? Yes, security is important but so is freedom, and the line has to be drawn somewhere before all freedoms, hobbies and pastimes become illegal like in some communist dictatorship?
Under that train of logic, noone will "die" if they can't go to the beach, and if someone calls in tomorrow and says they have in their posession a nuclear sub and threaten to detonate it causing a devastating tidal wave, then will they no longer allow anyone to go to the beach? Security's purpose is to PROTECT freedom, not ELIMINATE it.
Try reading the Constitution of the United States. It has some specific lines the government can't step over. Banning photography on the property of public agencies isn't one of them.
(Closing the barn door after all the horses have escaped) - for those who didn't know what I meant.
"We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages,
colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning
to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress
like the tube. You eat like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is
mass madness -- you maniacs! In God's name you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.
"So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them
off. Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!!"
-- Howard Beale, as played by Peter Finch, during his live studio broadcast of the Network News Hour
So, are we mad as hell an not going to take this anymore? :)
Filmed in 1987 or 1988 in and around NYC its a lousy love story.
I turned it on and Scott Baio is on a subway kissing his girlfriend in a very passionate kiss.....The camera pulls back and......its an
R-17 because of the round storm door window.
The trains stops at Spring Street and most of the people get off....They are alone until they get off at 59th Street.
BEST OF ALL------ As the train left the station, it looked like they got off of---------------- # 6688.
In another scene they get off of # 6620.
There is another scene filmed at the GCT shuttle terminal. Another redbird car pulls out. Couldn't catch the number but it had its GOH since those numbers were up by the roof. 6688 & 6620 were pre-GOH because the numbers were at the bottom of the cab windows.
Anyone see this flick? Anyone got a DVD of it to check out if indeed
6688 was in it.
Depending on weather and volunteer availability this is what is needed to be done.
1. - Complete the second side
2. - Prime and paint the ends. Very labor intensive and slow since you have to work on ladders rather than from the high-level platforms and the curves and crevices will not allow you to use wide roller brushes.
3. - Remove, sand, prime and paint and re-attach the pantograph gates.
4. - Reattach the number boards.
5. - The inside needs some painting and sanding. The fan covers must be removed and washed, maybe repainted.
6. - The light covers should be unscrewed and cleaned with windex.
7. - Removal of all materials, followed by a washing and mopping of the car.
8. - Waxing of the floor with Mop'n'Glow or some similar product, unless somebody has one of those professional floor waxing machines and wants to donate some time.
If you want to volunteer some time and elbow grease that would be appreciated. Contact Stef or Thurston privately by e-mail to arrange a date. They can also help arrange a carpool if you need a ride.
I'm planning the following trip:
BOS-NYP Chinatown Bus $10
NYP-NYP NYCTA, $1.50
NYP-TRE NJ Transit, $12
TRE-PHL SEPTA, $5
PHL-HBG (This is the section I need)
HBG-SCE I think I'm going to drive this part
Emphasis is on the "cheap", since I cannot afford airfare at $1,000 BOS-SCE... Amtrak fare at BOS-LEW is $147, so it'll still be cheaper if I commuter rail it..
AEM7902
NYCT fares are now either $2.00 or $1.67, depending on how you pay -- not $1.50.
But you can get from NYP to NYP for $0.00: just stand still. I don't think there's a charge for that yet, but I may have missed the announcement.
Sure, walk from Penn Station/IRT stop to Penn Station/IND stop. Cost: ZILCH
AEM7
AEM7
$150.00
Almost as much as Amtrak at $174, and Amtrak would take me to Lewistown, which is closer to where I needed to go...
AEM7
Otherwise, Susquehanna Trailways runs some service from PABT to a whole host of little central PA towns. See:
http://www.susquehannabus.com/routes.html
No info on fares at their website, though.
CG
AFAIK there's no equivalent bus to get to Harrisburg though. Personally I'd take the Chinatown bus Boston-NY, then take a direct Greyhound for NY-Harrisburg ($55 round-trip).
When the IRT was built, were there lines anywhere in New York built to what we now call "B Division" standards, that the IRT could reasonably have emulated? Or was the BMT the first in New York to use the 10-foot wide, 60-foot long, cars? If so, what prompted this?
(As an aside, the argument against A Division standards is that the cars hold fewer people than B Division cars. But the original IRT stations were only 5 cars long. That decision, more than the width/length of the cars, is what handicapped the IRT—prompting the subsequent station-lengthening program not all that many years later. The decision to build 5-car stations—long since rectified—stands out as a whole lot more short-sighted than the decision to follow the standard of the elevated lines that already existed.)
IINM, the Cobble Hill tunnel illustrates the small loading gauge of the LIRR in days of yore.
Larry, RedbirdR33
--Mark
AFAIK, you are wrong. IINM, the Lexington and demolished half of the Myrtle Els were A Division clearances until their closure. It was only the Dual Contracts and later portions which were wide.
No, because there was a plank beneath the door which would ride above the platforms from Broadway south, but would fill the gap from Central north.
Anyway, it's not exactly a huge deal - 6 inches. LU has gaps like that and no-one cares.
At the time of the dual contracts, all of the BRT elevated
lines were built for the 8.5' loading gauge. The move to
10' wide, 67' long cars was a departure. Everything about
the dual contracts reflected a new standard of rapid transit
design, which, as another poster noted, emerged from the earlier
"Tri-Boro" plan.
None of the elevated lines could accept the new 10' steels (later
to be called "ABs" or "Standards". Recall that at Queens(boro)
Plaza, steel cars from the Broadway subway and 60 St river
tubes had to terminate (at the northerly platforms which were
demolished in 1949). BMT customers could transfer to the
BMT's el car shuttle which ran on both Corona and Astoria lines,
which were both narrow loading gauge.
In the late 1920s, a program of rebuilding some of the BMT elevated
lines to subway (10') loading gauge was undertaken. After the
rebuilding, 10' wide AB class cars, C types (which were rebuilt
wooden el cars) and Multis handled the service on these
wide lines, while the old narrow wooden cars solidered on over
the un-rebuilt portions.
What sources have the accurate information, and where can I obtain them?
722 miles page 160 Chapter 6 The Dual Contracts
..."Moreover, the IRT and BRT tunnels had different dimensions. Years earlier the BRT had adopted a design for an elevated car- sixty-seven feet long, ten feet wide- corresponding to the standards of steam railroads; these specifications were larger than the IRT's. Because the BRT's dual contract lines would combine new subways with its old els, the tunnels had to be big enough to accommodate the el trains, and so the company retained the old specifications."...
Thanks for the recommendation.
--Mark
To my recollection of the literature, BRT trains were also 5 cars long. IIRC, both the Brighton and the Sea Beach ran 5 cars trains. And the train involved in the Malbone wreck was a 5 car train. So it is not the number of cars that handicapped the IRT vs. the BMT, but indeed it was and is car width.
You read too much into "handicapped." In terms of capacity, the decision to make the stations initially 5-cars in length, and not the width of the cars, turns out to be far more short-sighted. I don't think the IRT car width actually "handicapped" the IRT in competition with the BMT.
In the context of how the thread started—which was design mistakes—the original platform lengths take the palm. The IRT subway opened in 1904, and by 1910 many of the station platforms had to be lengthened. If any station built today required such significant modification just six years after opening, we would have no hesitation in describing that as an example of short-sighted design. And they kept lengthening them, through the end of the 1940s. I don't know why they finally stopped at 10 cars, although according to AIM the platforms at 42nd/Grand Central are now as long as they could physically be without compromising the buildings up above. A consequence of the problem is that City Hall Station couldn't be saved, and that South Ferry now needs to be rebuilt.
In contrast, I don't see any particular error in IRT subway car widths. The cars were simply the widths of the elevated lines the IRT was already operating. Probably most railroads, when expanding, would stick to the standards of what they already had. This is the sensible thing to do. If you wanted to expand capacity on the IRT lines today, reconfiguring Flatbush Terminal and Rogers Junction would give you more bang for the buck than widening the tunnels to B Division standards.
But when the IRT started to plan its subway, and decided its train width, was that not *before* IRT had taken over the elevated railways company?
Why stop at 10 cars? Presumably because that's how long expresses were from the start. Extending express platforms is very expensive.
As for Flatbush, the terminal configuration limits service on the Nostrand branch but not on the rest of the IRT. It's not a system bottleneck.
According to Joe Brennan's site, the 86th and 96th St stations were extended in 1959. He says that Spring St and Bleecker St were lengthened in 1948. The Brooklyn Bridge expansion, surely one of the more complicated ones, was completed in 1962, at which point Worth St was closed. BB is the only example I've found (among those Brennan talks about) that went into the 1960s.
As for Flatbush, the terminal configuration limits service on the Nostrand branch but not on the rest of the IRT. It's not a system bottleneck.
But service is constrained by how quickly trains can turn at the terminals. (The IRT also has the Rogers problem, and fixing one probably isn't much good without fixing the other.)
Rogers, OTOH, is the bottleneck on the entire mainline West Side IRT.
The two problems are independent.
Repairing Flatbush would permit more service to Flatbush, Newkirk, Beverly, Church, Winthrop, Sterling, and President.
Repairing Rogers (or reorganizing service patterns through Rogers) would permit more service to Franklin, Eastern Parkway, GAP, Bergen, Atlantic, Nevins, Hoyt, Borough Hall, Clark, Wall, Fulton, Park Place, Chambers, 14th, 34th, 42nd, 72nd, 96th, 110th, 116th, 125th, 135th, 145th, and 148th.
You can guess which one I consider a higher priority.
Actually it was a politically calculated move on Belmont's behalf, to prevent his IRT from being used by freight trains at night (in the days before trucks were commonplace).
However, the perpetuation of the el car dimensions to the new subway was not necessary. The IRT elevateds rarely shared trackage with the elevated subway lines (mostly on the original contract I IRT el in the Bronx and the Jerome Ave line) and the BMT consistently ran "A" dimension cars on "B" divison structures.
I thought he wanted to keep buses out, not trucks.
This was still the day of the great railroad tycoons. Belmont was afraid that one of the railroads would try to take over his railroad and he wanted to make sure their rolling stock would not fit in his tunnels.
Tom
What's going on? Skipping a station at all times is unusual, and normally there would be a pretty significant rehab to justify it.
Is it a full rehab, or just the minimal stuff (platform stripes, MVMs, and the like)?
Incidentally, I'd love to see 168th St fully restored to its former splendor. Along with City Hall, it's one of the wonders of the original IRT, but in rather shabby condition at the moment.
The platforms at the two affected stations are temporarily walled off from the track.
I don't think 168th is currently planned for rehab, but the rehab at 191st is underway.
Peace,
ANDEE
Peace,
ANDEE
Numerous weekends in Brooklyn that the 2 and 3 are STILL running express between Franklin and Atlantic Aves. And plenty of weekends on the Brighton line on the horizon with the embankment local stations getting a rehab.
I have never seen one like this. Anyone have an idea as to where it might have bene used?
I don't quite get the reference "E" on top of the arrow. The E never went to the Bronx.
Before I commit a bid (and eventually lose to ebayer "almondjoy") I want to see if I can find out what I can about the sign.
An unlinked url??????
How did the html police miss this post?????????
*Elliott Smith - Bled White
So I wait for the F train...
*Yo La Tengo - Cone Of Silence
Just like the F train, you're not waiting.
Just like the F train, there'll always be an F train.
You're my F train. I don't know just why.
*Mike Doughty - Thank You Lord For Sending Me the F Train
Then there's Le Tigre's "My My Metrocard". These lines may have been inspired by a late night (2) train ride:
(Next stop) Atlantic Avenue
(Next stop) Christopher Street
(Next stop) Transfer to the
(Next stop) A, C, or E.
What are the NYCT references in your music?
Yeeeeee Haaaaaaaa!!!!
I seem to remember a video by Ricky Scaggs called "I'm just a country boy, country boy at heart"
Almost the entire video takes place on the NYC subway.
mark
And you know it is about the NYC subway as he lived in the city around the time he wrote that alblum.
And if you want to extend it to NYC bus operations, the same alblum contains "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street".
Jimmy
There was this Cypress Hill video that had a scene on what looked like a R42.
Wyclef Jean and Mary J. Blige's "911" features a scene of a F train entering Smith-9 Sts at night
There was also a video for some song by Maxwell that shows a F train entering Avenue X.
Can't think of any others...
You are describing the video "How I Could Just Kill A Man" by Cypress Hill. Good one there. I have another one. "Playground" by Another Bad Creation( ABC) was filmed on an R32 or R42. There was another video filmed on an R68 N train on the Astoria Line and some scenes at Astoria Blvd, but can't recall the name of the song or the female artist. Another video-hip hop, "Working On The Train( or Chain) was filmed on GOH redbirds and pre-scrapped R27, R30, R17, and R22. And to top it off, New Kids On The Block filmed "Please Don't Go Girl" on white R17's and R22's and some scenes with GOH redbirds on either the White Plains Road or Woodlawn Line. My sister had their Hangin' Tough posters with them possing at the Transit Museum on the R17, R11, and an actual green R10 used just for this photo shoot.
Jimmy
Hey, the LP got to #8 in the Swiss metal charts in 1991.
"You're In Love" by Ratt (Opening line "You take the midnight subway train...You're calling all the shots")
"Morning Final" by Blue Oyster Cult (It even includes the sound of a subway train pulling into a station as the song fades at the end)
"Everybody Wants Some!" by Van Halen (It opens with the line "You can't get romantic on a subway line")
That's all I can think of at the moment. The subways mentioned in the above songs could be in any city, but everytime I hear them, I think of New York, especially "You're In Love" by Ratt, because back in 1986, which was around the time that song came out, I went on my first trip to NYC, and while I was railfanning the subways one day, that song kept playing in my head.
I must admit I have wondered if even some non-F riders like walking
around with a big orange circle on their chests with the big "F" on
it.
But you all hit on my key attraction to the subways, not the equipment, but the culture. Having subways and all of their excitement as well as frustration, plus the purely everyday, is
something that unites us as New Yorkers. It's a commonality.
I like that!
The "Brownstone" areas of Brooklyn along the F are one of the few parts of the city outside Manhattan that attract people from other parts of the United States (as opposed to elsewhere in the world). Young musicians and artists cannot afford Manhattan, and thus end up living in these neighborhoods in large numbers. They move to areas they hear about from others like themselves, and are unaware of what life is like in other neighborhoods.
However, "Brownstone Brooklyn" has gotten very expensive. Might hear more songs about the "L" in the future.
You're right, that the L is servicing the "newer generation artist transplants." But so far, the L is not even close to the most popular shirt.
When I started my clothing line, most people thought that no one would want to wear a shirt saying anything about the "dirty, smelly,
crime-ridden subways!" I like to think my shirts have been a great
P.R. tool for the MTA. Plus, they've made some real improvements in
recent years.
And the BMTman bought his L shirt because he thought it would make him look cool ;).
But the trendy like to be different just like everybody else. So they would be more likely to choose a shirt from the most uncool line. Which is?
I nominate the SIR.
J, C, 3.
--Mark
Subway grrl
Jimmy
Jimmy
After 9/11, I went to the Citystore in the Municipal Building and bought several family members NYPD and NYFD caps and t-shirts. Everyone out where they lived seemed to have T-shirts and caps, but none matched the official ones, and none came from the Citystore. They haven't mentioned any transit knockoffs yet.
Remember back in history class, where you learned that covered wagons were "The Ship of the Plains"? I suggest a transit bus T-shirt with a bus and the phrase "The Ship of the City." Maybe the covered wagon could be on the back, for those who miss the reference. One bus could represent all the bus lines.
We do want to do a bus shirt, perhaps the map.
Jimmy
It's sometimes funny to wear the shirt that corresponds to a line you're actually riding.
It's also amazing how many people have come up to me visiting other states (or countries) seeing me wear one of these shirts and they tell me, "hey, I lived at the corner of so-and-so in Queens ... I used to ride that line etc etc etc ...
--Mark
Stop making me laugh, I'm at work :)
BEHIND-THE-SCENES SIGNAL WORK IS CRITICAL STEP IN REOPENING OF EXCHANGE PLACE PATH STATION ON JUNE 29
Date: May 28, 2003
Press Release Number: 73-2003
While dozens of construction workers have worked tirelessly in high-profile jobs to install new track and switches, and lengthen and restore the platforms at PATH’s Exchange Place Station in Jersey City, Edwin Eastman, Michael Galluccio and Genaro Vincelli have labored with little fanfare.
The three men are part of the crews responsible for restoring the station’s massive signal system. Railroad signals are similar to highway traffic lights and direct a train on when it can proceed. Without a functioning signal system, trains cannot run in and out of the station.
The PATH employees have worked 12-hour days, sometimes for seven days a week, to meticulously connect 150 signal cables, which contain more than 1,000 individual wires. The wires must each be connected to terminal boards in a signal relay room at Exchange Place. Another 300 cables were connected in the refurbished and new tunnels to link the individual signals leading in and out of the station to PATH’s train control center in Jersey City.
The signal work must be done for the Exchange Place PATH Station to open on June 29. The reopened station will provide a vital first step toward the restoration of service to Lower Manhattan in November. Signal testing has begun in preparation for the station reopening.
PATH Director/General Manager Michael P. DePallo said, “The work that these men and their colleagues have done is truly remarkable. While installing signals is painstaking work, it must be done right to ensure the safety of the PATH system. We applaud these employees for their dedication and their extraordinary work efforts.”
The crews said the signal work for the project is exciting, although at times it’s been difficult working in the tunnels with other construction work going on at the same time. The three men, who are among some of the most senior employees in PATH’s signal department, volunteered for the work, viewing it as a challenge to help restore the region’s transportation network after the September 11 attacks. All of them believe that the personal sacrifice of the 12-hour, seven-day work week was something that they needed to do to get PATH up and running for the good of the region.
“This has to be one of the most unprecedented jobs we have ever done,” said Mr. Galluccio, a Monroe Township, N.J., resident and PATH employee for 22 years. “We have all worked with no breaks and short lunches, but we clearly understand the need to get this job done.”
Mr. Eastman, a 27-year PATH employee who lives in Old Bridge, N.J., has been given the task of wiring the signals in the tunnels that lead in and out of the station. When the signal crews initially began the job in mid-February and saw stacks of cables on the floor, Mr. Eastman said the task appeared overwhelming. But working with a set of detailed plans, each of the two-person teams embarked on this daunting endeavor and were able to install between 10 and 15 cables a day.
Mr. Vincelli, a 30-year PATH veteran who lives in Breezy Point, N.Y., said the new signal system is computer based and more reliable than the old one, which dates to the turn of the 20th Century.
All three men have close ties to PATH, which provides them with an added incentive to make the Exchange Place opening a success. Mr. Eastman’s father was a PATH engineer, while Mr. Vincelli and Mr. Galluccio also have family members who worked for PATH.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operates some of the busiest and most important transportation links in the region. They include John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia and Teterboro airports; the George Washington Bridge; the Lincoln and Holland tunnels; the three bridges between Staten Island and New Jersey; the PATH rapid-transit system; the Downtown Manhattan Heliport; Port Newark; the Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine Terminal; the Howland Hook Marine Terminal on Staten Island; the Brooklyn Piers/Red Hook Container Terminal; and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. The agency also owns the 16-acre World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. The Port Authority is financially self-supporting and receives no tax revenue from either state.
Also, don't feel sorry for these guys. Asside from earning heaps of overtime pay, they'll probably also accumulating a goodly number of vacation days in witch to spend in their new Yahts bought with the overtime pay.
-AcelaExpress2005 - R160
AcelaExpress2005 - R160
Some developer recently uploaded some "third rail" track sections to Train-Sim.com, andthough they are dummy sections (they won't necessarily allow a route to be electrified....for that to happen, there must be the catenary -- though it can be set to be invisible at somethingliek 1000 meters height!!)
(At least the schedules are still available in timetable format.)
Mark
Pssst! It is Staten Island!
A couple of observations -- one an annoyance and the other a bug. When you load the LIRR schedule page, there's a button for "view all schedules". This gets you to the old schedule page. If you click on the button before the entire page loads, though you get a nasty pop up box message reading "Please wait until the entire page loads before making your selection. Thank you." How rude.
Once you do get to the old schedules, there is now a snazzy MTA.info logo on the top of the page. Of course, if you click on it only the top "frame" goes back to the home page. The bottom frames are still the LIRR schedules.
If I found this one in about 30 seconds, I'm sure there are others.
CG
CG
That always bugged me. Sometimes I just want to make a polite suggestion or gently call attention to an error in the web site; by not having any way at all to contact anyone, the MTA always gave me the impression that it was afraid of me.
Mark
Paul
Remember the "SIRT: Doomed?" thread?
Well, on the
http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/subsch.htm
page, where they used to link to http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/pdf/sircur.pdf
, NOW they link to
http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/sisched.pdf
, which in fact is an OLD (summer '02) timetable!!
Looks like those twits took me literally...LOL!
ZIG
Finally! Now when will I be able to pick up a paper copy?
Maybe with those two new routes, they'll have to print an updated version.
Bill "Newkirk"
CG
Q
Manhattan-bound trains run express from
Kings Hwy to Prospect Park
Weekend, 10 PM Fri to 5 AM Mon, Jan 31 to Feb 3
It makes you wonder just how seriously do they take that website (and how capable are the people they supporting it).
But all the subway schedules were updated to the latest April 2003 ones, right? They were a little whilte ago because I downloaded them all for keeps.
Very sloppy they are.
For whatever reason they reverted back to those.
A new low.
HMMMMM let see how serious they maintain their website:
Under the 4 line strip map the 5 line strip map and the 6 line strip map all claim wheelchair access is available at 125th st, on the 4 strip map, the B78 bus is still running at East 98th st (The new B47 bus replaced the B78)
They still have interns at the MTA who can't tell the difference between the F train and F-Troop.
This is what you get when you browse with Netscape 4.x. I also get a Java Script error at most pages. If they really want the site to be "readable and accessible", they shouldn't oust older browsers. What people need is accurate information, not fancy design. In fact, now that there are people browsing with their PDA or cell phones, they should make text-only timetables available too. I also do not like the DHTML menus that directly link to pdf files. What a poor design! Must have been one of my former workplaces that did the job!:-P
I used Lynx for some time well into the late 1990's when I was still using dial-up shell accounts, and I even brag on my own web site (originally designed in the same era) that it supports Lynx. Lynx is probably still important for lots of people who are using screen readers and the like. The MTA really ought to have a separate site for them-- these people are also likely to be using mass transit. Opera should be supported too; I haven't used it lately but it has its advantages.
Actually, that has been considered. Documentation available at http://www.thehighline.org/
1. Go to www.thehighline.org
2. Click on "Designing the High Line"
3. Click on "Reclaiming the High Line Study"
4. Click on "view the study in PDF format"
There is a section of the study that explains why re-use for transit is not a practical option.
Actually, that has been considered. Documentation available at http://www.thehighline.org/ describes the insuperable problems that this would entail. There is no room for stations; it doesn't connect to anything; it doesn't really go where people want to go; and NIMBYs would be all over it.
(Sorry for the double post.)
Why BRT is a good idea.
it doesn't connect to anything
That is indeed a problem.
it doesn't really go where people want to go
If the Olympic bid is successful, that would change.
and NIMBYs would be all over it.
Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Nonsense -- elevated stations could be built at each of the major cross streets -- and if it's used for light rail, the platforms don't have to be very long.
"it doesn't connect to anything"
Well, it will connect to the #7 line extension and could be connected to the L line at 14th St.
"it doesn't really go where people want to go"
Again, nonsense. It starts at Javits Center, passes by the site of future W. Side development, goes right by Chelsea Piers, and ends near the very trendy Meatpacking District.
Ok, read the study that I just posted a link to, and then tell us how you'll solve all the problems mentioned in there.
I honestly can't think of a worse idea than running light rail over the High Line. And it ain't gonna happen.
There is no objection in the light rail section for "no room for stations" -- that is mentioned only in regard to subways. There is no mention of NIMBY objection -- that is mentioned in regard to rail passenger service (i.e., heavy rail).
Finally, the study concedes that light rail may in fact be desirable in the future, and the High Line should be rebuilt so as not to preclude light rail should it become desirable.
All in all, there is more support for, than oblection to, light rail in the study.
You're right, though. Ain't gonna happen -- primarily because of the chronic lack of vision of the MTA.
There is no objection in the light rail section for "no room for stations" -- that is mentioned only in regard to subways.
But your last post suggested connecting the High Line to the 7 and L lines. Those are subways.
Ain't gonna happen -- primarily because of the chronic lack of vision of the MTA.
The High Line is not under the MTA's jurisdiction. You need to find someone else to blame if you don't agree with the decision. It is the correct one, IMHO.
"But your last post suggested connecting the High Line to the 7 and L lines. Those are subways."
--- I don't mean a track connection to the subways - just a transfer. Light rail stations on the high line need be no longer than the wide 2-way cross streets that they would cross -23rd, 14th, etc.
"Ain't gonna happen -- primarily because of the chronic lack of vision of the MTA.
The High Line is not under the MTA's jurisdiction. You need to find someone else to blame if you don't agree with the decision. It is the correct one, IMHO."
--- Sure, but MTA could obtain jurisdiction if the political will were there.
There are more new transit projects in the hopper now than at any time in recent history. I'm not seeing the case that this one deserves serious consideration. There are probably better ways to use that space that would contribute more to the community (parkland, walking trails, street fairs, etc.).
Either this idea is too simple and logical, or it is totally crazy. You decide.
Other investments include a new loop track ($5 million) at the Corona yard in Queens to improve train movement in the yard and to enable the turning of trains, which will equalize wheel wear.
I'm glad they finally mention that, but the thing is, where can they put it?
Also, in 2000, Queens boro Pres. Claire Shumann referred to them as an "eyesore" and planned to build an mixed residental and commercial development there.
I hate the scrapyards. They give Queens a bad image. A bad image of a land full of graveyards, rail yards, smokestacks, and eyesores like this.
Anyway, I've been noticing recently that to the east of Shea, a big hole has been cleaned up and cleared. Maybe for the MTA's interests or the 'clean up' of the area?
The rear yard is going to be moved, a loop track built and 111 Tower will become no longer needed (great considering the money they just spent replacing the 111 - Main St portion of the machine and last weeks poor service): a master tower will be built in the yard controlling both the yard and mainline.
The loop track, a new barn depend on displacement of current tracks, there supposedly won't be front and rear yards anymore. No mention has been made of new tracks, but maybe just rearranging the current layout could gain some track space without using more land.
Speaking of Corona Barn, the Redbirds still dominate.
There are still about 220 Redbirds and about 100 R62As.
I predict in the coming months:
by July:
160 Redbirds
140 R62A
by October:
140 Redbirds
180 R62A
by December/January:
50 Redbirds
260 R62A
Then, GOODBYE Redbirds!!
Close Ruppert Murdoch.
This was a pro-transit move.
Pro-transit…? Removal of revenue from car-ferrying is pro-transit. That makes no sense. There isn't even revenue from passengers nowadays.
I understand why it was done. It drove up the cost of operating those huge ships.
DOT should switch to smaller more effecient boat more often to save on operating costs.
The current ferry has huge crews and don't need the huge capasity if ran more often. Plus the ride would be faster
The BARBERI sails with 15 men - a Captain, Assistant Captain, 2 Mates, 7 Deckhands, a Chief Marine Engineer, a Marine Engineer, and 2 Marine Oilers.
The AUSTEN sails with 9 men - a Captain, Assistant Captain, Mate, 4 Deckhands, a Marine Engineer, and an Oiler.
To meet the crush demands of the rush hour, you would need to run 5 AUSTEN class boats to meet the load requirement that is met by the single BARBERI. So that would mean that you would need 45 men to do the one trip that 15 men currently do.
The KENNEDY class sails with 13 men - same as the BARBERI, except one Mate and 6 Deckhands. You'd have to sail two KENNEDY class boats to make one BARBERI run. So that's 26 men.
And remember, that's only one run. What will you do with the 7:40 and 8:00 from SI and the 4:40 and 5:00 from NY - that have historicly had the largest run and largest loads (nearly 6,000)? Run smaller boats every five minutes?
It was a common sense move immediately after the Whitehall terminal fire. It was either load 3000+ pedestrians or 90 cars per boat.
It has been a "security" issue after 9/11.
Jimmy
It sounds as though the temporary PATH station may not be as customer friendly as some might like, so the ferry may have even more aesthetic value than usual.
I don't think the Ferries have much to worry about from Secaucus transfer, though. Those passengers are likely headed to midtown. PATH should be concerned about their Hoboken-33rd service, though.
CG
I'm trying to figure out how your gonna pay for that tractor trailer load of Depends. Win Lotto lately ?
Bill "Newkirk"
ZIG
The taller ones get Nurse Diesel.
:0)
In that case I will be driving to Staten Island over the VZ bridge just so I park there and take the ferry to work in Manhattan :-]
FERRY HIGH SECURITY - ANTI-TERROR RULES TO PUT AIRPORT-LIKE SCANNERS AT TERMINALS
New York Post; New York, N.Y.; Jun 2, 2003; CLEMENTE LISI Transit Reporter;
Words in Document: 363
Available Formats:
Buy Full Text
Abstract:
Ferry passengers citywide - including tens of thousands of Staten Island riders - will have to go through metal detectors next year as part of a new federal law that aims to tighten security aboard commuter and tour boats, The Post has learned.
With more than 70,000 riders a day on the Staten Island Ferry, riders - including 20,000 during the morning ...
It'll be hell. I recently had jury duty and it took them about 2 hours to get the small amount of people into the building.
We need large x-rays scanners like in Total Recall for crap like this so several people can be examined at once. With todays technology its not even going to be fun to watch.
Of course at this point I must defend my own 'Sea Bits' and mention that passengers carried per weekday is the ONE AND ONLY way the SI Ferry is the largest ferry operation in the country. Washington State Ferries is, in any other respect, the largest ferry operator in the country, but at 40,667 riders on a weekday, falls short of SI ferry's 60,000 some riders.
However, WSF beats SIFerry on both weekend days, with 47,960 (yes, up from the weekdays, WSF actually goes somewhere people WANT to go, you should see the car lines at Mukilteo and Anacortes) and 39,410 passengers on Saturday and Sunday respectively, this compared to 31,069 on both saturday and sunday (odd, don't you think?). WSF operates a bigger fleet with larger Dead Weight Tonnage vessels (okay, they don't carry as many pax, a Jumbo MKII only makes 2500 pax, with 218 cars, but knock out the car decks and you easily have 7000pax), over more routes, covering greater annual mileage. Plus, you can't compare Puget Sound with the Olympics to the east and glittering Seattle CBD to the east to the industrial squalor of Upper New York Harbor, no matter what french chick you stick on an island!
Oh yeah, and nowhere on WSF or WSDoT's websites could I find even the slightest mention of metal detectors anywhere near the vessels. I suppose with all the cars on the boats, passengers are kind of seen as a secondary threat. I'm fairly certain that they do checks of cars while those cars wait for the ferries, there are most of the time large holding lots, or dedicated parking lanes for the ferry traffic, which makes vehicle checking very easy.
Photo of the M/V Wenatchee, a Jumbo MKII vessel, and is located at the Evergreenfleet.com
The USCG inspects each of the boats on an annual basis. Then then issue a Certificate of Inspection. If you don't comply with their rules, they hold the COI. No COI, you can't operate.
Chip
even the ones to Fire Island
Why are the Fire Island ferries exempted? I can just see it being implemented on the Balboa ferry in Newport Beach, CA. [Note: The link site is sometimes unresponsive with NS. You may have to use IE]
Tom
Two short high-level platforms have been constructed for the use of employees. Several new non-electrified tracks have been constructed on the east side of the mainline. That is on the right-of-way of the former Putnam Division. These tracks run north for about a mile or so to the vicinity of the Washington Bridge. (The old one not the G & MW). So the old PUT will see trains again.
Larry, RedbirdR33
Jimmy
-Stef
Jimmy
-Stef
The WF cars are kept as work cars.
The WF Cars are something different.
-Stef
Jimmy
1. Why was this station closed?
2. When was this station demolished?
3. What was the name of this station?
As always, thanks in advance for your answers.
-Adam
(enynova5205@aol.com)
1985
2. When was this station demolished?
shortly thereafter
3. What was the name of this station?
Elmhurst
I think Stephen saw a "When" where there was a "Why". If I remember correctly, the answer to Why was -- like many other LIRR closings -- a combination of very low ridership and the need for major station repairs.
CG
Also the staion was called Broadway folks, the neighbourhood was Elmhurst, but the street and the station was called Broadway.
R-32.
R-32.
R-32.
I think a choice is a good thing, as long as enough folks choose the railroad to make it worth maintaining the station.
What about Woodside? (Not saying that's a reason to get rid of either Flushing or Woodside -- both stations more than justify their existence).
Are you seriously suggesting that to get from Flushing to Port Washington I first board a train towards the City? I can imagine the protests...
Not saying that's a reason to get rid of either Flushing or Woodside -- both stations more than justify their existence
:-D
In the same 45 minutes the bus gets me from Baldwin to Jamaica I can be in Penn Station (at a much higher price, of course). Yep, it's still a bus.
I can easily understand that. If you had a job close enough to Penn Station that you could walk to it, and a salary that could support the higher commutation cost it might be worth it to get on the train at Kew Gardens or Flushing. Both would give you a quicker ride in. Would be more appealing at night for women and others squeamish about taking the subway late.
I remember Elmhurst station well. Over 20 years of so the surrounding neighborhood developed a higher population density. Strange how that increased population base didn't result in a larger ridership. Possibly because while the neighborhood densified the income level remained static or even declined. Once or twice I purposely rode a train from there out to Murray Hill and also to Little Neck. Just to get a feel for how a intra-city "super express" service could work. And taking it to Little Neck avoiding the more egalitarian standard fare modes did induce a mild sense of, uh, "the elite lifestyle".
I worked in Penn Plaza for a few years. There were a number of people who lived in Forest Hills and go office-to-couch in about 25 minutes if they timed the elevators correctly. (Meanwhile I was living on the Upper East Side, paying ghastly rent and taking a 3 subway ride and 3 avenue walk commute for 55 minutes each way)
CG
Nice take of the end to end trip designation! Should be on the census forms as a description of commutation time. Office-to-couch is the best way to consider it. And 25 minutes is a wonderful commute. By express subway from Forest Hills even, you're not gonna beat the LIRR. It's at the top of the food chain, starting with car, bus, local subway, express subway and LIRR "super el". Nice concurrence of multi-node transit multiplexing! I love that stuff...
Maybe it should be phrased "a cheaper ride or a faster way into the city."
Well...Queens and Brooklyn are part of Long Island.
Peace,
ANDEE
How else could they be part of Long Island?
BTW, I already know Queens and Brooklyn are on LI!!!!!!
The name of the station was always called Elmhurst. Broadway was further out where the line reached Northern Blvd.
1) Closed, to allow a shorter running time (faster schedule) for trains on the line, with passengers referred to Broadway or Main Street instead?
2) Kept as is, with a little paint and new tactile strips?
3) Rebuilt with full length platforms and ADA compliance? That station's rehab would probably involve switchback ramps similar to Bayside's, and the rehab might run anywhere from $10-20 million or more.
Switchback ramps sometimes seem like a very poor attempt at ADA compliance. The ones at Forest Hills LIRR are the most unwieldy I can think of -- I suspect the only folks who could make it up those ramps without assistance are the people who compete in the wheelchair marathons.
CG
Check out Bayside, which, in my opinion, was very nicely done.
I've never been to Murray Hill -- but from the pictures it appears to be an open cut more in the mold of a Brighton line station -- concrete walls on both sides. That seems like a limitation to safely add ramps. I just can't envision how you could add a winding ramp without taking up too much space on the platform.
Of course, it does look like they could put an island platform in at Murray Hill and solve the ramp issue with one ADA elevator down from the street. But then you have to figure in considerably higher maintenance expense in your cost/benefit versus just closing the station.
CG
1. That station was closed simply because of low patronage. I can't ever recall anyone boarding or alighting there. I've known that station since I was a kid; since the '80s.
2. That station was demolished around '84, '85. I went through there again, looked up, and suddenly it wasn't there anymore.
3. The station was simply called 'Broadway'.
In junior high, my school buses used to take that way. They would leave Whitney Ave. from Elmhurst, cross under the tracks, and then hang a right on So. Railroad Av. on the way 51st Av. across Queens Blvd. This path would make the Broadway station obvious. This is why I know the area intimately. Oh...uh, that and the fact that I used to walk the tracks from the Bay Ridge Conrail line, across Queens Blvd. into Elmhurst. I used to go to Junior High School 73 in Maspeth.
R-32.
http://www.timesnewsweekly.com/NewFiles/OURNEIGH.html
There is a great photo of the skeleton of the El and the old ground level Forest Ave station, which was on the other side of Forest Avenue from where it is now. A current view of this picture is in the station photo section of this site. Another photo is there showing a little tower (what was that for?) Finally, another photo from the opposite direction and it seems Fairview Avenue had yet to be cut through.
The text is also very interesting. The ROW was given back and forth between "heavy Rail" and trolley many times. They failed to mention it, but originally what would become the M line was a "dummy" steam Railroad, then it became a trolley line, then it became a surface continuation Myrtle El, and finally when the el was extended, it went back to a trolley line.
Unfortunately, I haven't a clue where your trolley photo is....great photo though!
By the way, it's easy to link, but I hope people would not be scared to post a link at this site, just because they don't know the codes. By all means share your links! Look what we could miss if someone is scared to post.
But anyway, here's the codes for those that want them, just replace ( ) with < >
(a href="http://www.whatever.the.link.is.com")TEXT YOU WANT IT TO SAY(/a)
The only spaces are between "a" and "href" and your text can have spaces.
Possible proof that some of Stephen Bauman's ideas are good ones. He did say in a recent post that you could cut the time required to bring a southbound express train into Union Square after the previous one departed if you modified the signals.
Such proof would be even more tenuous than your proof that 28 tph is the max service level for the Lex.
$2 million per gap filler. Something's being filled and it isn't the gap. :-)
I have not timed the northbound expresses.
There are no gap fillers on the nortbhound platform.
Let's see the Canarsie CBTC project consists of 23 track miles and costs $137 million. That comes to $5.96 million per mile. The Union Square express platform is 510 feet long. So, a ballpark figure for resignalling the Union Sq platform should be around $575,000. We already know that the Canarsie project is more expnesive than a simple conventional system, so we are being overly generous.
How would you estimate the cost for a block signal system?
Then, I would agree that cost is more likely to be proportional to distance. However, there could be other factors—e.g., if service constraints imposed by the track layout required more of the work to be done at hours when overtime needs to be paid.
This was the case with the 63rd Street Connector, because the work was done on weekends and at night over seven years. In addition, temporary diversion tunnels were created, to allow rail service to continue unimpeded, which required signaling as well.
Let's examine Eas Side Access for a moment: The first section of tunnel, from 2nd Av/63rd Street to Queensbridge (lower level) was built as part of the $898 million 63rd Street subway extension. This included tunnel lighting but no tracks, power, signaling or stations on the LIRR level.
The ESA project, as budgeted by MTA, costs $4.3 billion. Completing the tunnels into Sunnyside and into GCT only costs $150 million (the value of the contracts signed and executed to do this work). So what is most of the billions of dollars going to? I'm guessing that the new terminal and Sunnyside Station together will not be a billion dollars, so what's left? Answer: ventilation plants (already in place, actually), tracks, power and signaling. I'm going to venture the guess that signaling is the single most expensive component in a passenger rail system.
This was the case with the 63rd Street Connector, because the work was done on weekends and at night over seven years. In addition, temporary diversion tunnels were created, to allow rail service to continue unimpeded, which required signaling as well.
The other point is that, when work is limited to off-peak hours, time is lost setting up the equipment at the beginning of the shift, and then breaking it all down again in time for service to be restored. Compare that to the renovation currently being done at uptown #1/9 local stations, where they just close the platform for several weeks straight, and get the job done relatively quickly. It's much less expensive where you have the flexibility to do that.
If the Canarsie Line signaling is $6 million per mile of 2 tracks, that should be a good figure for the simple parts of the line. If Union Square is $10 million for 500 feet of 2 tracks, that's a good estimate for the complex part of the line near GCT and near Sunnyside where it merges with the main LIRR. So complex track signaling might run $10K per foot.
So we have about 4 simple miles at $6 million per mile and maybe 20,000 feet of complex track, for a total of $224 million.
Still a total guess. But it's hard to believe signaling for ESA could cost $1 billion.
The Canarsie Line resignalling comes to $136 million; there are 23 TRACK miles. That comes to $6 million per mile of SINGLE track.
However, $24 million isn't much difference relative to the $1 billion+ in question with ESA.
One comparison might be the PATH WTC reconstruction. The money there made no sense either, based on the workforce they had there. Then the PA issued a more detailed press release, and it turned out that all sorts of other things were lumped in.
That may be the case with ESA too. They are certainly lumping in the new MNRR yard facilities in the Bronx so that LIRR can have space at GCT. Who knows what else they're tossing in? Could there be new rolling stock?
Arti
The Canarsie Line signal installation is under the same constraints regarding overtime pay. It involves work in tunnels which is more expensive than work in stations. Moreover, the Canarsie installation is actually installing dual systems - one CBTC based and a full backup block system. Therefore, using the total cost of the Canarsie rehabilitation as the base for a pre mile cost should overestimate what the costs of a simple block system with no switches and construction within a station area should be.
Thus, I'd assume you should be comfortable with my estimate for the Union Sq signal rehab should be in the 1/2 million dollar range.
I'd assume you should be comfortable with my estimate for the Union Sq signal rehab should be in the 1/2 million dollar range.
No. For one thing, don't forget the premise of your question. You said: "We're agreed that the presence of switches raises costs. Suppose there were no switches - how would you estimate the cost?
I said that in that case, cost is more likely to be proportional to distance. But the factual predicate of your question—absence of switches—is not the case at Union Squre. (I can't be positive, but I'm assuming the switches just north and south of the station are part of the project.)
The other problem is that costs undoubtedly are not proportional when one side of the ratio is a small number. In this case, you're comparing 23 track-miles to a 510-foot platform (a 238:1 ratio), and the analogy surely breaks down. There's a diseconomy of scale when you look at just one station in isolation, compared to re-signalling an entire line.
The signalling plant in the vicinity of a station is more complex than the signallying plant on average throughout the system. Over the 23 track-miles of the Canarsie line, this evens out. When you focus on just one platform—and that for one of the more complex stations due to the presence of gap fillers and grade timers that prevent excessive speeds around the curve the station is built on—calculation by ratios probably doesn't produce an accurate estimate.
Which switches just south of the station? Remember this project is scoped as being for only the southbound express. I'm also assuming that this project will not involve the switch north of the station for the following reason. It will be used to divert trains around the express platform while work is in progress.
The other problem is that costs undoubtedly are not proportional when one side of the ratio is a small number. In this case, you're comparing 23 track-miles to a 510-foot platform (a 238:1 ratio), and the analogy surely breaks down. There's a diseconomy of scale when you look at just one station in isolation, compared to re-signalling an entire line.
The signalling plant in the vicinity of a station is more complex than the signallying plant on average throughout the system. Over the 23 track-miles of the Canarsie line, this evens out. When you focus on just one platform—and that for one of the more complex stations due to the presence of gap fillers and grade timers that prevent excessive speeds around the curve the station is built on—calculation by ratios probably doesn't produce an accurate estimate.
You are worried about a quantization problem. I concede that an estimate based on the number of blocks might be more esthetically pleasing. However, such data is not available.
Consider the Canarsie Line. It has 23 track miles, 24 stations, 6 bumpers, 6 interlockings, grade timers under the river and at Bway-Jct and 4 sharp curves. If we asssume that each of the stations has 4 blocks; each of the bumpers has 3 blocks; each interlocking has 8 blocks, each grade has 10 blocks and each curve has 3 blocks, then this comes to 226 blocks without any blocks between stations. This makes the average block size for the line to be approximately 537 feet. This essentially means that one block has been captured by going pro rata on distance.
Next, consider the working conditions for the Canarsie Line. Only 4.5 of the 23 track miles are within stations. Working between stations means greater setup time, more space constrictions, poorer lighting, etc. I'd guess that workers are 50% as productive in tunnels than in the station. That brings the average labor cost up to 180% of the cost had all the work been done in stations.
Finally, the Canarsie system will be two systems at roughly twice the cost for a single system. Assuming that and the increased labor costs of not working exclusively within the confines of a station, that comes to 3.6 times the cost. Assume that labor accounts for 80% of the installation and equipment accounts for 20%. That means the overall cost base for the Canarsie System over one for the southbound express platform at Union Sq would be 308% greater.
They are not putting more than 3 blocks within the station. So, the $537K estimate is still reasonable. I'll concede 10 or 20 percent error but not an order of magnitude. Union Sq is not 2 Broadway. :-)
It is, assuming you've identified all of the right variables, and you've assigned the correct significance to each. Is that the case? I wonder....
I'm waiting for your estimate and accompanying methodology. How much should it cost and why?
If I understood RonInBayside, the MTA estimated the whole project at $10 million. At this point, I've seen no reason to doubt that that is correct.
Thanks, I'll try to remember that.
I just tried that for the Canarsie project. That comes to 1 signal every 35 feet. With the MTA are you sure that isn't $10,000 per toilet stall? :-)
The $10K/bulb figure applies to wayside block signal systems
only. Obviously that metric would low-ball a moving block system.
How about per signal replaced?
I just rode some of the L line and it appears to have one signal every 500', with now exceptions on the piece I rode. So that makes about 250 signals. Plus another 50 for a separate crude block system allowing 15 minute headways.
That implies each signal costs $450,000!
On the southbound Lex at 14th there are far more signals than 1 per 500'. I count 9 signals between 18th St and 13th St. on the express track. If there are an equal number on the local track, we get
(18 signals) x ($450,000 per signal) = $8 million.
So the $10 million price tag for Union Square is roughly "reasonable" when compared to the Canarsie Line.
I still don't understand how each signal can cost $450,000, I admit.
The costs would include cables, power and the tower equipment that reflects what the signals show and allow controllers to throw switches.
But you ask a very good question. Would you mind asking that question of a company making railroad signals and see if they'll give you a general idea on the matter?
Mr. Jeff H. suggested $10K per light. So a 3 aspect signal would be $30K.
I just rode some of the L line and it appears to have one signal every 500', with now exceptions on the piece I rode. So that makes about 250 signals.
Did you ride it and count or is that just an estimate? Remember, I came up with 226 signals for the line. If you made an accurate count, then I'm within a 20% error margin.
That implies each signal costs $450,000!
Well, I came up with $537K for a single signal based on a distance of 500 feet out of 23 track miles. Again, we are both using the Canarsie CBTC project as our cost basis.
On the southbound Lex at 14th there are far more signals than 1 per 500'. I count 9 signals between 18th St and 13th St. on the express track. If there are an equal number on the local track, we get
(18 signals) x ($450,000 per signal) = $8 million.
We part company here. I read Ron's description as pertaining only to the southbound express track and only to signals within the station. Ron wrote:" five gap fillers on the express trck at Union Square are to be replaced." There's only one express track with gap fillers at Union Sq. It would make sense that some minimal signal work would have to be done in connection with the gap filler replacement. We'll just have to wait until somebody produces a more definitive project description to resolve the difference between $8 million and $500K.
This description is on MTA's procurement listing on the MTA's website.
Of course, at least one writer here opined that gap fillers are pretty simple equipment. But for equipment that needs to be absolutely reliable hundreds of times a day, every day, without fail, I suspect it's a very different story.
Of course, at least one writer here opined that gap fillers are pretty simple equipment. But for equipment that needs to be absolutely reliable hundreds of times a day, every day, without fail, I suspect it's a very different story.
The first question was $10 million for 5 gap fillers seemed excessive - no matter what reliability criterion is set. The question was then raised as to how much the signals would cost. Estimates have ranged from under $100K (Mr. Jeff H); to $500K (myself) to $8 million (Mr. AIM). To be sure, my last post sought to point to the different assumptions that yielded such a large spread between Mr. AIM's estimate and mine.
Remember the original subway cars had doors only at the ends.
And what would be wrong with stringing up a few loudspeakers and playing the following pre-recorded message incessantly from the moment the doors open until they close:
"Mind the gap. Mind the Gap. Mind the Gap. Mind the Gap..."
You wouldn't even need the scrap metal plates for that!
Then your city really has to get with it and change its laws. In NYC if you rode between cars on a subway train and got crushed on sharp curves, you'd sue NYCT; in London, the British Transport Police would take you away to sober up, then put you before the magistrates in the morning. I think I know which I think is better.
I really don't see an announcement stating "mind the gap" to work. Maybe in London, but not here.
I'm sure the announcement at Waterloo (the Bakerloo Line Southbound platform has a huge curve to it) has only one effect - to annoy everyone - but I think in UK law it absolves LU of liability should anyone choose to ignore it.
in a city where the inhabitants not only speak, but expect everyone else to speak in, 100 different languages
An official language has advantages you see. People speak every language under the sun in London, but the official language is English, so that's all you've got to announce in. The only complication I know of in the UK is that Welsh is an official language in Wales, leading to the irritating flashing destination signs on the front of trains:
CARDIFF
Central
then...
CAERDYDD
Canolog
Peace,
ANDEE
I think the Irish call it Irish (or Erse, which is Irish for Irish!) The Scots call their version of it Gaelic - or actually "the Gaelic".
Peace,
ANDEE
Modern Irish people usually refer to it as Irish.
It isn't a dumb question, and the answer is yes. Signposts and town-limit signs on highways in Ireland are bilingual, and Dublin city buses show the destination "An Lar", which is Irish for City Centre. [Dublin is Baile atha Cliath, since you ask (8-) .]
To get back on topic, Dublin has a so-called rapid transit (DART, of course) which is really just the suburban electric rail system, but a LRT system is under construction with the first line due to open within a few months from now (November 2003, I think).
Peace,
ANDEE
Here’s a good LT question: How many stations/platforms have “Mind the Gap” announcements? I know the Northbound Northern Line at Charing Cross does, and I think the Bakerloo at Piccadilly too.
John
Believe me - people have managed it (usually from the platform whilst inebriated). One particularly dumb drunkard boarded a Westbond Piccadilly Line train at Hyde Park Corner in this fashion. Thankfully, someone noticed he was there at Knightsbridge and BT Police came and took him away - otherwise he would have been mincemeat!
How many stations/platforms have “Mind the Gap” announcements? I know the Northbound Northern Line at Charing Cross does, and I think the Bakerloo at Piccadilly too.
And the Bakerloo at Waterloo. It's one of those announcements I really hardly ever notice unless it's at a station I use at all much. I'm sure I heard it somewhere on the District riding in from Richmond to Embankment (yes, I know I should have got a SWT train to Waterloo then walked across the Hungerford Bridge), but I was so half-asleep when I did that, I can't remember where!
It's the Waterloo ones that get me - not only are they on constant repeat mode, but they are loud and (shock, horror, is this really London?) clear!!!
However, the “Sonia” nickname for the female announcer, “because she getS ON YA nerves” was brilliant!
John
LMAO!!!
Or might this be a 7-day overnight job dealie??
Some of us HERE are available, yannow ?? :)
For those who think the L line isn't busy (as some mentioned in another thread), this should be proof that it is a busy line, and continues to get worse.
....the BMT planners really screwed this one up for not building a three track line.....
Too bad it would have solved one of the put in and layup problems they have out there and get rid of some of the hell jobs.
The platforms on the 14th St line were built to handle 8-car standards. They were 536 feet long. They should be able to platform a trains composed of 9 60 footers.
The southern routes were 14th St (8th ave), Bway-Bklyn (Canal St), Fulton-Lex (Park Row/Bridge-Jay) and Fulton (Rockaway Ave).
I don't see that happening—it would be way to expensive. They'd be able to run a lot more tph at rush hour with the existing track plant, which is most likely what they'll do after they're done rebuilding Atlantic Avenue.
How will that help the backup at 8th Ave?
There are other terminals in the system that are configured similarly and get slightly better tph (e.g., 242/VCP). However, I think you are correct that a big improvement isn't possible without the ability to terminate some trains at 6th Ave.
Are you forgetting about the TA's fumigation policy regarding relays. That limits the track to 15 tph. If it were not for this policy the G's could go to Continental 24/7.
But the biggest drawback to the IRT extensions is you now need to reconfigure some stations like 96th st/West Side (switches at north end, exit at south end) or Borough Hall/East side (switches at Manhattan-bound side) and narrow clearance at curve at other side).
But if they wanted to upgrade Myrtle Ave to a TD position. Preauthorize 1-2 of the L runs for skips to try to salvage problems.
Cut the signal blocks so that trains leaving terminals do not hold the interlocking for as long as they do. Add an additional drop back crew so if you are late in you do not hold up your followers.
Of course all of this is unnecessary as all trains are ontime, ROLFMAO.
How many TPH could they run if the L ran ATO once CBTC was up and running. It would limit the turn around time at the terminal
Arti
The restriction in the 14th St Tunnel was due to ventilation problem not a signal problem. That ventilation problem was fixed a few years ago - just prior to the replacement of the El section connecting the Broadway Brooklyn El from Marcy Ave to the Williamsburg Bridge.
The travel time between Bedford Ave and First Ave is 2 minutes. The minimum headway for the 14th St Line is 4 minutes. Trains should not have to wait at Bedford Ave for the train in front to clear the tunnel.
Back on the L, the a stations would be on one very low usage station while the b station will be on average-high usage if it is not an a/b station.
Is that based on the number of paid fares? People who actually pay to get on the train?
People who actually pay to get on the train?
Hmmm, if this was the 70's, I guess the unpaid fares might have outnumbered the paid fares at some of those stations, and the statistics skewed. Seriously though, someone once mentioned here that at some stations in the South Bronx like Freeman and Simpson, sometimes the exit gates were just tied open and people walked in. It sounds exagerated, but I wouldn't doubted for the subway of the 70's and the South Bronx of the 70's.....
Just install a cctv camera for secutiy and monitor the camera to check station crowds
Kill two birds with one stone
Is the franklin shuttle at capasity?
Why bot just rubn more frequent trains. Install platform doors and run the service ZPTO. The franklin shuttle is essentially a people move like airtrain
Why not just run more frequent trains. Install platform doors and run the service ZPTO. The franklin shuttle is essentially a people move(r) like airtrain (spelling and gramma corrected)"
How can you add more trains on the FAS Line? There is only single track on half of the lines' distance so you cannot add more than the two trains you have. And your plan is no good because it does not address the need for train capacity, what happens when the next big weekend Q shuttle bus G.O. take place? Since you now have a free transfer to IRT service at Botanic Garden/Franklin Ave, I find that the shuttle in the winter is a much better indoor option than waiting in the freezing cold for a packed bus. (Note: We had some shuttle buses on the Q line the same weekend as the last Redbird fan trip. On my way home, I tried to guide some people off the diverted Q train at Pacific and instead of taking the shuttle bus, we took the 2 or 3 to Franklin for the transfer to the shuttle. And we enjoyed the warmth of the indoors instead of the cold evening for the bus outside.)
I agree It is quicker and better to take the Franklin shuttle to botanical gardens station. That is the way I went also.
Isn't there room for a secound track. I have to admit I have never ridden the shuttle past botanical gardens. I planned to once and everyone on the car looked at me like I was raw meat and decided against it
If thier was, then adding addtional trains using ZPTO is the way to go. Spending money to extend platforms is not as cost efffective as doubletracking and adding addtional service via ZPTO
-Stef
For the last 5-6 years people have been flocking to the area's converted factories and the new night life and artistic scene. The area is hot and the L line is bennifiting.
I went to a cool place on North 6th right off bedford last weekend called SEA.
It rivals the Thai themed resturants in Paris and Manahattan plus the prices were very reasonable. 3 people including 1 drink each=$40
Not bad
Those who are educated don't hold race up as an issue of freindship.
Many minorities, whites, asians have the same interests.
Most latino and Itailans have very similar family values thus the large amount of latino/Itailan couples
A good example is us subtalkers. will you not go railfaning with me because I am white. Of course not, the subject of rail faning bridges any divides.
It angers me that many so called advocated try to widen divides for thier own bennifit. It hod thier people's back by filling thier minds with half truths and sometimes full out lies
Creating a better environment with shops and resturants serves the bennift of all. In many ways gentrification is bringing out the untapped potential of many neighborhoods.
Neighborhood revitalization is a good thing. Unfortunitly many advocacy groups don't like it because they don't get a cut of the pie
But the real indicator is the amount of white people who move in. Gentrification doesn't exist without them. Yeah, it's racist, but it's true.
Read what Chris said. All he noted was that white people can be seen using J stations located in what presumably were 100% minority areas. Political and cultural realities being what they are, this is a pretty good indication that the neighborhoods in question are being seen as up-and-coming, worthy of residency by people who could afford to live elsewhere. That's what is usually called gentrification.
Of course, a neighborhood also could gentrify through an influx of more-affluent minorities. That's likely to be less apparent if you look at the demographics of subway riders, however.
there are quite a few subtalkers who believe this. They don't believe that the races actually have alot in common and choose to hang out together
Prehabs I am a bit sensitive as the people who jumped on me a few weeks ago for using the phrase "those people" I had no clue that it had any negative implication. I have lived in this city my whole life and never heard the term ment anything bad
Not really. Educated affluent minorities will flee these neighborhoods until they know gentrification is a sure thing, and that again means a visible amount of new caucasian residents.
I wonder what they're doing with that theater building, anyway. Since the couple of weeks when they put up those yellow walls and the scaffolding (which was a while ago), nothing has been done and no construction workers or equipment has been seen since.
Not at all. And there was a cop right in the station mezzanine, he just glanced up at me when I was taking photos of the glass stained windows, and then went back to whatever he was doing. I was actually at Gates Ave for quite a while. Some of the passengers looked at me like I was crazy, but that's about it. I took photos from both platforms, and let a few J's go by. I also took some at Chauncey Street a little further down the line, and also no problems.
My eyes must be really shot, because I swear the first one's rollsign is displaying a question mark, either that or a P. Then again it is not all that uncommon for R42 rollsigns to be a little dirty of fuzzy.
Look at the Flushing Line. After being built as a co-run line with the IRT, it has 3 tracks (for the most part), and suffers as much crowding as the L does.
Heh, I guess that's why the L and the 7 are the first 2 line slated for CBTC.
Both lines are crowded, but the 7 has greater capacity. Also, I believe the 7 is more crowded than the L. It travels through a more densely populated area, and its Manhattan route cuts through the CBD.
Heh, I guess that's why the L and the 7 are the first 2 line slated for CBTC.
I think it's because the 7 and L are the two simplest routes. The L is the only route in the system that's 2 tracks throughout, and never merges/diverges with any other route. The 7 is almost as simple, aside from the 3-to-2 express/local merge.
Based on crowding statistics alone, the L would not have been the first line chosen for CBTC. What makes the L notable, however, is its rapid growth rate.
Personally I think this was a bad decision. The planner was not born of the late-90's drive to self sufficiency, but had been a long standing part of Amtrak's promotional regalia. The planner was probably utilized by existing Amtrak travelers who were eager to take advantage of the greater vacation oppurtunities that Amtrak had to offer. LD rail travel is already a hard sell, making the information to make such trips less available only will worsen the situation.
But I also agree with you on the fact that by loosing the planner, you loose a valuable opportunity to lure possible business.
Amtrak would be better off with a stable route structure that people could count on. This doesn't mean trains aren't added or dropped, but rather, important routes stay long enough so people can count on riding them.
R-32.
The Multi-Section cars did NOT have SMEE braking. They had
something called schedule AMCE, which was a very convoluted
system that evidently forgot to apply sometimes.
The Multis were the first NYC rapid transit car class (other than
one-offs like the Zephyr and Green Hornet) to have dynamic
brakes. SMEE and dynamic brakes have nothing to do with each
other. It is possible to have dynamics without SMEE (as evidenced
by the Multis), and likewise SMEE can be a purely friction-braking
system with no dynamic (though I can't think of an example).
On NYCT SMEE equipment, the dynamic brakes are supplied by the
motor & control manufacturer (GE or WH), while the air brake
system is supplied by WABCO or NYAB. The interface between the
two is the straight air pipe pressure transducer, which tells
the dynamic braking package how much brake is requested, and
the lockout magnet valve, which prevents the SMEE friction brakes
from applying while the dynamics are working.
"Straight Air" means that the pneumatic signal which is sent
via the train-line pipe is directly proportional to the amount
of braking effort desired. E.g. 0 psi is brakes released, 90 psi
is full service. The converse is the "Automatic", aka "Train Air"
or "Reduction" system, in which the amount of brake requested
is proportional to the DEFICIT between the nominal train line pipe
pressure of 70 psi and the actual pressure. The Automatic system
is fail-safe in that any leak or break in the train pipe makes
the brakes come on, not off. SMEE adds back in the fail-safe
feature by running a separate Brake Pipe, which is kept continually
charged to 110 psi. If the pressure in the Brake Pipe falls,
the brakes apply fully.
R-32.
R-32.
And here I was, all this time, thinking that SMEE as explained in school car was based on so many of us Irishmen on the subway ... that SMEE was just GOAN's partner ...
A Cork Radio Station (in Ireland), 96 FM, was running a competition to find contestants who could come up with words that were not found in any English Dictionary yet could still use these words in a sentence that would make logical sense. The prize was a trip to Bali for a week.
The DJ, Neil, had many callers; the following two standing out:
DJ: 96FM, what's your name?
Caller: Hi, me name's Dave.
DJ: Dave, what is your word?
Caller: Goan spelt G O A N, pronounced "go-an"
DJ: We are just checking that (pause) and you are correct, Dave, Goan is certainly a word not found in the English Dictionary. Now the next question, for a trip for two to Bali, is, what sentence can you use that in that would make logical sense?
Caller: GOAN fark yourself!
At this point the DJ cuts the caller short and announces that there is no place for that sort of language on a family show. After many more unsuccessful calls the DJ takes the following caller:
DJ: 96FM, what's your name?
Caller: Hi, me name's Jeff.
DJ: Jeff, what is your word?
Caller: Smee spelt S M E E, pronounced "smee".
DJ: We are checking that (pause) and you are correct, Jeff, Smee is certainly a word not found in the English Dictionary. Now the next question, for a trip for two to Bali, is, what sentence can you use that in that would make logical sense?
Caller: SMEE again! GOAN fark yourself!"
Now ya see why I *like* Unca Dougie ... after all, ya GOTTA be nuts to run real trains. Heh.
BTW, do you mind if I e-mail you with questions? I find the equipment - particularly the braking equipment boggling yet fascinating ( ever since I was a kid ) and I strive to make sense of it all. One example is the superceding brake packages offered from around the r-40m/42's on up ( they no longer use brake shoe guides... probably for lower unsprung weight ) .
R-32
AMUE and SMEE are two ENTIRELY different universes.
But yeah, I found it quite confusing but then again, I was relatively new on the railroad and hadn't quite settled into "one of these, ho-hum" yet ... I was still trying to get my chops together on the Arnines when I got my first 32 to run, and it wasn't pretty. Had I been at it for a while, I'm sure I could have run anything without getting confused. After only three weeks on the road though, got a 32 after nothing but Arnines. I got used to it halfway through the first trip, but there were some hard stops until I got used to it.
One of these days, I'll get back to Branford again and want to try 1227 just to see for myself. Should be amusing, hope it'll be running light the first time. Too much plate glass to send the geese through on gate cars. :)
They stonewall the first time, as they expect the car to self-lap, which it won't.
After a while they figger it out, and the problems go away.
Needless to say, I'm NOT a "morning person" so for my morning put-in, I was groggy. For the PM tour, I was bored STUPID hanging around COney all day, so I fell IMMEDIATELY into a bad pattern of being used to the Arnines (AMUE) and going out of my WAY to trade intervals with those only two willing to NOT take out the Arnine. My motor instructor tried to break me of this habit and insisted that I run other things. Thus the 32 episode on a PM round trip.
Needless to say, I prefer AMUE with manual lapping because it was what I was used to. SMEE's were a pain in the butt to me because I'd go to lap the unlappable and note that I was about to pass THROUGH a stop and go full serv. If I was a little less out of it, I definitely would have done better. Of course by the time I washed out of the service, I *had* gotten it together. But man oh man, two entirely different worlds. Gimme the oldtimers ANY day. :)
3662 is operational, AFAIK.
R-32.
With the older style SMEE trucks, there are once again two cylinders,
but they are mounted in the corners of the truck frame. There
is brake rigging (sets of levers and fulcrums) so the single-acting
piston causes 4 brake shoes to clasp.
The primary advanatge of TBUs is the elimination of all that
rigging, which needs to be inspected & lubricated, and adds
slightly to the weight of the truck. Plus, you have half as many
shoes to service, although they wear out twice as fast.
R1-9
SMEE cars:
R10,11,12,14,15,16,17,21,22,26,27,28,29,30,32,33,36,28,40,42
P-wire:
R44,46
"Newtran" friction system:
R62/68
SMEE is a self-lapping electrodymanic braking system. In older cars prior to SMEE, the T/O had to manually lap (work) the air valve in order the brakes to function. With SMEE, when the T/O works the air valve, the SMEE brake system automatically applies the correct force for the brakes to work. It self-adjusts (therefore "self-lapping") The SMEE system "senses" how much air is needed and therefore would only require the T/O to lightly pull the air valve instead of having to lap it all the way.
Here`s a theorethical application to the Red Line:
Shady Grove, and Rockville AB stations
Twinbrook - A
White Flint - B
Grovesnor - AB
Medical Center - A
Bethesda - B
Friendship Heights - AB
Tenleytown\AU - A
Van Ness\UDC - B
Cleveland Park - A
Woodley Park - B
Dupont Circle, Farragut N, Metro Center, Gallery Pl, Judiciary Sq, and Union Station - all AB stops
Rhode Island Ave - A
Brookland - B
Fort Totten - AB
Takoma - A
Silver Spring - AB
Forest Glen - B
Wheaton, and Glenmont - AB
(Note: If NY ave Station is operational, The station would be a "B "station, and Judiciary Sq would be an "A " station.).
Tell me what do you think of this idea.
A trains: AM rush, skip stop from Shady Grove to DuPont Circle, then all stops to Glenmont, PM rush, all stops from Glenmont to DuPont Circle, then skip stop to Shady Grove
B trains: AM rush, skip stop from Shady Grove to DuPont Circle, then all stops to Glenmont, PM rush, all stops from Glenmont to DuPont Circle, then skip stop to Shady Grove
C trains: AM rush, skip stop from Glenmont to Union Station, then all stops to Shady Grove, PM rush, all stops from Shady Grove to Union Station, then skip stop to Glenmont
D trains: AM rush, skip stop from Glenmont to Union Station, then all stops to Shady Grove, PM rush, all stops from Shady Grove to Union Station, then skip stop to Glenmont
Shady Grove ABCD
Rockville ABCD
Twinbrook BCD
White Flint ACD
Grosvenor ABCD
Medical Center BCD
Bethesda ACD
Friendship Heights BCD
Tenleytown ACD
Van Ness ABCD
Cleveland Park BCD
Woodley Park ACD
Dupont Circle ABCD
Farragut North ABCD
Metro Center ABCD
Judicuary Square ABCD
Union Station ABCD
New York Avenue ABD
Rhode Island Avenue ABC
Brookland ABD
Fort Totten ABCD
Takoma ABC
Silver SPring ABCD
Forest Glen ABD
Wheaton ABC
Glenmont ABCD
This way, skip stop only runs in the peak direction on each side. To DC in the mornings and from DC in the evenings. At times other than rush hour, this would not work. This would only also work on the Red Line and no other line except maybe the Green Line.
Here is the question. How many subtalkers have seen an official MTA sign prohibiting photography and how many Subtalkers have been legitimately threatened by police. I know that many employees have given subtalkers guff, but how many of you have run into either police threatening a ticket or arrest or an MTA employee providing a credible threat of ticket or arrest.
I know that many of us have been questioned re: our activity and many of us have been challenged by employees or cops who "think that one can take photos" or who "kindly ask us to stop taking pictures", but how many of you have run into a chellenge with the air of credibility that one sees in boston.
I was once questioned by a cop at New Lots for a few minutes.
Peggy's most recent tour was challenged by an overzealous transit worker at Essex.
Otherwise, nothing, and I take a lot of photos, some with cops right there. A few months ago I took about 120 photos at Times Square during the afternoon rush and nobody batted an eyelash.
I say personally because although I was not taking photos at Essex Street, some people on Peggy's Eastern Division tour were told to stop taking photos "on transit property". But that's all she did. She may have been a bit abrubt, said not to do it, everyone stopped, and that basically was the end of it. She didn't threaten anyone, and no one argued with her.
(Although apparently pedestrians on the MTA bridges are searched, and those with cameras are turned back.)
This exchange illutrates both problems that face railfans re: photography.
1) We sometimes bug employees, often by our very presence and they will want to find any excuse to be rid of us.
2) Post 9/11 security policy has been half assed at best and in loo of a concrete policy employees are apt to "wing it" in an effort to do their part.
In this case the worker A) wanted to do his part to prevent terrorism and B) wanted the railfan window view.
BTW, he was right, the side window did give me a better view and here are the results (BTW, can you spot the gossling?):
The gosling is at bottom right in the second picture, and again with its parents at left in the third?
Just to add to my original post about never having a problem in the subway, that is true, but I was stopped a few times on the LIRR about 10-12 years ago (so long before 9/11).
Technically I was trespassing each of those times, and each time I was just asked what I was doing.
-Once while taking photos of the former Fremont tower on the Bay Ridge line, a friebd and I were asked why we were on the ROW by a cop, we told him "to take photos of the tower because they were going to to tear it down." He said, "oh that's too bad. Well, just watch out for trains", and left.
-Once in Fresh Pond yard some cop kept insisting that we were there to take photos, not of the trains in general, but of grafitti we had put on the trains. I kept insisting that we would never do that, and he kept insisting that that's what we must be doing. That one got a bit heated, but finally he realized he was wrong, and just said to leave the yard.
Here's a photo of Fremont that hot summer day, a few weeks before it was demolished, and a before and after from another day. That place was never the same after they took the tower away.
Sorry, no gosling in the photos....
I was threatened with arrest and confiscation of my camera by a security guard at 126 St depot for shooting buses from the street, but that was 9/8/01, so it doesn't count.
"What do you mean you could loose your job? I told you to go over there and tell that person to...."
-Robert King
YOu can take all the photos you want on the MBTA you just need to get a permit first it take about a half hour.
I travel on Metrolink and Amtrak in/out of LAUS frequently, and have yet to see such a sign. And I have taken MANY photographs of the trains there in recent months, and have yet to be challenged by anyone.
I was recently with a group of SubTalkers on the LACMTA Red Line. One photographer decided to shoot a photo....WITH a tripod. And, of course, some supervisor came out of the woodwork (uh, make that the concretework...) and hassled him. Yet I was standing right NEXT to him, shooting my digital camera, hand-held, no flash, and the same supervisor said I was okay (as I made a point to ask him).
However the construction foreman was certainly watching what I was doing. Maybe he though I was gonna try to nail them for some violation.
nycguide.us webmaster
I was only 25-30 feet away from the unit staking out a fare control area. This was just before the SAS hearing I attended, which was last month.
Anyway, from this exchange I think that the policy has little to o with photos and more to do with the security/liability issue of letting people wander around and hang out on the parking deck. A suspect if you paid $10 and parked your car in the lot you would have some standing to take as many photos as you wanted.
I also believe that they really only care about people wandering the boothed, attended lot, not the shitty safe lot as Amtrak might be liable for auto-break ins and thefts from the paid lot.
CG
Anyway, I had the last laugh. I lost track of time at the end of the day and by waiting for the next PATCO train with a railfan seat at 15/16th I think Pigs missed the 7:07 R7 which would then cause tim to miss the last bus home resulting in a long walk late at night. I'm really sorry, but it want from 5:30 to 6:50 just like that. I don't know what happened.
Quite likely. Most commercial parking garages prohibit entry by non-customers, and if you look you'll usually find signs to that effect.
If a person falls and sues for millions (and most likely receives a settlement in the $50-75K range), the $15 or so s/he would have contributed as a customer is negilible. A non-customer also would not have the opportunity to sue for damage to a vehicle.
That's not how the employer looks at it. Employers see potential trespassers as risks to their customers, diversions to the duties employees have to attend to, and liability risks. The employer gets the best bvalue when there is nobody on the property except for employees and customers.
"If a person falls and sues for millions (and most likely receives a settlement in the $50-75K range), the $15 or so s/he would have contributed as a customer is negilible. "
And if customers gain the perception that their lot is frequented by people who are not supposed to be there, then the number of $15 fees which the parking lot operator collects will begin to drop.
They are varied and Pig is sure to tell us what they all were (and are).
Link, with a generic subway station picture
Two valuable works of art which were left on a New York subway platform have been handed in at one of the city's police stations.
A reward was offered for the works - a Picasso drawing and a painting by New York artist Sophie Matisse, the great-granddaughter of Henri Matisse.
An absent-minded picture framer left the two works of art on the platform of the 79th Street subway stop last week.
The leather portfolio they were travelling in was left leaning against a column as the picture framer, William Bailey, got on to the southbound number one train.
When he realised what he had lost, Mr Bailey retraced his steps and stuck up posters all around the station promising the reward to anyone who may have found the works.
And, in what is being hailed in New York as "a little Big Apple miracle", they have now turned up.
A street bookseller handed them in to the police, saying only that two men gave him the leather portfolio as they came out of the same subway station in which the picture framer had left them.
“An absent minded picture framer” Surely this has to be a front for some really exciting undercover operator?
Andrew.
Obviously a typo by the BBC. Here on Subtalk, we know it actually happened at 76th St.
Unless this is another one of those pesky phantom subway stations!!
Has anyone suggested this tour?
Subway grrl
Really though, other examples of rehashed dumb jokes include the R142's, Redbirds and poor Fred's Sea Beach line. See, I'm also one of the few people who types it right. Everyone else spells it wrong for laughs as well.
http://www.lowermanhattan.info/rebuild/trans_improve/default.asp
Aha! The PATH will go to the Newark Airport TRAIN STATION. That way, the PA can get its extra $5 from Newark Airport PATH riders too. If the PATH had gone direct to the airport terminals, you could have had a $1.50 ride direct from Newark Airport to 33rd St in Manhattan.
And why does it make ANY sense to extend PATH to the terminals when there is already a transit line conecting the terminals with the NE corridor -- the monorail?
I also support the new East river tunnel, with Long Island Express and Airtrain service.
Interesting the Airtrain would make onestop in Downtown (Metro tech) Brooklyn.
We in New York are spoiled, because our subway system charges the same fare regardless of the distance traveled. Most of the world's subway systems have fare zones, and you pay more to travel farther. (There is a limited precedent for this in NY, as formerly PATH charged a higher fare for trips to/from Newark, and at one time the subway had a surcharge for travel on the Rockaway branch.)
While I am not sure whether $5 is the right amount, I see nothing wrong with charging extra to go to the airport. The cost of building the line has to be paid for somehow, and charging the actual users of it is probably the best solution. And it's still a lot cheaper than any other way of getting to the airport.
Some on this board have opined that building nothing at all would have been much better than building AirTrain (and there were no other viable alternatives, and won't be for another decade). But that's what Subtalk is for.
Some of us are spoiled. Those of us who take longer trips than average are spoiled. Those of us who take shorter trips than average are, to put it bluntly, being ripped off.
Most of the world's subway systems have fare zones, and you pay more to travel farther.
Why think of it as paying more to travel longer distances rather than paying less to travel shorter distances?
Why think of it as paying more to travel longer distances rather than paying less to travel shorter distances?
It's just a turn of phrase. You could say that the Empire State Building is taller than the Chrysler Building, or you could say that the Chrysler Building is shorter than the Empire State Building. Either way, the same information is being conveyed.
Most subway systems are structured so that $x.xx is the base fare, and you pay more to travel farther. No one says that $y.yy is the base fare, but you get a discount for a shorter trip.
Of course, but how information is conveyed affects the reader's perception. In fact, if NYCT were (hypothetically) to switch to a distance-based fare system tomorrow, some riders would come out ahead and others would come out behind, so neither phrase is more or less accurate.
Most subway systems are structured so that $x.xx is the base fare, and you pay more to travel farther. No one says that $y.yy is the base fare, but you get a discount for a shorter trip.
But why not?
Does NYCT have a $2.00 base fare with a bonus on purchases of $10 and up, or does it have a $1.67 base fare with a surcharge on purchases of under $12? The numbers work out the same, but I think NYCT might have had an easier public relations job with the latter formulation.
Well one reason is that a PATH train has a much higher capacity (an order of magnitude?) than a Newark AirTrain train, which basically uses amusement park monorail technology. And there is no way off that station other than by train.
So either the PATH trains to Newark Airport station are going to be running pretty empty (in which case why is the extension needed, given that there is already NJT and Amtrack service to the station), or the arrival of a terminating PATH train is going to overwhelm the AirTrain train.
Increasing the frequency of circulators can handle that. MARTA trains empty into an airport circulator with a lower capacity too.
So either the PATH trains to Newark Airport station are going to be running pretty empty (in which case why is the extension needed, given that there is already NJT and Amtrack service to the station), or the arrival of a terminating PATH train is going to overwhelm the AirTrain train. "
Neither. Refer to my comment above.
BTW, how much do you really know about the monorail? ( Judging by your amusement park comment, not much.)
Also, there could be some trains that merely shuttled between the airport and the parking lots (especially the new one), with only a subset going to the NEC station.
My upset at this is that the station was built in the first place. I would have liked to have seen the AirTrain extended to Newark station (built on the roof next to the PATH?). I think this would have made a much more sensible hub, given the variety of transportation modes available.
I still think the engineering to extend the monorail to Newark (given its relative flexibility) would be less than that required to bring PATH to Newark Airport.
However, extending PATH to EWR rail is not just for the airport. As I stated before, it introduces subway service with potential for additional stations in Newark and Elizabeth. This introduces new ridership to the system. These riders will go to Newark, use the Newark subway; they'll go to Hobokenj, they'll go to New York; they'll transfer to HBLR.
Stop thinking about it as only an airport extension. It is new PATH service, which includes a terminal at EWR Rail.
I believe the premise of the proposed extension is that it will take advantage of existing rights of way. That makes it a lot cheaper than extending the monorail, which has no ROW beyond its current extent.
The PATH option has other benefits that the monorail option doesn't, but it's also in fact the cheapest way to do go.
Similarly, so would a PATH extension. However, the PATH tracks, by the time they come down to North-East Corridor level are on the west side of the NEC, where there are lay-up tracks, all built on a viaduct. There is no ROW for a few hundred yards for anything until the railroad is back at ground level. Then the west side has the turn-off for the Raritan Valley line. There are also a couple of bridges that need to be negociated.
Given all the engineering, I just thought that it would be easier to extend the monorail, where it could go down a median on a set of pylons, rather than the relatively heavy PATH.
I've used it for its intended purpose as an airline passenger. I found it overcrowded (admittedly largely with inter-terminal and car park passengers rather than rail passengers).
I know that it is basically a Von Roll system (although officially acredited to Adtranz who purchased Von Roll during the planning stage) both because I recognised the look and feel from other Von Roll systems I've ridden, and because I've just checked.
The other Von Roll systems I'm aware of are:
Alton Towers (an amusement park in the UK)
Sentosa (an amusement park island in Singapore)
Sydney Darling Harbour (not an amusement park, but very much a tourist ride nonetheless).
Europa Park (an amusement park in Germany)
Seaworld (an amusement park in Australia)
I rest my case.
No. Since the PA operates PATH and the airport, it could easily require that you pay an additional fare upon exiting a turnstile at the airport terminal. In fact, the PA would most likely impose such a surcharge, which would be in effect only at airport stations.
The current plan is the most reasonable, because it uses an existing ROW (which would be widened a bit) to an existing station; could provide additional stops along the way, minimizes NIMBY concerns, and avoids unnecessary infrastructure expense. There is no reason to spend what coul be up to an extra $600 million or more building a line into the airport when the monorail already serves it adequately.
Evidently, the PATH feasibility study was completed. The cost of the extension is about $210 million per mile, not out of line with infrastructure costs these days. Hopefully, this plan will include additional stations in Newark and Elizabeth, which will increase PATH ridership into NYC as well, and take a bit of pressure off crowded NJT trains.
Also, passengers can use PATH plus the Newark subway to commute to jobs and higher education in Newark.
Thanks,
Paul
And hopefully that dealer contributed to ongoing RT projects that
we have an interest for the amount of gratis verbiage extended them.
>>GG<<
8-) ~ Sparky
Paul
It appeared to be the first ones they issued after the Chicago cars,
44, 42, 46, 68 they all look the same to me ;-)
Big, ulgy & out of scale.
So why you telling us on this board where they are "FOR SALE", like
we give a phuck. Complimentary verbosity for those folks. Come on
Gramps, this posting was disgustingly unpleasant.
More so, since most of the sets available are above & beyond MSRP,
a well known pratice of this franchise.
Phew, it reekes.
8-) ~ Sparky
I do all my stuff in N gauge - but if they ever did an Arnine set of four, I'd have to rethink my track gauge ...
For shame...and you call yourself a RAILFAN???
That's why I pre-order from Charlie at Nassau Hobbys ... the price he originally quotes you is the price you pay PERIOD.
Jimmy
Quick, get that man some serious medication!
-Stef
VERY limited customer base
http://www.brooklynrail.com/news_12.html
Bob D.
HTML Police Alert: NON-LINKING VIOLATION! Please cease and desist your non-linking activities at once.
Linked for your enjoyment: http://www.brooklynrail.com/news_12.html
Along this line, I plan on working up a SubTalk "Common Courtesy" FAQ that, with Dave's approval, could be placed here. So far my ideas include:
1. You should write HTML links
2. Here is how to do it...
3. Capital letters mean you are shouting. Use them wisely and sparingly
Most other SubTalk "peculiarities" seem to be picked up by new members pretty quickly so I don't even see the need to list them in the FAQ.
Uh huh. Many's the time I happily spent Sundays at the Main Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library perusing a randomly picked spool of the NY Times microfilm, especially from the teens and `20s. One thing I was amazed at: How many streetcar and elevated and other passenger train stories made the front page! It was really interesting to read those stories, as it's a good way to get an honest idea of how they were operating. And that was in the days of private ownership of the rail lines. So you could also follow their adventures in the business sections.
Regarding the digitalization of these resources, the question of bandwidth is still the major stumbling block. The microfilm allows for a much larger block of data to become available at a, yes, higher speed then the digital. I don't see that changing in the next five or ten years. The drawback is the bulky nature of film. But you could order complete years content of the N.Y. Times or other pubs. for use in a home viewer. When I can I'm going to do just that. Get a home microfilm reader that is. For uh, "recreational reading" purposes.
What do you mean by bandwidth? Is it true that microfilm gives a larger block of data than a CD? Typically there is half a month of the NY Times on a roll of microfilm. I would think you could get at least three months, if not more, on a CD, and the CD would be text searchable. In film, for storage purposes, microfiche is much more compact than microfilm, although more expensive to produce.
Tom
Okay, I was using bandwidth in a different sense. Sure, images are stored on CD. Microfilm is a more, uh, direct reproduction. And the image quality is higher with film. Maybe that level of clarity isn't a primary requirement if searching the records. Look at it this way. One full page of the N.Y. Times as a filmed image versus the digital image. I would think the digital reproduction of that single page could require many hundreds of megabytes. Of course that depends on how exact a copy of the page your needs require. But that would quickly fill a cd rom after a couple of images, if true.
I could be wrong on this. My experience has generally been with TIFF scanned image files. I guess if the images that are accessable via this new system are using that format it might be feasible to use the stored cd images. I still say that going from page to page will still be clunkier with the cd than with the microfilm spool. Sometimes analog is better.
While you can't do the groovy digital stuff like e-mailing a pdf version of the frame with film (except with a combo system), it's just simpler to get high density page image "data" with microfilm. (Might as well consider photographs as data, IMO.). I feel comfortable with equating "bandwidth" with the ease of me being able to read a complete N.Y. Times broadsheet page image. I don't mind losing the digital advantages since my primary requirement is to read that page. Each methodology has it's drawbacks. At least with film there is a sense of seeing the actual page of which a photograph was taken. (So I guess my opinion here is tinged with a personal bias.)
Digital sort of grinds every bit of the page into "atomic dust" and uses mathematical techniques to virtually spray paint this "dust" via a highly refined version of color-by-number painting to sketch the image.
Which is cool in itself. But the old systems still have use. Micrographics has stubbornly refused to go quietly into that dark night.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! It's the home of Mornington Crescent - I win, back on topic!!!!!!!!!!!
I never understood Mornington Crescent–I failed to find it funny when I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue started in the 1970’s, and still don’t.
OTOH, if the BBC would rerun some of the I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again episodes, I would be ecstatic. Full frontal radio…
Aaaarrrggghhh! Quickly switches to Medium Wave twiddles dial and swears at radio that with Radio 5 having 2 frequencies it shouldn't be so hard to find one of them!
I never understood Mornington Crescent–I failed to find it funny when I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue started in the 1970’s, and still don’t.
It's just randomness... I like it! Having said that, my favourite is One Song to the Tune of Another. Click here for Barry Cryer singing "I am sixteen, going on seventeen" from the Sound of Music to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun"!
OTOH, if the BBC would rerun some of the I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again episodes, I would be ecstatic.
Hear hear! And I can't wait for All the Right Notes to return!
One of the things I miss most about British Radio is Radio 4. I know I can listen to it on the Internet, but I need a 5-hour time-shifted version, so I can listen to the evening plays and intelligent discourse in the evenings US time!
If you know which programme you want to listen to, find it on the A-Z list on the Radio 4 website, and you can listen to at least the last episode of most of them!
No Picture Taking
No Mooing
No Homework to be done on trains
No clipboards
No notepads
No Nothing
A huge Subtalk fantasy, by which the line is extended South under the Thames to Waterloo and North via Euston then under Regent's Park to Marylebone, so that I have an alternative when the Bakerloo Line's signalling system breaks down again / there is an incident at Baker Street.
BTW, is there any room to extend the tunnels without major reconfiguration? Since Surrey Street slopes down to the Embankment, what is the clearance between the Piccadilly line tubes and the District line?
It's not as wacky as this proposal of a rather obvious date.
I actually think there should be three new lines in London - in addition to my extended Aldwych Line, a version of a Chelsea-Hackney Line, with interchange at Aldwych, and a North-South Line running via Marylebone, Marble Arch and Victoria. I've actually drawn a map of how these would fit together - I'll try and find the file!
and there is nowhere available to put escalators
My idea would be to build a pedestrian passageway (like the Bank-Monument Escalator Link) to Temple station and refurbish the lifts at Aldwych. I think it would probably then handle the crowds! If not, there is space (ie unused lift shafts) at Aldwych for a further 4 lifts in addition to the 2 which saw service.
BTW, is there any room to extend the tunnels without major reconfiguration? Since Surrey Street slopes down to the Embankment, what is the clearance between the Piccadilly line tubes and the District line?
I'm not sure what the clearance is, but I'm fairly sure that Aldwych quite a long way down - the spiral staircase is 119 steps, then there are further flights down to both platforms (yes, Aldwych is a two-platform station - one of them's been closed since 1917), so I'd guess it's 70 or 80 ft down. It would still have to dive down a bit to get under the river.
:) :) :)
Look at item #2 of my FAQ. It will tell you how to write a link (when it is complete and posted here). And you must agree that it is super simple.
[hey a while back I asked how to wirte them and now I use them regularly]
See, you are one of the nice people. I think most people want to be nice, and given the oppurtunity and instruction, they will use HTML links. The other people here at SubTalk will be easily identifiable by their lack of use of HTML links. Personally, I only want to converse with nice people here at SubTalk. So I really wouldn't care if the other people got all mad about my request and killfiled me.
Thank you. People don't have to use them but in some instaances I think it will be more convenient example providing links and sometimes when you cut & paste if one thing is wrong then you won't find the page. If people were to killfile you based on a request of use of HTML codes, then I think that is flat out immature and ridiculous that someone will stoop low like that.
(Come on you know that couldn't be ignored)
Until next time...
Anon_e_mouse
- The reader still has to copy and paste the URL if the botched link even it.
- If the URL isn't displayed, the poster tends to go back, fix it. This adds a second post, which may seem harmless, but uses Dave's bandwidth.
I use links whenever possible but I think they should be optional. However it would be a great service to everyone if using a link to remember to hit preview first before posting.
Maybe in general that should be added to your FAQ. "Hit Preview before Post".
If I could do it in 12 seconds, I always would. It takes me about 3 minutes to get it right. I'm sure others are faster.
So I only do it if I think lots of people will look at the article, and if I have the time at the moment. If doing the link will cause me not to post the item, I'll post without the link.
Bill "Newkirk"
Chapter 11 Choo Choo (Lyrics)
www.railfanwindow.com
First, is BHRA considering selling any of its rolling stock to raise funds?
Second, is there any danger of being evicted either from the shop site or from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the immediate future?
Third, are restoration activities on Shaker Heights #70 continuing or have they effectively ceased for the time being?
Frank Hicks
Ahem.
Those of you who know me can attest to the license plate on my van:
TROLLEY
And no, I don't have
SUBWAY
on any of my vehicles... although for many years I had
PENNSYRR
on one of our station wagons. (The plate was retired with the car a few years back.)
Until next time...
Anon_e_mouse
Too bad you won't be able to get tickets for that one if you don't already have.
What's the procedure if you want to purchase tickets the day of the trip (Like this Sunday the 9th)? I'm thinking about possibly dissing the family function I am supposed to go to. It's too late to order them by mail.
Help!
Call the information number.
(347) 643-5310
Bill "Newkirk"
Just show up! That's the bottom line. I wasn't planning on being on the 1st set of trips, but I've got an itch. I might just head for the shuttle platform Saturday morning.
-Stef
-Stef
Chapter 11 Choo Choo (Lyrics)
www.railfanwindow.com
-Stef
Anyone here interested ?
Bill "Newkirk"
Just my opinion.
Jimmy
Meanwhile, the man is worshipped by millions!
Anyway, Fred, just update us on your e.t.a. so I can run for the hills (just kidding)!
"I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary."
In fact my favorite all time Yank isn't Italian. I'll be sure to wear his # when we meet. :)
My father tried to raise me as a Mets fan and so I hated the Sox 86 and after, and as I educated myself more about the Yanks hated them more.
But I would never go as far as to say I hated any Sox player. Maybe I didn't care for Clemens too much. But I'd never say I hated Ted Williams. He was a player. Same goes for Garciapara. At one point I thought he was a better shortstop than Jeter, but I haven't watched him play lately so I won't comment on his current play.
Nomar has nothing because his team has won nothing.
Because the Yanks won nothing in the 80s does that mean that Mattingly was a poor player?
Can you imagine a Brighton-Sea Beach debate hitting the papers every day?:)
I got it "The Bad News MUTTS".
Jimmy
You may not recognize Coney Island terminal, with three of the four platforms removed. Are the Cyclones on your itinerary?
Hope to get together-
Peace,
ANDEE
--Mark
Oh, wait, I must be having another senior moment.
Uh....George????
He was there with the rest of us at Union Station a few weeks ago.
:-)
Never mind.
Thanks,
Bob Sklar
??? This actually EXISTS? I thought it was just a dream of the IND Second System.
There is also additional info on Joe Brennan's Abandoned Stations site
The Roosevelt station is no 76th Street. Wh have "PROFF"!!
http://www.quuxuum.org/~joekor/nyctind/roosvelt-rock-line/
You've added yet another phrase to the lexicon.
One was never offered although at one time a tour at this location was being investigated.
Does the transit museum ever still give tours of any of the abandoned stations?
Nope ... no more.
When was the last abandoned station tour they gave?
I am not certain but the last one I attended was held in December 1998.
--Mark
It is in a book called 12 historical maps or something like that.
Elias
I got a photocopy of the map from the NY Public Library on 5th Avenue. If you walk in the main entrance, turn right down that huge corridor and it was in a room about 2/3 of the way down on the right. I think it is the "Transportation" room.
It's the Map Division.
Yeah, that's it. I couldn't remember because it was almost 2 years ago. =)
Background from the NE Transit Web site.
Roster from NE Transit with updated history.
-Robert King
Until next time...
Anon_e_mouse
Peace,
ANDEE
Peace,
ANDEE
For the record: Every LRV built by Breda for a US transit agency has been delivered with a host of problems. GCRTA, MUNI and now MBTA. When are the agencies going to eliminate Breda fron the list of qualified bidders?
Peace,
ANDEE
more seriously, one might imagine the bid specs for the WMATA cars were based on the already proven Rohr cars, and thus less room for dumb design. The SF MUNI Bredas are regularly cycling back for "mods" upgrades, and 'warranty work'. The Cleveland RTA essentially rebuilt theirs in house to correct as built deficiencies. Not a good track record.
The two nighttime routes were Newark-WTC and Journal Square-Hoboken-33rd St.
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 13:03:34 -0700
From: Jim Holland pghpcc@pacbell.net
Subject: [Fwd: Energy Intensity of Rail Transit]
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Energy Intensity of Rail Transit
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 10:28:40 -0400
From: James Robinson wascana@....com
Organization: Complete
Newsgroups: misc.transport.rail.americas
There are a few interesting charts in the Transportation Energy Data Book about the energy use of different rail transit systems across the US. There is a huge spread of efficiencies, which I can't really explain from simply differences in climate, operating speed, or load factors. They come from reportings to the Federal Transit Administration.
To start, and to give a perspective, here are the average numbers for various modes in all types of service. (BTU / psgr-mi, year 2000):
Rail commuter: 2759
Rail Transit: 3105
Autos: 3543
Personal Trucks: 4396
Bus Transit: 4775
Autos/trucks**: 6036
** My assessment of the combination of autos and personal trucks when used for transit-competitive travel between home
and work. (Long distance trips excluded; average passengers per vehicle adjusted to 1.1 from 1.6; and autos, pickups, SUVs combined into a single weighted number.)
Now the numbers for heavy rail transit, as reported by individual transit systems, interpolated off a graph:
Atlanta, GA: 2200
Brooklyn, NY: 2400
Oakland, CA: 2700
New York, NY: 3400
Washington, DC: 3700
Baltimore, MD: 3800
Philadelphia, PA: 4000
Chicago, IL: 4200
Boston, MA: 4400
Miami, FL: 4900
Lindenwold, NJ: 5000
Cleveland, OH: 6200
That's a spread of almost 3:1 between the least efficient and the most efficient systems. The spread is even greater for
light rail systems:
Newark, NJ: 1600
Salt Lake City, UT: 1900
San Diego, CA: 2300
St. Louis, MO: 2300
New Orleans, LA: 2500
Los Angeles, CA: 2600
Portland, OR: 2900
Denver, CO: 3600
Boston, MA: 3800
Sacramento, CA: 4300
Seattle, WA: 5400
Baltimore, MD: 5500
Philadelphia, PA: 5800
Dallas, TX: 5900
San Francisco, CA: 6600
Buffalo, NY: 6800
San Jose, CA: 7000
Pittsburgh, PA: 7400
Cleveland, OH: 8200
That's a spread of 5:1 between the bottom and top performers.
I sure can't explain from my experience with the system why Cleveland's energy use is so high on both heavy and light rail
systems. I wouldn't have thought they would have used so much energy per passenger. I'll have to do more digging to see what their average load factor is.
James B. Holland
Holland Electric Railway Operation.......
NYCT engergy consumption could be so much lower per passenger if it ran the right level of service plus used common sense on non-transit places such as closed off fae controls
That was what surprised me too.
I'd be interested in seeing a tabulation of efficiency in terms of trips rather than miles.
That would depend on whether the figures are correct!
To a lesser extent to say the least! On the margin and in the short run, the only possible response to a loss of oil is an increase in coal burned for electricity, something that carries its own environmental cost.
Not want to employ people at a living wage? Put it in India.
Not want to buy off the NIMBYs? Put it in India.
It's the next step. And think what a wonderful idea a global power network would be.
Nuclear Reactor design has come a long way from the reactors of the 1970s, designed in the 1960s, based on knowledge from the 1950s. The French generate some 70% of their power with their nuclear reactors, and have never had a major problem with them. If the US could follow their example and build a standardized, reliable, relatively foolproof nuclear reactor (perhaps based on the CANDU reactor), we could avoid the current brownouts and such that we get in the summer, as well as reduce sulfer dioxide production, and elminate oil needed to be imported for power production.
The MTA waste's so much fuel
If you follow any bustalk threads. There is a whole thread concerning the picking of ovetime shuttle routes where drivers pick up buses from there home depot rather then the nearest depot to the route
This weekend the Q beach Shuttle had buses from east Ny depot and fresh ponds and The L line Shuttle had buses from Ulmer park in bensonhurst. UP is less then 1 mile from CI
Iraq's "prosuction" is/can be quite high, but its reserves are much smaller than Shitty Arabia's, indeed the latter country is the only one with the potential to greatly increase its production and therefore effectively controls world oil prices.
America's overseas (used to be Iraq's) total proven reserves are 112.5 billion barrels, the second highest in the area after Saudi Arabia's 261.5 billion barrels. This compares with the U.S.'s North American reserves of 29.8 billion barrels. Iraq may be #2, but there is enough oil there to keep Saudi Arabia from dictating the prices. If we were to go ahead and liberate Iran, it would add another 93 billion barrels to the oil we control, and if we now determine that Kuwait really is Iraq's lost province after all (as Hussein claimed in 1990) and therefore it should be administered with Iraq, it would increase the proven reserves another 96.5 billion barrels. That would keep our SUVs and armored divisions fueled for quite some time.
Tom
That tends to indicate that any upheaval in the country might not cause a major spike in gasoline pricing, but you never know.
Both the demand and supply of oil are inelastic in both the short and the medium term. That is, oil exploration and conservation cannot be started up on a dime the moment prices rise, so people keep buying even as the price soars. People have to go to work, and cannot trade in all their SUVs for Honda Hybrids overnight. Neither can they abandon all the McMansions for small apartments.
A ten percent change in supply can lead to a huge swing in price, which is why oil prices can soar and plunge.
If it takes X amount of energy to move the train, and Y amount to move each passenger on the train, and if X is considerably higher than Y, you will find that the "empty" car uses far more energy per passenger mile than the "full" car.
Example: X = 100; y =1.
10 passengers: Total energy = 1x + 10y = 100 +10 = 110.
Energy per passenger = 11.
50 passengers: Total energy = 1x + 50y = 100 + 50 = 150.
Energy per passenger = 3.
100 passengers: Total energy = 1x +100y = 100 + 100 = 200.
Energy per passenger = 2.
A gallon of oil is 130,000 BTUs. I doubt gasoline is much less.
So that would be close to 35 passenger-miles per gallon, which would surprise me, given how much travel is by people alone in their car.
Since the effeciency of transit is based on riders.
The auto figure is probsbly also. Two people in a car by your calulation would mean an average fuel economy of 17 miles per gallon. More believable.
The average car gets about 25-30 miles per gallon combined city/highway. This number needs to be reduced by the number of average riders per car.
NYCT for instance runs near empty train full length trains all night long with brings down it's numbers.
Unfortunately, not. It was heading that way, but stopped. Maybe hybrid technology will help. But it is likely to help buses first, thanks to NYCT's aggressive program.
Regardless of the accuracy and provenance of these figures (no, I haven't bothered to check either), they do imply an important point. Transit isn't always good for the environment, since a bus with one passenger uses far more energy per rider than a car with two. In fact, carpools may be the most environmentally friendly form of transportation for many trips.
And overnight service really needs to be looked at. Can we run a diminished rail network with bus connections? How about cars that are easier to decouple, with half length trains, OPTO, and more frequent service? Van instead of buses on some routes that have to be run? Would it pay to own a separate fleet of vans just for this purpose? Private vans on bus routes overnight?
A diminished rail network with bus connections will not due. it will chase riders away. I can talk from personal experience as I need to take a bus home from the train. If I plan on coming home after 11 PM, I drive to the subway station as infrequent bus service is unreliable(I know what time the bus comes after 11pm on the B3 and try to time my trip for the connection)
Techonlogy is available today to make rail operations less expensive including possible running ZPTO short trains overnights. Remeber most trains already have a police officer aboard overnight thus they won't be truely ZPTO but ZPTO in terms of train crew memebers. If overnight ZPTO is put into place, a security officer should be aboard each train. Of course such as setup is 20 years away according to the MTA singal upgrade schedule
"How about cars that are easier to decouple, with half length trains, OPTO, and more frequent service?"
Such service patterns should be looked at right now. As many already know I beleive in extensive testing and trail prior to jumping off the deep end. Perfect the OPTO implimentation on the "G" including in cab CCTV, improved signage and announcements. Expand it to 6 car "G" operation during the week. Once all the kinks are worked out extend it to say the Sea Beach or brighon line.
"Van instead of buses on some routes that have to be run? Would it pay to own a separate fleet of vans just for this purpose? Private vans on bus routes overnight"
It does not make econimic sense to own a separate fleet of vans for overnight service. What does make sense is for the MTA to bring the some of the access-a-ride program in house. Some access-a-ride vans could be used for overnight service on some lower volume routes such as the B3. I speak of the B3 becasue it is a line that I have rode many times at various times overnight over a 15 year period plus it runs in front of my house.
The current access-a-ride program is out of hand with many opertors finding ways to "cheat" the MTA by using unscupolus tactics such as taking the long route to a destination. Plus the service level provided to riders is not acceptable plus metrocard is not currently accepted.
Access a-ride tracking and dispatching could be improved by incorporating into an NYCT wide bus monitoring and tracking such as Orbitals smarttrax manangement system
http://www.orbital.com/TMS/
The mta should also end the practice of running Articulated buses overnights when the ridership does not warrent thier use. A small reduction in energy costs on a system the size of NYCT is a huge money saver.
Mr. private sector advocates in-house? Well I have to agree with you there. At least if there were some in-house service, there would be a civil service costs to compare the private operators to. And, as you say, the vans would be there for other uses at night.
http://www-cta.ornl.gov/cta/data/Index.html
From Chapter 2 "Energy": http://www-cta.ornl.gov/cta/data/tedb22/Edition22Chapter02.pdf
Total energy use 2001 (Quadrillion Btu)
Transportation 27.1
Industrial 34.0
Commercial 16.6
Residential 19.4
Total all uses 2001 = 97 Quadrillion Btu.
See also www.eia.doe.gov
Transportation share of U.S. energy consumption, 2001 = 27.9%.
Petroleum share of transportation energy consumption, 2001 = 96.9%.
Transportation energy use per mode, 2000 (Trillion Btu):
Automobiles 9,082 (33.1%)
Light Trucks 6,598 (24.0%)
Heavy Trucks 4,813 (17.5%)
Air 2,549 (9.3%)
Water 1,720 (6.3%)
Off-highway 944 (3.4%)
Pipeline 911 (3.3%)
Rail 605 (2.2%) (of which freight = 516, passenger = 89)
Buses 211 (0.8%)
Transportation Total 2000 = 27 Quadrillion Btu, equivalent to 13.3 million barrels per day of crude oil.
Passenger Travel and Energy Use, 2000 (Table 2.11):
(1) Million passenger miles, (2) Persons per vehicle, (3) BTU per vehicle mile, (4) BTU per passenger mile, (5) Trillion BTU
Automobiles: (1) = 2,563,062, (2) = 1.6, (3) = 5,669, (4) = 3,543, (5) = 9,081.6
Personal Trucks: (1) = 1,068,627, (2) = 1.6, (3) = 7,033, (4) = 4,396, (5) = 4,697.5
Air (Certificated Route): (1) = 529,629, (2) = 91.1, (3) = 334,086, (4) = 3,666, (5) = 1,892.4
Rail (Amtrak Inter-city): (1) = 5,574, (2) = 15.0, (3) = 43,581, (4) = 2,902, (5) = 16.2
Rail (Commuter): (1) = 9402, (2) = 34.7, (3) = 95,757, (4) = 2,759, (5) = 25.9
Rail (Light and Heavy Transit): (1) = 15,200, (2) = 23.5, (3) = 72,841, (4) = 3,105, (5) = 47.2
Buses (Transit only): (1) = 21,241, (2) = 9.2, (3) = 43,817, (4) = 4,775, (5) = 101.4
From Chapter 12 "Nonhighway Modes": http://www-cta.ornl.gov/cta/data/tedb22/Edition22Chapter12.pdf
Nonhighway Modes - Passenger (2000):
(A) Million passenger miles, (B) Energy use (Trillion Btus), (C) Average trip length (miles), (D) Energy intensity (Btus per revenue passenger mile).
Domestic and International Air Carrier: A = 708,419, B =2743.1, C = 833, D = 3872
General Aviation: A = 14, B = 175.2
Recreational Boats: B = 311.2
National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak, see also www.amtrak.com): A = 5,574, B = 16.2, C = 243, D = 2902.
Commuter rail: A = 9,402, B = 25.9 C = 22.8, D = 2759.
Rail Transit Operations (heavy and light rail, see also www.apta.com): A = 15,200, B = 47.2, C = 5.1, D = 3105.
(Total Passenger Rail: B = 89.3.)
Nonhighway Modes - Freight (2000):
Freight Modes (a) Million Freight-Ton Miles and (b) Trillion Btus:
Domestic Waterborne Commerce: a = 646,000 and b = 327.9
Class I Railroad (see also www.aar.org): a = 1,465,960 and b = 516.0
Overall, passenger rail consumes 89.3 Trillion Btus out of the total U.S. energy consumption of 97 Quadrillion Btus.
They're thumbnails, at the request of another, so click'm for the big picture.
STATIONS CURRENTLY OR COMPLETED BY NYCT IN-HOUSE FORCES:
All local stations between Franklin and 28th st/IRT West Side line
Prince,8th, 23rd,28th, all on the Broadway/BMT line(N/R/Q/W)
Neptune (F), West 8th St (Q AND F)
42nd st/6th Ave/IND and 5th Ave/Flushing Line stations
181st and 191st Street/both IRT
81st CPW/IND
5th Ave/60th st/BMT
Church Ave/IRT
Bergen St/IND
Queensboro Plaza/IRT and BMT
Tremont Ave/IND Concourse Line.
Cab Associates has:
14/8th- still underway but just about finished (ugh!)
Broadway Junction (inherited from Excel which went belly up)
Delancey/Essex (another one taking too long)
Citnalta has:
103,110,116,125 sts/IRT on the 1,
Eastern Parkway/IRT
(I also think they did 34th st/Penn./IND.)
Schiavone Construction is working on:
Atlantic Ave/Pacific St complex
Dekalb/Flatbush Aves/BMT
I do not know these stations:
Lexington/3rd Aves/53rd st/IND
125th st/Lexington/IRT
74/Roosevelt
Queens Plaza/IND
Stilwell complex
Times Square- Phase II (BMT and 7, plus ramps to IND)
Lower White Plains Road/IRT and Jerome Ave/IRT stations (these are very early in renovation stages)
Myrtle/Wyckoff (very early)
I may pass by some of the Manhattan stations to find out however any help on this is always greatly appreciated.
Not only that, but Slattery/Skanska is also doing the massive rehabilitation/expansion of Queens Center Mall. It's going to look great as well.
Here's a preview of the new mall at 96th Street.
The picture's a bit small, but it gets the message across rather effectively.
Make that three projects plus. After the structural job, the new signals come in. Then the are equipped with CBTC at the same time as the rest of the Flushing Line. In the end there will be more storage, and a loop track.
Also add 207, 215, 225, 231 and 238th Streets, all on the 1 and 9 lines to the list of in-house jobs. (231st Street is on the schedule to get ADA elevators but what's going happen to the HEET's on the Uptown side?)
36th st/BMT Brooklyn was also done in-house.
Geesh, I hope they can do Essex/Delancey faster than Broadway Junction got done. I think the entire IND was built in a shorter amount of time than that complex's renovation!
I must admit that some of the in house renovations are some of the nicest in the system.
Do you know who did 33rd Street/PAS (also an amazing job), and Broad and Fulton on the Nassau?
Of course, I want ADA access at that station. It doesn't look like they did that.
There are elevators; I think they're even working by now.
As for 14th St/8th Ave both IND and BMT platforms are ADA accessible.
Peace,
ANDEE
--Mark
"---S 4 ST--->?"
Also when were those old tiles (and stairways) removed?
Fulton St (S. Portland, now an employee facility)
Myrtle (Willoughby)
Flushing Ave (Walton St)
Broadway (South 4th st as you mentioned)
Metropolitan Ave (Grand St)
21st-Van Alst (11th st/48th Ave)
Court Square (Old exit in the area, before Citicorp building erected)
For most of the stations mentioned it seems that TA workers have taken over the closed ends of the stations.
Mark
As sure as I can be without having lived through his term.
Mark
Same thing for Dyckman. Its also 2nd grade grammar... a vowel followed by 2 consonants has the "short" sound.
P.S.: What do you mean "same as Dyckman"? No one pronounces Dyckman as "dickman".
I asked a friend who is from (Old) Amsterdam what the proper
pronunciation of Van Wyck is. The answer is none of the
above: "Fahn Veck"
How do you KNOW that? Show me an official document that gives
the pronunciation with an "ae" sound as in "like".
Everyone says "it's _supposed to be_ pronounced X", where X is
simply the way they were taught to say it.
In this case we know how the original Dutch name is said in Dutch.
So it's a question of what is the "correct" anglicized version?
Frank Hicks
The actor Dick Van Dyke's name was originally Van Dyk - he added the final "E" to make its spelling match the pronunciation to English speakers - the name is actually Dutch, as is Van Wyck's.
In a word: Funding.
In case you think that the NJ Transit situation is unique, there are other systems around the Northeast and some of the rest of the USA that have both high and low platforms on the same lines of their systems, those including MARC, SEPTA, SLE, MBTA, NICTD, and of course Amtrak.
The cheaper copout of using mini-high platforms in order to facilitate wheelchair access has been embraced by NJT, SEPTA, MBTA, MARC, etc. etc. in order to comply with the ADA while saving money over building full-length (or at least one-to-two-car length) high platforms. Also of note is the fact that some cities extend their influence over whether or not they wish high platforms to be built at their train stations, one of the stations on the Gladstone Branch of NJ Transit’s system (forget which one) forbidding NJT to convert to high platforms for reasons of “historical accuracy” or suchlike.
For my part, I am not fond of un-standardized systems where both low and high platforms are on the same line—it leads to the design compromises that are painfully evident on many railcars today (steps/trapdoors being the chief example). Such design differences may have been useful to railroads in the past in order to defray the possibility of takeover, but are a hindrance and nuisance nowadays.
I've always wondered if disabled people could sue those towns for limiting their mobility like that. Fanwood is another one of those "historical acuuracy" places, and one time somebody in a wheelchair was waiting at the low platform for a train. Of course, they could not access the train, but I told them to speak with the local government of Fanwood since it was their fault he could not get on the train.
If I recall correctly, NJT stations are state property. NJT doesn't need permission to put up a high platform.
Although rumored, many people claim that Hoboken Terminal won't get high platforms due to its historical landmark status (to wit, removing an historically accurate feature); however, NJ Transit owns the station fully AFAIK and has mentioned in the past that long-range plans include a conversion to high platforms.
I believe that you're both somewhat mistaken. It was the new LIRR rail cars had to be made ADA compliant. Unless you're going to put wheelchair ramps down the middle of the car, a wheelchair passenger wouldn't be able to get on and off the train with a mix of high and low platforms. As a result, the stations had to be rebuilt with high platforms.
CG
A mix of high and low platforms obviously complicates ADA compliance, but as Chris mentioned, low platforms are used in California with low floor rail cars. The San Francisco Muni has an interesting solution for their LRVs which have high platforms in the tunnel and a few places where it runs in a median, and low platforms where it runs in the street. The cars are high floor, with interior steps that can be remotely converted into a platform for the high platform stations.
On the low level platforms in the street, there is a ramp to a very short high platform at the head end of the platform. After the T/O opens the doors for the other passengers, he pulls forward so the first door is at the high platform and opens only that one door to load or unload a wheelchair.
Tom
That solution does work, albeit at the cost of extending station dwell time. Better if everybody can get on and off at the same time. I do accept that different cities will have different solutions.
CG
But there is $$ to think about.
It isn't so much whether a system uses high platforms or low platforms that complicates ADA compliance. It is more having a mixture of the two that gives ADA compliance headaches.
-- Ed Sachs
Most LIRR lines have some freight activity, albeit modest, and they all have high platforms.
Peace,
ANDEE
The issue is the kinds of freight cars allowed on the lines.
Freight cars have a wide variety of clearences (called plates).
The LIRR does not have any oversized cars running on it, nor does it have any over length cars or any over height cars.
Other railroad lines have to be built for better clearences.
AMTK does not bring superliners into Penn Station.
You'd crunch them at the top, and not platform them at the bottom.
Elias
You'd crunch them at the top, and not platform them at the bottom.
I think there are also cleareance issues with the 3rd rail for the Superliners.
Elmhurst, IL Metra station, my home stop.
-- Ed Sachs
(UP is my favorite by the way).
The NEC also has freight activity, virtually up and down its whole length. High platforms on NJT’s segment feature gaps to permit sufficient clearance of freight cars. If the NEC were indeed a dedicated passenger line, then FRA Tier II crashworthiness specs may have been unnecessary for the Acela Express; same goes for the 150-mph speed limit, which then could have been exceeded (that is, assuming the use of off-the-shelf HSTs).
Comparisons with Metra non-IC lines are invalid, since the CNW-style push-pull gallery cars were designed to operate at low platforms. Not to mention the Superliners that Amtrak operates out of Union Station cannot use high platforms either.
Sort of chicken and egg kind of thing - Gallery Cars and Superliners were designed for low platforms because high platforms were incompatible with the size of freight trains used in midwest and west.
-- Ed Sachs
To make the trainmen's jobs more difficult? ;)
To accomodate freight cars of larger dimensions that can be transveresed on the LIRR.
Sometimes a very oversized movement must be made, and special contractors have to plan the routes for all of the clearences necessary for the load.
If a lion sees much freight, they will want better clearances than your standard 40' boxcars.
Elias
AcelaExpress2005 - R160
If it isn't broke, don't fix it. The WMATA exterior design works well. It looks good, blends in with the stations, and I never read anything about anyone complaining about it. Meanwhile, there are going to be some major changes on the 6000 Series cars when they arrive for the Largo opening in terms of interior design (and it is more than just changing the interior colors which will be the same as what is on the 5000s).
As for stations:
The National Capital Fine Arts Planning Commission or whatever they call themselves has to approve the design of everything built within the DC line, including subway stations. It is not worth the trouble to go to the Fine Arts Comission to change the design. Of course, WMATA can do whatever it wants in Maryland and Virginia but they prefer to keep things looking similar to how they are downtown. The one exception in DC is Anacostia which could not be constructed with an arch but the board approved the design there and it has many features that the other stations have.
Hopefully this answers your question.
AcelaExpress2005 - R160
When we look at surface and elevated stations the earliest stations had gullwing canopies. Later stations had flat roof canopies. The two stations within Old Town Alexandria have 6/12 peeked sheet metal canopies.
The three new surface station that are now under construction will have a far more radical canopies design; www.largotowncenter.com/photos/renderings
As for the track structure, tunnels. The systems WMATA has used in the track structure has also evolved over there years. The rail fastening system used on wood ties has evolved from spikes on tie plates to clips on plates with screws. As far as I know WMATA has no plans to use concrete or any other type crosstie.
Direct fixation rail fasteners on concrete track beds have also evolved. Early rail fasteners (rubber and steel plates sandwich) had the rail held to fasteners with blocks and T bolts with nuts and lock washers, the rail fasteners were held to the track bed with studs epoxied in to the track bed secured with nuts and lock washers. There were three different versions of the rail fasteners used over the years. The lasted versions (still rubber and steel plates sandwich) of the direct fixation rail fastener uses clips on fastener. The fastener are held with bolted screwed in to sleeves epoxied in to the track bed.
The bolts and nuts used in the older direct fixation rail fastener required retorquing on a regular schedule. The newer rail fastener
require less maintenance.
The tunnel structures have stayed the same over the years. The cut and cover tunnels that are presently under construction on the G Route Blue line extension are basically of the same design as the first cut and cover tunnels built in the 1970s. The only differences between present day construction and the work done in the 1970s is the water proofing technology used. In the 1970s liquid hot asphalt and asphalt sheets were used, today PVC sheeting is used.
John
wayne
John
Mark..
p.s.--NO, I wasn't caught in the 100-car pile-up on I-68 the other day, although it did make my normal 20 minute commute a 2 hr 15 minute commute----Even John got caught up in the traffic the next morning when he came up to WOW me with his collection---those of you who are Metro fans are truly missing the premier collection (I thought mine was good but it doesn't hold a candle to John's)
That makes her a jerk, but your tripping her, if you did it purposefully, could have caused a serious injury, and could have caused the train to be delayed while this woman got medical attention. Is that what you intended to do?
One of the times Irode the Lexington Av line I was squeezed in with a bunch of folks around a man balancing a sketch pad on a bicycle. He was drawing the portrait of a little girl sitting on the seat in front of us. He gave his truly captive audience an impromptu art lesson.
I liked it so much he signed it and gave it to me before he walked his bike off the train. My wife framed it and the little girl's angelic smile looks over us in our living room today!
Mark
Nappy
There are some subtle exterior cosmetic differences between the products of the builder of the car that WMATA has. Two of the obvious differences are the corrugated roofs on the Bredas and CAFs and the operable windows in the cabs of the Bredas and CAFs. On closer inspection one will notice that the CAFs attached the roofs differently to sides compared to the Rohrs and Bredas, the fiberglass bulkhead caps on the cabs ends of the Bredas and CAFs have shallower window shield recesses and the Bredas and CAFs were delivered with only one destination sign box on each side of the car.
The undercarriage have some differences as well. The Bredas and CAFs have a different wheel base trucks compared to Rohrs, and the anticlimber on the CAFs are different then the Bredas and Rohrs.
Mind you the differences are somewhat like what the big three automakers do with production car between model years.
I would hazard a guess that the Alstrom cars will also have some subtle exterior cosmetic differences compared to the exiting rolling stock
John
Each city is different, learn as much as you can. Don't expect to find a good frank on the street.
Ah, yes, by far the most common phrase spoken by NYers anytime they leave the city limits. If only I had a nickel everytime I heard it... :-)
Monday through Friday Harlem Line Train No.515 leaves from GCT at 744AM to North White Plains stopping only at 125 Street and White Plains. The trip takes 40 minutes. The equiptment for this trip is a six or seven car set of ACMU's, the last passenger cars built for the New York Central Railroad and the oldest railroad electric multiple-units now in service. It is a fast express run and a good way to see the third-tracking project between Mount Vernon West and Crestwood. The station at North White Plains is about a ten minute walk from Westchester Collectibles. A great source for Code 3 and Corgi models as well as O guage trains. Don't forget to buy your ticket before you get on the train.
Larry, RedbirdR33
Use of ACMU's on the weekend is not scheduled and is very very rare.
Larry, RedbirdR33
Use of ACMU's on the weekend is not scheduled and is very very rare.
Larry, RedbirdR33
What kind of name is that? I think it's Dutch.
Incognito
http://as0.mta.info/mnr/fares/get_fares.cfm
You're referring to people who don't live in Westchester, obviously. It might be worth the trouble if you really like the trains and they're headed for the scrap heap soon.
I'm planning a trip to ride the ACMU's in the near future, and Train #515 looks like a real winner. Then there is another train leaving North White Plains at 8:27am which would be good for the return trip. Does anyone know if that return train uses the same set of ACMU's?
The trip is open to anyone who would like to come along, and I'll post more information as it becomes available.
---Sir Ronald of McDonald
www.railfanwindow.com
May 27, 1981, Wednesday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section C; Page 2, Column 1; Living Desk
LENGTH: 1114 words
HEADLINE: METROPOLITAN DIARY
BYLINE: By Glenn Collins
BODY:
OUR GRAFFITI OBSERVERS: The other day J. Tevere MacFadyen came upon a graffitized billboard beneath the Brooklyn terminus of the Manhattan Bridge. The message, in waist-high letters, said:
WALK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG RADIO
The signs are everywhere: Disintegration and drought scares, rising inflation and falling expectations, gremlinized Grumman buses and the little trains that can't. The question is: What is going on here?
There is, in fact, a way to make sense of it all. The answer lies in the principle called ''Josephson's Law.'' What is that? ''Josephson's Law,'' says Larry Josephson, ''states very simply that NEW IS WORSE.'' Mr. Josephson is the Manhattan radio consultant and WBAI-FM talk-show host, and Metropolitan Diary asked him to describe The Law. Here is his report:
NEW IS WORSE
''Josephson's Law'' is the explaining axiom of our Post-Competence Age. Some of the most obvious examples are Flxible buses that brk, Tuesday's welds that barely last to Friday, the acoustics of newly constructed concert halls, and motel shower valves that force you turn one knob to choose between drowning or scalding. Each new television season is a disimprovement of its predecessor. Telephone answering machines, in their impersonal ubiquity, are worse than telephones - which have nothing over the back fence, or the air shaft.
Josephson's Law is useful in understanding everything from architecture to the arts. Public architecture has gone the way of the hamburger. The World Trade Center is twice as bad as the Empire State Building (and so, we are told, is the reception from the new Trade Center television mast). Serious music has been on a steady decline since Bartok or, if you insist, Copland.
Society? Well, the nuclear family was worse than the extended family, and neither could compete with the tribe for warmth and protection. But now, here in the Post-Laundry Age, the new, improved atomic family has made loneliness and workaholism accessible to all races, sexes, classes and orientations.
Politics? Rulers aren't what they used to be either. Elizabeth II can't hold a scepter to her namesake or, for that matter, to Glenda Jackson. Reagan is worse than Carter, Carter was worse than Johnson, and all of them were inferior to J.F.K., who was no F.D.R. (Ford was not worse than Nixon, but that's the exception that proves the rule.)
Josephson's Law is inexorable. Resistance is useless. Turn on your answering machine, immerse yourself in your home entertainment center/hot tub, lie back and let Carl Sagan condescend to you on the cable, accompanied by the soft hum of the family dinner thawing in the microwave oven.
I have seen the future and it is broken.
The Ex Years.
Ex = former. Ergo, everything once more will be like it was of old. According to this very silly thread: GOOD!
It's getting quite silly, indeed.
Lemon curry?!?
#!%$#@^%^% REPUBLICANS!!! (obligatory liberal rant)
Here's a direct link to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation site - the advisory for "Do NOT eat the fish" is the second item down in the table for "Ashoken reservoir (Ulster county)" ... have a look for yourself:
Encon advisory:
http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/fish/fishregs/fishadvisories.html (HTML format)
NYS Department of Health (DOH) advisory:
http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/environ/02fish.pdf (Adobe PDF format)
I read that as implying that it is possible for bass who have eaten PCBs in the Hudson River can somehow make it into the Ashokan Reservoir by swimming upstream.
I do not read it as saying that the Cannonsville and Ashokan watersheds have PCBs in them.
HTML Question:
How do you imbed the Liberty Bell March into a Subtalk Post?
Hmmmm... I suppose I could make it a post about the Liberty Avenue El so it's at least vaguely on topic...
A Scotsman on a horse.
A man with three buttocks.
Loneliness can often be a good thing. Workaholism more rarely so. Solitary success with as little effort as possible is the best of all.
Ford was not worse than Nixon, but that's the exception that proves the rule
I disagree. Nixon was a truly great man, but was misunderstood.
He may well be still around, but look again, the dateline is 1981...
My first encounter with a Collins. They were up on Empire with the transmitter, got to meet Mitch Katz (of WNEW) while up there, and eventually parlayed a REAL job. But BAI was a timesucker. No money, no contacts worth a whistle, bomb scares every four hours, and all the work they could con ya into. If it weren't for the folks I worked with, probably would have phoned in a bomb threat myself. Heh.
In any case, even if you didn't notice the date line, this will date the article nicely:
"The World Trade Center is twice as bad as the Empire State Building (and so, we are told, is the reception from the new Trade Center television mast)."
When it comes to LGA, things get a bit more interesting. Plenty of proposals come up like the obvious, 'Let's extend the N/W to LGA.' and the rather farfetched... I remember one poster mentioning somehow getting the Airtrain to both serve JFK and LGA... Other weird things I can think of involve connecting a new subway line from LGA to the Queens Blvd. IND, but that's hardly a good choice, for now anyway. There was even a proposal to bring the 7 to LGA, but that line is crowded as it is.
he MTA had that option, and declined it. So the PA stepped in and did something else. Something better.
Given the way the airport is laid out, I don't think you could have used MTA rolling stock for intra-airport transfers. What they did was to connect the AirTrain to the two most likely MTA transfer points, namely Howard Beach and Jamaica Center.
And also the long term parking lots, which are FAR from the terminals.
EWR and LGA have fewer terminals, and they aren't as spread out.
True, though anything to Delta Shuttle is a hassle at LGA, and C to A is something of a hassle at Newark. Newark also has a long term lot that's a hefty hike (I don't know if the Airtrain goes there).
Due to the smaller size in comparison to JFK and EWR, LGA inter airport transport would be much better served better served by some sort of people mover.
Due to the smaller size in comparison to JFK and EWR, LGA inter airport transport would be much better served better served by some sort of people mover.
Amtrak is in the way.
A web search showed that the firm of DMJM+HARRIS says it is working on the project, but there's no telling how current the information is. Look here.
But the N extension to La Guardia has less political support, less of a strong mandate, and a big NIMBY problem. So it's the easiest one to jettison. A routing that would avoid NIMBY, like extending a branch of the 63rd St line underground, would cost too much given all the current project needs.
Much of the route of any extension proposed would run through communities not directly served by the subways. The 19th Avenue extension would have also run by a major industrial park (whose representatives were rabidly against the extension). It would have added time to the trip to the airport, but maybe someone should have thought to add a station or two to those lines before the airport. If people would have benefitted from having the subway run through the community, perhaps the opposition might have been somewhat muted, at least.
The problem -- having to split service, with some running to Ditmars and some to LaGuardia. But many members of "the community" objected not only to the proposed extension but also to the existing el. So why not just remove the existing El? Eliminate Ditmars and Astoria Blvd stations. Build new station at Steinway Street on the way to the airport to take their place.
Kansas City International (MCI) is spread out; a shuttle bus takes you between terminals. However, once at a terminal it is literally 40 feet or less from security to the jetway door.
JFK's Delta Terminal is actually not horrible. Ifind the gate layout confusing, but once you know where you are, it's pretty quick. And on arrival, you're out to the street pretty efficiently.
Given that the AirTrain rolling stock has the same dimensions as the R-38, why not?
In fact, this is exactly the approach you support on 2nd Avenue. I think it makes at least as much sense at an airport than on 2nd Avenue.
In fact, this is exactly the approach you support on 2nd Avenue. I think it makes at least as much sense at an airport than on 2nd Avenue.
I don't think the cramped quarters at the airport would allow this to work. There's too much infrastructure blocking the way. (OTOH, I do admit that I am just making an educated guess, so I would defer to anyone else who's actually worked it out.) The 2nd Avenue line is underground—which it has to be, as no new NYCT line through a residential area will be built elevated. Your design for the airport would certainly have worked underground, but it would have made the AirTrain a lot more expensive to construct.
That is exactly what you will have anyway. At Newark, the NJT/future PATH station is called "Newark Airport". At JFK, the LIRR/Subway terminal is called "Jamaica (LIRR)/Sutphin Blvd (subway)". The argument is about how it gets paid for - since airport funds, not subway funds, paid for the AirTrains, there is a requirement for a supplemenatry fare on users of these connections.
Only users of the connections to Howard Beach and Jamaica will be paying the supplementary fare (which happens to be three times the current subway fare). Access to and from the parking lots and between terminals will be free.
The financial question is a separate political problem for New York to solve. Of course it would be nice to ride into Manhattan for a subway fare (or even for the now-cheaper PATH fare), but the system wouldn't have got built that way, with the legal, political and financial frameworks you are blessed (cursed?) with.
It depends on the nature of the connection.
I agree that a direct (high-speed) link running from a single airport station to a single CBD station leaves most people with a three-seat ride. I've never advocated such a direct (high-speed) link except perhaps as a premium service, supplemental to the basic service integrated into the basic transit system.
If, however, the service into the CBD is an existing subway line, and the extension into the airport stops at each terminal, then many riders really do get a one-seat ride, and most of those who don't get two-seat rides where otherwise they'd have three-seat rides.
Notice that with a direct subway extension, the terminal loop could have had half as many stations as it does (since trains would be longer), and the gaudy new Howard Beach station would have been entirely unnecessary.
The financial question is a separate political problem for New York to solve. Of course it would be nice to ride into Manhattan for a subway fare (or even for the now-cheaper PATH fare), but the system wouldn't have got built that way, with the legal, political and financial frameworks you are blessed (cursed?) with.
I still don't see why not. Passengers though the 63rd Street connection aren't assessed an extra $5 charge, are they?
And, if we are going to charge users of the new line, why is AirTrain free between the airport and the parking lot, with a $5 fee for the last half mile, which is conveniently unwalkable? (Knowing there was no access across the tracks at Howard Beach itself, I tried walking from the N. Conduit station on Wednesday. There is a road over the Belt just east of the tracks, and it leads directly towards the JFK parking lot, but the parking lot is fenced off. Pedestrian access to the parking lot isn't available until Lefferts.) Shouldn't everyone who uses it be charged, not just the affluent subway riders? (Oops, wait a minute...)
You have described almost exactly what London has at Heathrow. The premium service was paid for by the airport authority, which charges a premium fare for it [which is why I don't use it (8-) ], presumably to recoup its investment. And yes, the premium system is probably a two-seat ride (plus long walks in the terminals) for most riders while the tube is possibly a one-seat ride (plus the aforesaid long walks), albeit a slow one, for quite a few, since the Piccadilly Line stops at many useful places in central London.
"(Me): Of course it would be nice to ride into Manhattan for a subway fare (or even for the now-cheaper PATH fare), but the system wouldn't have got built that way, with the legal, political and financial frameworks you are blessed (cursed?) with."
What I meant was: (1) the Port Authority is two states, not one, and is supposed to be financially self-supporting, as I understand it; (2) airport funding and subway funding are two different federal pockets. The MTA, aka New York State - a political entity - did not choose to give priority for its slice of federal subway funding to airport transit projects. It could have done, presumably, if public opinion as expressed through elected representatives had been strong enough.
It might make even more sense in New York than it does in London. The Piccadilly line appears to take about an hour to reach the CBD (I plugged in Heathrow to Piccadilly Circus and it spat back 57 minutes). It does have a brief express run, but it's mostly local. The A train, except at night when it runs local, takes about 40 minutes to reach the near end of the CBD and under an hour to reach the far end.
There are alternatives:
Bus to Feltham Station (285, every 7-10 minutes, 25 minute journey and 726, hourly, 20 minute journey)
Train to Waterloo (5-7tph, journey time 29-34 minutes)
or
Bus to Hayes & Harlington Station (140, every 6-10 minutes, 13 minute journey)
Train to Paddington (5-6tph, journey time 16-21 minutes)
They gain pretty much nothing, but they're there and I much prefer local trains to tin cans.
R-32.
Central Business District. In most cities this = downtown. In NYC this = downtown + midtown.
The PA could always increase the fee for parking. I personally think that's not necessarily a bad idea.
A family of five leaving the car parked for one day pays a lot less for parking than an individual leaving the car parked for a week, but the family of five takes up five times as much space on AirTrain.
Moses was involved with chosing the sites for both LGA and JFK, as well as building the highway infrastructure to reach them. There were people at the time who argued that mass transit connections should be part of that infrastructure. This could have been done quite easily, but Moses opposed mass transit and prevented it from happening.
You need to look back into history to see why there were no rail connections to the airports. Until the end of WWII, there was no need for rail connections to the airports. the railroad stations were the normal place to go for long distance transportation (you caught the Carey Transportation bus to La Guardia or Newark at Grand Central Terminal). The DC-3, the most popular commercial aircraft held only 17 passengers while the really big post war airliner, the Lockheed Constellation had a capacity of 54 passengers. Because of the low capacity of airplanes, prices were too high for high volume passenger use. The Boeing 707 introduced in the mid ‘50s increased capacity to more than 100 passengers on an aircraft and increased speed significantly, but it wasn't till the Boeing 747 went into service in 1970 that airports started bursting at the seams with all the travelers.
By that time it was too late to hope for subway lines to be built anywhere in NYC.
Tom
How recently is recently? I used the Cleveland Rapid Transit from Hopkins Airport around 1970. And O'Hare has been linked for quite a while. And Boston (Logan)?
Incidentally even in Europe a lot of the airport rail links are quite recent - Copenhagen and Rome only very recently, and even Schipol was not *that* long ago. Berlin Tegel still isn't rail-linked, though Schonefeld is.
So what was the first airport in the world to be rail-linked? (This isn't a trivia question, I really don't know the answer.) Cleveland must be one of the earlier ones.
Don't know which was the first, but Boston certainly predates Cleveland (the Blue line with its Airport stop was built in the 1950s).
Also, Chicago has two tranist linked airports. Both O'Hare and Midway have L stations. I use them when I'm going direct from my office in the Loop to the airports.
-- Ed Sachs
I thought that Boston's Airport stop really isn't at the airport.
It's better than the A train currently because Logan Airport is closer to downtown Boston than JFK is to downtown areas of NY. So the trip is shorter. But there are stairs to climb, and no elevator or escalator (unless that has recently changed?).
Does anyone know when SEPTA R1 rail service began to PHL? It hasbeen expanded recently (new train station at Terminal E).
Certainly not the first such airport. Both Gatwick and Frankfurt had direct rail from their opening in 1936. In the late ‘90s, Frankfurt upgraded to ICE going all over Germany and to other European cities.
Tom
From this web page on the history of London's Gatwick Airport:
It started life modestly in 1931 as a private airfield owned by Home Counties Aviation Services. Serious development was later carried out by Airports Limited and the first terminal, together with taxiways and aprons, was opened in 1936. Passengers arriving by train could walk into the airport through subways and covered walkways.
I remember the "old" Gatwick Airport station that opened in 1936 - not that I can remember 1936. As a kid growing up in Brighton, my trains to London went through (without stopping) Gatwick Airport and Gatwick Racecourse stations. Then the decision was made to expand the little airport into London's no. 2 airport, taking in the land of the racecourse. The present Gatwick Airport station is on the site of Gatwick Racecourse station; the original Gatwick Airport station, now demolished, was a little further south, near the control tower (still there, I think) of the small 1931 airport.
When the new airport opened, the main London-Brighton road (the A23 - the M23 motorway wasn't there then) had to be diverted to avoid the airport. My parents and I happened to be driving to London (an unusual thing, we usually went by train) the day the diversion opened - and we drove up on the old road in the morning and back on the new one in the evening, to my Dad's great surprise.
As the remaining 6800 and 6900 series R-142s go into service on the 5, some 7000 and all 7100 series cars can be moved to the 4.
6891-95 and 6921-25 are road testing currently for the 5.
-Stef
First one shows portal #1 on the east side, tracks merging to slip through the low building. The tram shares this with street traffic in the westbound direction on the street named Letenska between Malostranska on the east and Malostranske Namesti (namesti = "Square") on the west.
Second one shows a tram inside the small tunnel; a sidewalk runs alongside.
Third one shows the west portal with a tram heading into Malostranske Namesti showing the eastbound portal (note the damage along the top from overheight vehicles!)
-DAve
Seriously, why is it called the Czech Republic? Why couldn't it be called Czechland?
Arti
In that case, why not Czechia?
Huh?? Is there any reason to suppose that there is anything bad about transit in Bratislava? There are no pictures from there on nycsubway.org, but why should we imagine there's anything unusual about its transit systems?
-Stef
What part of "And since all employees are under a "gag order" and not allowed to post any "inside info", I can not post the details. " did you not undertand?
-Stef
I'll be seated in 6609 for much of the trip taking comparative notes....
-Stef
If the trip does go to Coney, it would most likely be over the West End- which would be somewhat of a disappointment, because the R1/9s very seldom ran on that line. I never knew it ever ran on the West End at all until seeing pictures in the Rolling Stock section. The Culver and Brighton lines would be more appropriate- though the Culver would only be accessible through the defunct Delancey-Christie connection and a lot of reversing.
These cars ran on the original IND section for over 40 years, and on the Culver for over 20. They saw some action on the Brighton from 1967 to 1972. I never had the pleasure, but they probably sounded great on the embankment's express run.
If the trip covers any combo of CPW, Concourse, Crosstown and Queens- traditional territory- it would be entirely underground. That would fit the R1/9 ambience, but hinder photography. (It WOULD be fun to go through 63rd Street, one line that you can say in no uncertain terms EVER served the R1/9s!)
With Rockaway unfortunately off-limits, it looks like the Eastern Division would be likely territory for this trip- IF there's no GO on the L. There probably is. Other than the original IND, the Eastern Division is most heavily associated with the R1/9s.
It's going to be interesting as to where we go.
You also left out both levels of the Archer Ave extension, another location where the R1/9 (obvious) has never seen passenger service.
I'm not 100% I will be going on the trip Sunday, as I can only buy my ticket on the train at this point, and I am supposed to go somewhere else. However, I may make it, and if I do, I want to ride from Essex Street to Broadway-Lafayette! That is one of my railfanning goals.
The Southern Division has to be first on the agenda, either in Brooklyn or (changing ends south of Broad) in Manhattan.
Not neccessarily, go to Southern Div., and run back up through Stillwell/CI yard and up Culver, change ends at West 4th st. Then go through KK tunnel and wait for J shuttle to leave N/B track at Essex, going towards Chambers before going right through.
I believe there's a marker on that track, plus as David said the shuttle has exclusive access.
Is the Chrystie connection a given now.
EIther way, it seems that now the Eastern Division is completely out west of Essex, and only a slight chance of the train going through the Chrystie connection at Essex, the Rockaways are out, looks like some Southern Division and undeground routes.
I wonder why this has to be such a big secret with this "gag order". A few years back I remember a fantrip, and the routings (or tentative routings) were given at the time of the announcements of the trip, subject to change of course.
We will definitely go through Fulton and Broad, because of the J GO. If the J GO is run as it usually is, we will wrong-rail through Fulton, since the J shuttle will have exclusive access to the SB "local" track, and the SB "express" track doesn't go anywhere.
It looks like the train will not be even going near Essex because of the J GO single tracking.
It looks like the train will not be even going near Essex because of the J GO single tracking.
As for Fulton wrong-railing, I always expect the train to come from the opposite direction anyway when I use that station (It would actually be coming from the direction I would expect, if I was on the platform to witness it). It almost never fails to make me loose all sense of direction at that platform.
-Stef
I don't believe the intention was apply it to a Fan Trip schedule. GO’s are usually for construction, and I can maybe understand not wanting the details of those published.
But the rule was set as such, so I guess I will find out on Sunday where we are going. I understand the position you are in.
IRT, June 7: Westchester Yard to Grand Central Shuttle (track 1); via Lex to Livonia Yard; via 7th Avenue line to 239th Street Yard and lunch stop. To E180 and change ends for Dyre line. Then via Lex to Brooklyn Bridge, loop to Track 4 where excursion ends. Train returns to Westchester Yard.
IND/BMT, June 8: Coney Island Yard to Chambers Street track J1. To Broad Street and then via W line to 9th Ave lower. Then north to Ditmars via W line. South via W to Lex, change ends, then via R/F line to 179th Street and lunch. 179 to Jamaica Yard, then via G to 4th Ave then via F to Ave X and CI Yard. Leave CI Yard to Stillwell Ave and Brighton line to Whitehall Street and end of excursion. Train returns to Coney Island Yard.
Both GO's state that "stops for photographs or other reasons will be made at the discretion of the RTO Supervisor In-Charge."
Not responsible for last minute changes.
Now I guess I'll have to give myself 30 days in the street ;-)
-Stef
-Stef
There's a lot of eateries at 179th Street- I went to high school near there. Among others, a Burger King, McDonald's, KFC, Castle, coffee shop, pizzeria.
I'm going to stop by the Transit Store for an E-train shirt. That's the line I've always associated with the 1/9s.
See y'all Sunday.
Funny thing - I associate the R-1/9s with the D.
I hope that by the time we get to the Brighton Line the rains will have stopped. Would I love to get a full speed runby there!!
--Mark
Yea, imagine me at either RF window at the front and FOAMING BIG TIME AT THE BRIGHTON EXPRESS, I heard these babies can top nearly 50 mph on a dip.
YESSSSS!
Just a minute! The TA's weekend service advisories have the R running between Queens and Manhattan via 63rd Street and the W not running between the Plaza and Lex. That means the 60th Street tube is closed down. So there's no way the trip could go to Astoria. It could still go to Jamaica through 63rd Street, following the R detour.
That WOULD be neat, riding a 1/9 through trackage that was born more than a decade after their retirements.
WHO-HOO, YIPPEE, YEESSSSSS! You know what this means once we leave Stillwell heading on our last leg of the trip: FULL SPEED AHEAD ON THE BRIGHTON EXPRESS TRACK. Wow! Just CAN'T MISS THIS!
And NO RUNS ON THE SLIME BITCH LINE EITHER, PERFECT!
Wish I could have made it for this one - used to run those puppies on the Brighton. If the track's clear and your motorman or woman can wrap it, hang onto yer hats!
And, of course, you could tell how fast you were going on the R-1/9s by the sound of the gears.
Which reminds me: I'd be very curious to know how high their gears got up to on, say the Brighton express dash or the Hillside express dash. OTOH they usually store trains on the Hillside express tracks on weekends, so that may not happen.
That very first D train I ever rode up CPW in 1967 reached F# above middle C heading n/b. That's the pitch it sang out when the motorman gave it juice at 103rd.
Wayne says he was aboard R-6-2 1233 on a Queens-bound F train that hit A above middle C at about Sutphin Blvd. in 1973. That's flat-out flying.
I *doubt* the Arnines were neutered. :)
Those R-1/9s will have the Brighton express tracks all to themselves.
And my SAT practice test score is up 70 points to 1310; have to take the real thing tomorrow (else I'd be going tomorrow too). Wish me luck (on both the SAT and the million-to-one chance of running into the excursion train).
But GOs typically are published.
It appears that you don't understand.
The TA doesn't want any one but "authorized" staff to give out information to the public, so
- GOs are a internal document, but "Advisorys" are not.
- Rumors & other stuff that staff may hear is confidental, press statements are for the public at large.
This is realy nothing new. I have dealt with various groups in the TA for years. They tend to NOT give you information unless you ask the right question.
Some of this information they don't want to get out, or seriously feel can comprise the security & safety of the system, so they will go after the person that spilled the beans. The letter, probably, says that they intend to do this more then less in the future.
Disclaimer: I don't work for the MTA, TA, or nycDOT and am speaking for myself and not my employeer.
--Mark
Any chance GO Saturday visits 239th Yard??? CI Peter
Now, where's Mr. Todd with the (good) weather forecast for the weekend?
--Mark
(Are they planning to finish the reallignment work on the L line this weekend? - that would mean it's guaranteed to be bad weather).
Some had said that "they" were experiences problems getting the cars serviced (more required then they thought, didn't have some of the parts they needed for some of the models).
I haven't heard yet if in fact the either fleet is ready. So, I'm just assuming they are. Even if it's Red Birds & D-Types it will be a failfan fest.
--Mark
-Stef
6946-50
6961-70
6981-90
1181-85
1206-50
Approx. 75 Cars remain.
Widecab5 can verify the numbers....
-Stef
Breslin doesn't have, or didn't attempt, to come up with any ways the subway can possibly be funded without fare box revenue.
Would that it were so. Any ideas how the subways could be funded without depriving us of arms and legs?
www.forgotten-ny.com
Jimmy also needs to get some fact checkers. It's hard to understand why his first subject needs to take a dollar van to "147th in Rosedale" after getting off the 111 bus. The 111 runs the entire length of 147th Avenue in Rosedale. Worse, he implies that the person works 27.5 hours a week and makes 40 bucks doing it. Either Jimmy hasn't checked his facts or the store is violating the minimum wage laws.
But that's journalism... never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I wouldn't suggest it, but I've never heard of Breslin, so I'm hoping he's just saying it in an attempt to get some attention. If he's serious, then I'm scared.
I hope you mean federal taxes. After all, New York can't tax the rich who move away.
I believe that the fare should be low and that it should be largely funded by tax revenues as New York State and City roads are (because its use limits the wear and tear on roads, but let's get real.
The same applies to Subway. Infrastructure is not funded by fare, only portion of the operating costs.
Arti
Bottom line though, if EVERYBODY paid their taxes, YOU AND I would be paying a WHOLE lot less, the SAS would have been built by now, and your train would be dashing back and forth on the bridge. :(
He's a columnist and author who's been writing for decades. Much of his earlier stuff was pretty good, focusing on gritty urban issues. Several years ago, however, he suffered a stroke or similar illness and nearly died, and it's been said that his thinking and writing processes have been impaired.
And of course, the G would run only on sundays, Court st to Hoyt.
I think somebody's been hitting the wacky tobakky!
Peace,
ANDEE
He should pay a premium...
Chuck Greene
Finally, Jimmy and I have something in common.
www.forgotten-ny.com
So children aren't Americans?
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
Just because they aren't licensed to drive a car doesn't mean they can't ;)
Lobotomy as in frontal lobotomy ?
It was more like a "bottle in front of me" syndrome !!
Bill "Newkirk"
This has brought up the issue of the fenceing around the Rt. 100 tracks. Despite being a 3rd rail electrified line most of the fencing is low and does not have barbed wire. Residents have been complaining for some time about the holes and I have personally seen people cutting accross Rt 100 tracks just like they were normal railroad tracks. Just like the old bullet cars, the new N-5's are fast and quiet, a deadly combination when inattentive people are fouling the loading guage.
At this moment the child is in serious condition at a local hospital, but has not died yet.
-Robert King
Tragic...
**Actually this isn't quite true as my dad told me about the 3rd rail and how PATCO trains worked and the fear of the 3rd rail kept me off the PATCO tracks, however I can hardly hold average parents to this standard.
The picture includes an end view of the re-rebuilt gate cars and an end view of one of the new R-143 subway cars on an adjoining track. It is a rather small picture, but is in color.
A great shot of the oldest and the newest equipment.
Bill "Newkirk"
Now THAT is the kind of scratchitti I like to see!
Did they permit people in these cars at Coney Island during the roadeo?
as well as the mockup R-68 "D" train (sorry, the pic for that one didn't quite come out!)
There is no evidence of a third rail in the shop, but there appears to be an orange extension cord going into the car by way of the storm door.
Did they really supply current to those cars with that extension cord?
I did spot a couple of M7 train's while riding the LIRR including one ON the Ronkonkoma branch.After arriving at Ronkonkoma and going to Smith Haven Mall and a 5 bus trip to get back to the city,I arrived at Flushing and hopped on a R62A 7 train,lead car #2150,and I'm pleased to say that there does seem to be some new arrival's of R62A singles's from Livonia since I saw them still with blue sticker's,also spotted car set #1711-1715 with blue sticker's heading to Corona Yard.Once at Times Sq.I let a 1 train go and it was a good thing I let it go cause a few mintues later in came the 3 train and it was ANOTHER R62!! This time I was in the back of the train on car #1466 which means that set was #1466-1470 and the 2nd set was in the 1500's.And arriving at 72St on that same train,I spotted yet another R62 headind SB,only car set I caught was 1426-1430.So that's 3 R62 train's on the 3 today.And after getting off at 96St,waited for the next 1 train and continued on my married way home.
Hmmmm. Let's see....S59 or S57 to Vets Hwy in Bohemia, S54 to Walt Whitman Mall, N78 to Hicksville, N21 to Flushing. Two fares, but only four buses. And that probably took near to three hours. What routes did you take for the return to Flushing?
I once rode to Patchogue from Williamsburg by bus. B53 to Jamaica, N4 to Hempstead, N72 to Babylon, S40 to Patchogue. (I realize the B53 is now the Q53.) I also like doing "bus in/train back" trips, especially in NJ. Plenty of interesting possibilities.
S63 9632
S54 9919
N79 174
N20 386
Albany, NY TimesUnion, no subscription required. Article is entitled, "Not merely a diary, a multimedia event - Pentagon's LifeLog project aims to digitize a person's every experience" ... Like I said, no joke ... WOW. But DOES solve that problem with using a camera - you will BE the camera ... and then some. We are SHRUB, we are SMART. We drill for fluids to make us go. Resistance is futile, you WILL be assimilated. :-\
This is DARPA. They do off the wall things. After all, they funded this totally pointless thing called Arpanet back in the 70s.
(yes, I'm joking)
-Robert King
-Robert King
It's more "fluff" from the Spin Factory (TM).
Saw the picture of the dude all trussed up with electronic doo-dads. My take is that any idiot dumb enough (there are a lot of them in the country, not to mention the world) to sign up will most likely scare little kids, as you WILL stand out in a crowd.
That story falls squarely in the catagory of "look waht we can do", not that is gonna be done.
Gee, I didn't know the newspapers have sweep months.
Well, SOMEONE would have to actually leave the house wearing that thingy on the train...
But I posted it because I thought folks would find it amusing, especially in light of all the "photography prohibited" scenarios. Wonder where THIS would fit in. :)
Peace,
ANDEE
Later that day I heard the alla turca movement played from one of Mozart's piano sonatas and that subway scene was seared into my memory. I see that train now whenever I hear that piano piece.
Ahh...alla turca. Very relaxing.
Peace,
AMDEE
Not for the guy playing it!!!
Randomly enough, I tend to stick Mozart CDs in my Discman when I'm on the train. A couple of symphonies will really make the lethargic Birmingham to Leicester ride go quickly!
31 and 38 are good fun and easy to listen to as well. 40 was rather wrecked by the advent of the mobile phone, but is undoubtedly a wonderful piece of music, although I prefer his other G minor Symphony (25). My all time favourite has to be 39.
Beethoven is more up my alley, though.
I reckon Beethoven 3 and Mahler 9 rather vie as to the definition of the ultimate symphony!
Peace,
ANDEE
But the News has been going overboard with some of its summon blitz articles. They wrote an article about a poor lady in Queens who got a ticket for putting out a toilet seat in its original cardboard box. They also wrote an article about people who got summonses for putting recyling in with regular trash.
They forgot to mention that these folks were flagrantly ignoring the recyling rules. Recycling only works if people follow the rules, and the city has worked very hard to inform everyone of those rules.
An example of the half-truths the daily news is printing
The pregnant lady was not some tired lady trying to get a breather as the Daily News stated
excerpt from NYTIMES
"Crystal Rivera, the pregnant woman cited in the subway, was part of a group of teenagers blocking the stairs. "Her inconsideration for people trying to exit the subway suddenly became a cause célèbre," Mr. Kelly said.
Mr. Bloomberg is not the only mayor to take heat for perceived blitzes. At a news conference last week he read from a Daily News article of December 1996 that described people ticketed for seemingly innocuous offenses."
Every few years the Daily News in conjuntion with an outside force exagerates stories to make good reading. Nothing Else. The guy picking up a nickle could have been harrasing riders. The story choose to say only that he was picking up a nickle noting else
The nothing real to do and no real qualification city concilman will play on public perception vs. reality. That is why this city is in it's sorry shape.
Even though quaility of life summons are down, a bunch of city concilman saw an opurtunity for a photo op making the same racialy divisive remarks. From what these guys say you would think the city was 90% white
"On the steps of City Hall a group of black and Hispanic New York City Council members, responding to the stories, said the so-called Bloomberg ticket blitz has disproportionately affected their neighborhoods. Allusions to his perceived lack of empathy for the common man abounded."
How could it disproportionately affect black and hipspnic neighborhoods when MOST NEIGHBORHOODS have significant black and hispanic populations.
Reducing garbage pickups get spinned as streets are going to get dirtier. No mention that areas such as the area I live in, resdents put out half empty garbage cans twice a week becasue if you recycle, a two family house does not have much garbage. Also concider that most people have garbage disposals as well.
"There is no strategy to raise money through the increase of tickets," Mr. Giuliani is quoted as saying. "No matter how often I say it, you want to write it or somebody else wants to write it."
Edward Skyler, Mr. Bloomberg's press secretary, said he understood why people might accept the possibility of a blitz. "At first blush," he said, "it makes sense to people, that `Oh, the city is so cash strapped it's trying to find a buck anyway it can.' " But, Mr. Skyler added, "The numbers don't lie."
For instance, he said, overall summonses for blocking subway movement are down by 29 percent for the first months of this year. Similarly, he said, parking tickets were down by 17 percent and moving violations were down by 7 percent.
The figures are through April of this year, but Mr. Skyler said he did not expect May data to alter the result.
"We've issued far fewer tickets than we did last year and even the Independent Budget Office confirmed that tickets are not moneymakers," he said, referring to a report released last week that said New York City typically spends more money than it collects from summonses. The only money-maker was parking tickets, and the city plans to issue more of those in coming months.
Mr. Skyler said: "If we relied on tickets to balance our budget, the city would have gone out of business a long time ago. It just doesn't add up."
Mr. Skyler was less understanding of what he considered a falsehood spread by the P.B.A. president, Patrick Lynch, who is running for re-election. Mr. Bloomberg and his aides have suggested that Mr. Lynch is trying to promote himself as a defender of beleaguered officers. There are no ticket quotas, Mr. Bloomberg said, but, yes, officers are judged in part on how well they enforce the law."
I like to think subtalkers are smarter then the average city resident who often fail to see the crap thier local representives are pulling
Peace,
ANDEE
The city concil idiots refused to allow bloomberg to raise the recycling fine from a measly $25 to $50. No wonder many people choose not to recycle.
Meanwhile not recycling is costing the city a fortune in extra pickup costs.
If you run all the numbers the city actually makes money on the recycling program. It makes money for selling the paper, the taxes from recycling plants such as vicey on staten island which is in negotiations to add 70 more workers. The only holdup is that it needs more paper from the city to make it worthwild
The Guliani administration wanted no interest in the recycling program. The former contract for plastic, glass and metals cost the city becaue it was poorly written. The contract stated if Waste Management was not able to market the glass, plastic or metal, the city would pay to have it dumped at a WMI landfill. Which most of it ended up
The new contract for glass and plastic is for $9 a ton gauranteed vs $60 a ton to landfill the garbage.
Bloomberg is also pushing a plan that would allow delevery companies such as fed ex to buy a fixed cost parking plaqu that would exempt them from paying for individual tickerts
PArking tickets is part of FedEX cost structure just like fuel and labor costs. Such a plan would free up police and traffic agents to issue tickets for other vioaltors
The end of hand written tickets would also speed up the proccess. The university police at stony brook were using such as system back in 1993
If I read the statistics correctly, thier were fewer tickets issued but increaed revenue due to the higher costs
1)People are more care full where they park. This is a good thing. The higher tickets served part of thier purpose
plus a biggies is
Lower economic activity in manahttan has resulted in such things as fewer fedex and package deliveries which are a nice portion of the ticket pool. Plus fewer manhattan visiotors overall.
A large portion of parking tickets are issued in manhattan to no city residents or busineses. Fewer companies in business, fewer tickets
Is the reason why the NYPD and traffic officer still writing paper tickets the parking Violations Bueru schadle of the mid 1980's. If memeory serves me it involved an electonics company. Hand written tickets take too long to write and are prone to human error.
The time to write a parking ticket could be cut to under 1 minute or less using a hand held computer and portable printer. You would need less traffic agents and you would be able to track the work patterns of agents
Channel 5 ran a story last year where agents would write a few quick tickets and then take a hour break and read the paper etc. Not only are they not working hard, but they then need to find violations to meet the average daily tickets issues mark. I hate to use the word quota because it has been twisted to mean something negative such as the words "discrimination" and "profiling" . Profiling is the cornerstone of detective work. Unfortunitly the popular meaning today is states something negative
If I read the statistics correctly, thier were fewer tickets issued but increaed revenue due to the higher costs
Where's the blitz? Blitz means more tickets are being issued. Obviously, the blitz is on minor, low-fine violations, not parking tickets.
Profiling is the cornerstone of detective work. Unfortunitly the popular meaning today is states something negative
"Profiling" isn't negative. "Racial profiling" is.
You are right, but many people don't draw the distiction. In fact the NJ just pass a law that prohibited profiling, not racial profiing. What this law means is that it is techically illegal to create a criinal profile of a suspect and broadcat it over a police radio
This has megans law implications because how the law is written, f you call out that you are looking for a white make, mide 30's brown hair. That is techically a profile and a racial profile
Just as discrimination is not negative. Illegally discriminating against a person because his race is
Ask the average guy in harlem if an employer should be discriminate about who he hires and you will get an angry outcry
Every employer is discriminate about who he hire's. you would not hire a guy with a suspended licence to drive a bus.
You are completely wrong. If you are looking for an individual, it is a description, and perfectly legal to give the color of the skin, the hair, the sex and the clothing. It is racial profiling when you say that certain crimes are usually committed by persons of a certain race and age, so be on the lookout for anyone of that race and age, and if you see someone matching the profile, check to see if any crime has been committed in the area so you can stop them.
An egregious example was the belief that on the highways between Florida and the Northeast, drug runners were Black and Hispanic males, driving late model cars being careful not to exceed the speed limit. This resulted in police officers sitting beside the highway checking cars until they saw the profiled cars go by, then following until they saw a real or imagined traffic violation and pull them over and hold them until a drug sniffing dog could be brought to the scene. Needless to say, drug dealers quickly changed their M.O. after losing a few loads, and a great many honest citizens of color were unjustly harassed.
And who can forget, the FBI profile of the Washington area sniper was a lone white male in his ‘30s. You have to wonder how many times the real snipers passed through roadblocks without close inspection because they did not fit the profile.
Tom
Statistics can be very misleading especially when it comes to so-called "quality of life" issues. You need to examine the types of offenses these tickets are being issued for and do a comparison. I suspect that years ago many more tickets were issued to squeegee men, public begging, etc... Since these flagrant quality of life issues have disappeared to a large extent I suspect that more tickets are now being issued to people who occupy more than one seat on the subway, etc... People who had not been targets previously...
Personally I feel that we have TOO MANY laws to obey for a so-called free society and that police tend to be very rude when they bark orders. I am not in the military therefore I demand that I be treated with respect and that police precede all orders with the word "PLEASE" and followed by the phrase "THANK YOU SIR ".
Many of these laws have legitamate purposes, some are nothing more then a polician wanting to make himeself look like he was doing things
As a society we need to look at the laws on the books and weed out the ones that no longer make sense and grade the one's we want to keep
Free society does not me anarchy. Many of the laws even those you may not see a point for do make sene.
The animal licencing law for examply
- It provides protection against animal thrft
- It ensures the public safety by ensuring animals have all thier shots and don't harbor any diseases that can get past on to humans or other animals
-Provides away to track animals if they become lost.
-Provides a way to punish animal owners who abandon thier animal
-It banned animals are not kept
It does make sense and is needed. The licencing fees pay for animal shelters
Who's advocating anarchy - but what good is having freedom if it can't be excercized. I'm sorry but we have gone too far.
And as far as obeying the law - well we should be informed of what the laws are first... It seems the city is now enforcing obscure statutes that no-one ever knew existed. If the city wants to enforce these rules then the city should provide a complete set of rules on demand to anyone who requests it, free of charge, and translated to simple English as well as ALL possible languages spoken here. Only then will I consider the enforcement fair.
Parking regulations are available on the DOT website but the rules for using the Transit system, walking on city streets, etc are no-where to be found unless you are a lawyer with thousands of dollars to spend on access to services like Lexis/Nexus etc... Then you need to be a lawyer to understand these rules...
All this has accomplished is to make me lose respect for cops and the city government...
Not only that, but reasonable people will know that they will be subject to a number of regulations when they are driving and parking. That is not the case with riding the subway or, even less, walking down the street.
That's not such a great idea. Giving anyone a licence to break the law is not the way to go. Fedex may consider the tickets a cost of doing business, but they cannot deduct them as a business expense from their taxes. If there is not enough commercial parking space, then more loading zones need to be made available by preventing others from misusing the existing ones (more aggressive ticketing) and creating new ones, not selling licences to a favored few to break the law.
Tom
Peace,
ANDEE
The poice precents in cooperation with the local community boards shout get together and make a concertive effort to list there top ten complaints and laws they want to be enforced rigorously.
In your neighborhood it may be pooper scoop law and red light running.
In my neighborhood it may be loitering at all hours of the night that contrbuted to the drug trade
In a third neighborhood it may be kids blocking the subway steps that are intidating riders(what the police claim the group of teanagers who included the pregant girl was doing)
If the daily news puts out an artice. Have the local precent commander hold up the top ten list put together by the community board.
laws are on the books to help make life better. Local politiacians love to add new laws, but cry when they are enforced
One such law is the no cell phone on public transit law. yes it is anoying but go forbid the police give a ticket 5 years fromnow when people forgot how big of a problem some people made it out to be, It will be all over the paper.
A little note: Much of the problem on train is due to the nextel speaker walky talkie which technically could be classified as no radio playing. No need for a vague new over restrictive statue. It was preposed to get ones name in the paper.
the term limit law has made the grandstanding worse becsue each city concil idiot wants to create a citywide name for himeself to run for another office.
Gilford Miller is doing his best I want to be your next mayor impressions.
WHAT no cell phone on public transit law?? Where?? Effective date??
Another law that is hard to enforce and if it ever is will get blamed on the mayor tring to push quota's on cops
This is where some of these crazy laws come from
He's a troll who, when called on his abismal speeling, promptly began posting made up stuff that was correctly spelled.
The Funny part is that many NYPD officer live wuite well in Nassau county.
It is another Union circular eqaution. You overpay for police and county services. You need to raise taxes to pay for the servies. The police say becasue you raised taxes you need to give us a raise
The end result everyone suffers for no reason
On the other hand, Nassau cops write their own share of BS tickets. I got ticketed last year for honking my car horn for my wife, who was dawdling in a store. I got socked for $50 for using my horn in a non-emergency situation.
The NYPD could easily write 2000 times more tickets if it devoted teh man power to do so.
the fact of the matter is the daily news is not reporting the full story of these selected tickets. There is much more to each story then what is being reported
Any ticket that gets dismissed by the judge or administrative person ajducating the case should be paid for by the police officer who issued it.
That would be one way to get the money the Bloomie wants and make sure that "silly summonses" are cut to a minimum.
Production enhancements, HAH!! Corporate doubletalk!! No matter what it is called it is a quota.
Once again quaility of life tickets are down. And most of the silly tickets highlighed in the daily news had other issue attached to them. For instace the pregant teanager was part of a group that refused to get up from the stairway creating a legitamate safety hazzard
the guy on the milk crate was sitting in front of a known drug dealing location where two shooting occured in the past few months. It is hard to pick up a person on dealing drugs. the guy on the crate could have been the lookout and the police used a quirk in the law to deter him from working from the locations. Probably at the request of a complaint. Police offcice in this city ignor too many blatant offenses right in front of their face.
You have made this *UNQUALIFIED* statement before. He was sitting in front of HIS PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT.
Peace,
ANDEE
If the quote was still available online I would post it.
Peace,
ANDEE
Thank God for small favors. 8-)
Peace,
ANDEE
EXCUSE me????!!!!!
May your daily mode of trasnportation develop mechanical problems when it is least convenient.
Yea,
but most of the snot-nosed residents would deny it.
Peace,
ANDEE
But no, the current residents are STILL trying to seceed.
Too late; all three modes failed me on Wednesday.
Peace,
ANDEW
Peace,
ANDEE
Was the dog on a leashe
Was the dog on the subway
Did the dog have it's proper licance around his neck
Just saying you had a dog tell me nothing.
If you were doing any of the above incorrectly you should be issued a ticket
Dog Poop spreads deseases- IE a possible casue for SARS
Unlicence dogs may or may not have all thier shots
Dogs in the subway are a no-no unless you ae blind
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes
I did nothing to justify being stopped.
Or a dog in a carrier. IE, taking a dog/cat to a vet.
Peace,
ANDEE
But that is without saying. To tell you the truth, by law as written it is probably a violation but I can not see anyone issuing such a summons. Most cops have dogs themselves
He should have produced a listing of just about every city ordiance up there in a spreadsheet, along with a box for members of the City Council to indicate which ones it wants repealed, which ones it wants to be made voluntary, and which ones it only wants enforced against the "wrong kind of people" -- and who those people are. That's the real scandal.
These are the same city concil idiots who stand up two or three times a year and compliant that th epoice are not doing enough to enforce qualiy of life issues in thier area
There's lies,
Damn lies,
and statistics
8-)
Peace,
ANDEE
Oxymoron. You've got those looking to score political points (Hevesi, Thompson) and those looking to get paid (the accountants the MTA says blessed its books).
The article is about preserving historic buildings in lower manhattan, and specifically near the proposed Fulton Street Transit Center.
I think that it'll be a disaster, saving far less money that they expect over a four-track line and that the lack of express service will not pull away that many riders. But what can you say about people who dubbed the West End line the W train (instead of the traditional T) because West End begins with W?
-- Ed Sachs
Finally, who says that an express tunnel, a la the uppper Lexington IRT and the 6th Avenue IND, cannot be built someday under the existing tracks?
Potentially, at least. Skip-stop saves time if a lot of passengers are traveling from all-stop stations at one end of the line to all-stop stations at the other end of the line. If typical trips are short, skip-stop doesn't save much time at all, and if many passengers board at skip-stop stations, they lose much more time in the extended wait than they gain in the faster ride.
I don't think skip-stop would help on the 2nd Avenue line. It's just not long enough, and there will be busy stations throughout.
I wonder how much transfer traffic will be generated (meaning, people getting on the SAS at 125 St or other stops, riding to 63rd/Lex, and transferring to Queens-bound F trains, and vice versa)?
Or even 4th Avenue
You have access, as all of us do, to accurate information regarding the cost of constructing subways; I suggest you look at it.
Look up the zillion threads on this site; examine the DEIS, which is available on-line and in the Manhattan Borough President's office and the public library (if you are in New York).
I suggest you also look up David Greenberger's posts regarding express vs. local trains. Examine the way that express and local trains work along CPW and Queens Blvd.
It would be nice to have four tracks on Second Avenue, but it is not crucial to its function.
The supposed time saving of express trains is greatly exaggerated, especially where the local stations are fairly widely spaced, as they will be on the SAS. This is not the IRT, with stations sometimes as little as 4 blocks apart. On the SAS, it will be an average of about 10 blocks.
Yes, of course express service is a bit faster, but even over a fairly long route the time saved is only a few minutes. If the SAS goes where the passenger wants, the passenger isn't going to walk over to Lexington Avenue just because he can catch an express. The passenger would lose more time in the walk than he'd save by taking a Lex express.
What express service really buys you, is that it doubles capacity. But the SAS is being designed for 30tph. The argument to build the SAS 4-tracked is tantamount to an argument that Second Avenue needs 60tph, which I don't think it does.
In the SDEIS, I don't recall any statement that the line was being designed so that express tracks could be added "easily" (I use the term loosely) in the future. This may be short-sighted; I don't know. There are some on this board who believe that the ridership projections are insufficient to justify even a 2-track line. I'm not in that camp, but I tend to think that 4 tracks would be overkill.
The SDEIS contemplates only 24 tph operation. Even this is suspect because the MTA has not been able to design stub terminals that can handle even 15 tph - e.g. Jamaica Center.
Capacity there is reduced because the switch is too far from the terminal, increasing the length of wrong-way operation. The switch is too far from the terminal because it was not planned to be the terminal. Big mistake.
Was Rockaway Ave planned to be the terminal on the Fulton St Line? What service levels did they operate?
Was 169th St planned to be the terminal on the Queens Blvd Line?
What service levels did they operate?
I suppose it was. When was the extension to 179 St first planned (as opposed to actually built)?
The SDEIS contemplates only 24 tph operation.
Page 2-7 of the SDEIS says, "Facilities for the Second Avenue Subway are being developed to accommodate up to 30 trains per hour during peak periods."
Even this is suspect because the MTA has not been able to design stub terminals that can handle even 15 tph - e.g. Jamaica Center.
However, both SAS termini are being designed 3-tracked, with tail tracks. The comparison to Jamaica Center is therefore inapposite.
Exactly how do 3-tracks increase terminal capacity?
Jamaica Center has tail tracks.
If you have a 2-track terminal, then to achieve 30tph each platform needs to turn 15tph. That is, each peak-hour train has 4 minutes to clear the interlocking, enter the station, unload, load, change ends, exit the station, and clear the interlocking again.
If you have a 3-track terminal, then to achieve 30tph each platform needs to turn around 10tph, allowing 6 minutes for all of the above to occur. Obviously you're still constrained by the interlocking, but that's only a small part of the 6-minute turnaround time.
Jamaica Center has tail tracks.
I'm assuming Larry Littlefield is correct when he said the peculiar problem at Jamaica Center is that the switches are too far from the station.
I think the interlocking, and waiting for a signal allowing you to enter the interlocking, are the bulk of the time. Neither of those are less for 3 tracks.
How long can it take to unload and load a train? Even GCT on the 4/5 only takes a minute. All terminals are far less crowded than that.
In a 3-track terminal the interlocking is more complex and might even take longer to get through. The only advantage I see of a 3-track terminal is that it provides time to clean the trains.
I plan to go to 8th Ave on the L some time in the near future and try to figure out what actually takes up the 4 minutes between trains. I can only account for 2.5 minutes myself.
Increasing throughput by having more tracks at a terminal isn't exactly a new idea. All of the PATH terminals, except for Newark, are more than 2 tracks (e.g., three at 33rd and HOB, five at WTC).
In the morning rush, PATH operates every 5 minutes from 33rd St to Hoboken, and every 4 minutes from 33rd St to Newark. That's a total of 27 tph, out of a 3-track terminal (without tail tracks). I am guessing that this would not be possible if 33rd St were 2 tracks.
I don't think NYCT turns 27 tph at any of its 2-track stub-end terminals, does it?
Your guess is wrong. It is possible because PATH trains are 350 feet long whereas NYCT trains are 600 feet long.
Times Square?
Times Square has tail tracks.
The New York City Transit System Rapid Transit Lines - Flow Chart for August 1949 shows the following Morning Peak Hour service for the following 2 track stub terminals that are close to or exceed 27 tph.
Pelham Bay Park - 30 tph/210 cars
Bronx Park (3rd Ave El) - 25 tph/159 cars
E 241st St (Lex + 3rd Ave El) - 25 tph/220 cars
8th Ave (14th St Line) - 24 tph/137 cars
Hudson Terminal - 26 tph/244 cars
Of course, I do have some data for the Brooklyn Bridge Cable Railway in 1887 - before the terminals were enlarged and were still simple 2-track stub terminals with a single center platform. They show 45 tph/90 cars. After the 1887 enlargment, they were still stub terminals but with 3 platforms. The were able to increase service levels to 50 tph/200 cars.
This assertion is based on specific knowledge. A relocation was under consideration as part of the 2005-09 capital plan. I believe it was deferred in favor of signal improvments on the Lex, intended to squeeze out a couple of more tph.
1. Assume that the interlocking is 100 feet long and that the train is 600 feet long.
2. Assume that the average speed of the train over the interlocking is 5 mph such as is necessary for a stub terminal.
3. Assume that the average speed of the train over the interlocking is 10 mph such as can be achieved with tail tracks.
4. Now assume that the interlocking length is 150 feet long such as is necessary for a 3 track terminal. Recalculate the answers for questions 2 and 3.
5. Finally, assume that the train is only 350 feet long - such as for PATH. Recalculate the inerlocking time for a train speed of 5 mph.
N.B. each train must pass over the interlocking twice. For a single track terminal the minimum headway is double the time to pass over the interlocking with 0 dwell time. A two track terminal has the same minimum headway but provides a dwell time equal to the minimum headway. A three track terminal has the same minimum headway (adjusted for the longer interlocking) but has a dwell time equal to twice the headway.
PATH at WTC and possibly even 33rd have boarding volumes (as percent of total train capacity) that exceed that of any NYCT terminal, even including Times Square and Flushing. Times Square handles at most 1/3 of 7 passengers going under the East River. Flushing handles a high percentage of 7 passengers but it has 3 tracks. WTC handles 100% of peak load, and 33rd is also high. Therefore the issue of loading/unloading may be a good reason for 3 or more tracks at those terminals.
But for the all the other (less busy) NYCT terminals, I haven't seen any good reason in all the discussions that have ever been posted on this board why 2 tracks aren't as good as 3 for pure capacity. Again, 3 might be important just so that you have time to clean the train.
That doesn't mean I'm right. But I haven't seen any coherent argument saying I'm wrong.
You should not have any problems regarding the length of trains nor the average speed through the interlocking.
Regarding the length of an interlocking - here's a shot of an R12 on a switch. The R12's are