MHV9218

8 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

@MHV9218 Look at the interesting signage in this photo. You have a weird large B sign for skip-stop service and a black on white sign telling passengers not to cross the tracks in a weird font.

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?41803

 

Good eye...the All Persons sign looks like a hand-stenciled early sign on metal, might be sticker letters. Missing the top stripe! 

19 minutes ago, EastFlatbushLarry said:

as was mentioned, coronavirus threw a monkey wrench into any future plans MTA had... including bus purchases/placements. everything is pretty much off the table. so there's absolutely no guarantees at this juncture, and if you are an informed surveyor, you'd know how many times supposed lock & key ideas/plans/proposals/moves died on the vine, so spare us the nostradamus-esque/definitely-happening-under-any-circumstances foresight/predictions

Only thing I would add is that some orders are already funded, anything that was in the past capital plan that's under order. I don't keep the closest track of the plans at this point, but I think the hybrid orders and some of the first electrics are covered under that, in the same way that say, the R211 order is still legally obliged to progress. But yes, anything beyond that is, until money shows up, DOA. And the MTA specifically said that all new 'electric bus orders' will be canceled indefinitely if they can't get their money. 

[Now, personally I think they emphasized electric just to grab the attention of the environmentalists, since there's no substantive reason if they're still planning to order diesel buses they can't order electric or hybrid buses, but that's just PR...]

Moreover, those cars are evidence in an active investigation. Until the perpetrator is prosecuted and imprisoned, do not expect anything to happen to those cars, which may bear traces of an accelerant, incendiary device, or other tools employed in this horrible act. Prosecutors will want all the evidence they can find in building their case, and naturally the MTA will be inclined to cooperate in prosecuting a crime that killed one of their workers. 

15 hours ago, jolusoji said:

So here the video. of the broken windows on the 7 line.This was during Rush hour.Me and one other transit worker was just  noticed when it arrived.Hope this helps!

 

Somebody really didn't like the R188 conversion car!

This guy needs to be in jail, in a hurry.

@Deucey I do think there's an NYPD slowdown for sure, all arrests have plummeted including gun arrests, despite shootings as we all know massively on the rise. This though, there is video of a guy doing it, I think it's not the kind of thing a cop would do. Too obvious, too easy to get caught. Way easier to look the other way at a drug deal, etc.

16 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

Nah, this is the Hybrid demo, not straight electric IIRC.

Interesting. I would have thought it would be numbered in sequence, like 6365 or 8090 was, and then the TA would accept or reject it accordingly. Maybe they're giving up that practice and just starting the numbering once the order's in...guess it was a little weird to go through multiple 6365s and 8090s...

So this is one of the electric demo LFSes, as distinct from from the hybrid LFSes in production in Canada and soon to be in service for us?

55 minutes ago, trainfan22 said:

I figured it had something to do with Covid. Guess I'll try to avoid riding the bus until the weather cools down. The subway has most of the cars windows closed with the A/C on and there hasn't been a major spike in Covid cases since ridership went up.

There's also plenty of buses with the windows closed with the A/C on and there hadn't been a spike in cases...

Oh well, it is what it is.

My understanding is that the subways have a much more robust air circulation system, which the buses can't quite keep up with using the one HVAC at the back. With the lower-end system, you really might just be breathing the same in over again. There was a TWU guidance for workers that suggested opening one or two windows and the roof vent, if I remember, with the HVAC left on, but that may not apply to all fleets.

Generally, the covid era just has me used to sweating. If I meet a friend, it's outdoors with a mask, wiping my forehead off...nicest thing in the world would be a drink indoors in a place with AC, but I'll live with it until the time comes.

2 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Sure, it counts.... The fact that the destination sign of the M14A regressed that badly/lazily is the epitome of why the signage needs to be more accurate.... As far as M14a's dumping pax. off at 14th/Hudson, that's definitely news to me...

They been doing that for a while, got worse when they switched to SBS. It's because 1) Quill likes to have drivers layover/leave a dispatcher there and 2) nobody's even sure if the Hudson stops are in still operation since the SBS conversion. In theory the last stop is Abingdon, but you never actually get to ride there. The pickups are still normal from the other side of that loop, but not the departure.

38 minutes ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

My favorite "This is Metropolitan Avenue and Toys R-U-S"

Some of the voices at the stops are terrible

 

Jesus. Nobody told them that if you write "BLVD," the machine will say B-L-V-D? Or my favorite there, Jackson Heights-, where she reads the silent hyphen as "minus"!

Wait, why would we be replacing the O7 3Gs? We're not even replacing the O7 NGs.

5 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Does still use the regular M14 designation to designate short turns or did they stop doing that?

You mean post-SBS conversion? Not sure. Probably yes, since the point was that routes not going past 1st Ave. or 8th Ave wouldn't need to indicate A or D.

Reminds me, one of the treats was seeing 522x-524x RTSes run on the 14 during snowstorms. Those TwinVision buses never got updated codes, so they still read M14 via Ave D like in the old days. Wonder if they still had reading for the M14 via Ave C.

28 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

In my opinion, the crosstown routes are fine. Its some of the north to south routes that generally make zero sense (like the M55 and M101). 

Both good examples fixing what wasn't broke – the M5 went Riverside-Greenwich Village from the 1940s or 1950s through 2010, then came the idiotic South Ferry extension that was doomed to fail, then instead of admitting their mistake they made it a complete waste of a route with the midtown cut-off, and the useless M55 gets to run parallel to the useless M12 uptown! And the M101 was originally a City Hall route, which made pretty decent sense before the 103 was created.

The Manhattan bus network is as old as time. You have to remember it was designed really by the FABCO and other individual operators in the 30s-50s, back when all the avenues were two-way and the 5th Ave buses went right up and down. Generally, if ain't broke, don't fix it – the MTA's efforts to mess with the original network have only made things worse over the years (i.e, ruining the M5, ruining the M1/M6, screwing up the M103, implementing the useless M55, messing up everything near Penn Station, etc.).

30 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Still goofy as f***, but wasn't what I was expecting.... At least the driver wasn't injured & the bus wasn't damaged.

I'm gonna go ahead & say that they need to go on ahead & (formally) open up these clubs.... You have people throwing secret raves over there by the new Kosciuszko bridge, by the Manhattan bridge (co-incidentally, both on the Brooklyn sides of the bridges), now this nonsense.... As an introvert, I can't relate - so I could only imagine how a socialite's social life (and those that are either unemployed or are WFH) is holding up right now.... Repression (which IMO is worse than suppression) would have someone meticulously planning a temporary commandeering of a damn bus to paaaar-taaaaay

Imo they just need to throw the book at these a**holes, harder and more often. Opening up the clubs we'd just have cases up the wazoo, and when those a**holes got sick they'd spread it to the rest of us. Cause it's never just the reckless guy who gets sick, it's also his delivery guy, and the B/O who takes up down the block, and the guy at his Chinese place, etc. If it were just consequences for the people who are stupid enough, it'd be a different thing. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick on this. City doesn't need to make a big scene, we just need to have very hard consequences if you break this, cause it affects all of us. People who refuse to comply with contract tracing even after knowingly spreading covid? $2000-3000 fine. Stuff like this is just gonna make this pain in the ass longer for everybody.

They really are running those 32s. I saw two sets of them on the today, and that was just from briefly walking by the elevated – maybe there were more. Totally unnecessary to tun on the weekend when ENY barn has the extra 160s from the 4-car /no , but I guess they're just treating them like regular stock. 

4 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

That first part brought back memories for me. November 9, 1965, the night of the first NYC blackout. Was working at Alexander's department store at 58th and Lex. Lights flickered and the backup generator kicked in. Store was closed and everyone was sent home. My department head told the owner about my issue. Everyone else lived in the Bronx or uptown in Manhattan. I was the only Brooklynite on duty at that time. The owner of Alexander's walked me outside and flagged down a s/b bus. I don't remember the route # but the B/O told me to sit behind him and he took me down to Brooklyn Bridge and told me to be careful. I walked across the bridge with a few other adults and made it over to the B41 stop across from the main Brooklyn Post Office. I waited with 3 other people and the bus showed up. I rode that bus down to Rutland Road, got off and almost ran the block and a half to my house. It wasn't the distance that sticks in my mind about that night. It was the time spent onboard those 2 buses. To this day I'm in awe of those professional B/Os who got me home without a street light or traffic signal. Mind you, I've been in a blackout underground as a M/M but there's just no comparison. Just my recollection. Carry on.

That's a wonderful story. How often has Surface run buses during blackouts, specifically night hours? I'm trying to rack my brain. I think they've generally canceled service after sunset. The only example I can think of in recent memory is Hurricane Sandy, when for the first couple nights of the blackout Manhattan buses ran as normal. I remember taking an M3 and crossing into the no-man's land darkness below Midtown, very eerie stuff. B/O was very professional working through that. After a few nights of that, the union put its foot down and service was curtailed, but at the every beginning you had everything running (and everything for free, too – Quill's then-new LFSAs were running with their blue SBS lights for all-door boarding). 

Pretty sure it's Helvetica Condensed BQ Medium or Bold, or similar. I'm not sure if they're all getting Highway Gothic – I've only seen one bus stop in Midtown that had that so far. None of the SIM replacement signs got that, nor have the Bx99-M99-B99 etc. Have you spotted others?

3 hours ago, shiznit1987 said:

Unfortunately, we are being answered:

https://abc7ny.com/man-suspected-of-vandalizing-63-subway-cars-breaking-200-windows/6356473/

You'd think after the glass breaking fad of the mid 1980s the TA would have switched to plastic or plexi. Is there any reason why subway cars don't use plastic for their windows? 

Plastic is ruined if paint/graffiti gets on it, plexi is pegged to gas prices and can be expensive, both are easy candidates for scratchiti, neither are quite the visual quality of glass, etc. The guy's a moron, but they'll get him, and that'll be that. Not an epidemic. The only thing that did change from the 80s was the end of rubber gaskets, which the TA believed made it easier to knock out windows.

100% sure it was 2012. I remember it too, those cars looked like such a wreck – some actually got painted up when they were back at ENY later, so that was their worst. Some of them turned up on the too, I think.

On 7/25/2020 at 2:00 PM, 4P3607 said:

So I witnessed another mention that the R179 cars have some parts supplied by WABTEC including the link part that separated taking them OOS. Any more details on this? This would be quite alarming if true considering that now they're replacing all of their older reliable diesel work units with... WABTEC built hybrid - electric diesels

WABTEC supplies a *ton* of parts to practically every railroad system though. In a way they're 'too big to fail,' whereas Bombardier has other companies that do exactly the same work (ie, Kawasaki). I wouldn't count out the whole WABTEC company because of a specific part problem. Westinghouse has been supplying the NYC subway for most of the last 100 years.

Don't think I've posted subway photos in five or six years, but so be it. Thought I would get some of the 32 action while they're out there – could be the last month or so – and I didn't feel like going into the subway system. Three of the action.

Seeing the signs going up for the M99. Via 6th Ave. Why anybody would need to go northbound to the 42nd St. Pier at midnight is beyond me, but they're doing it.

11 minutes ago, MeeP15-9112 said:

Are there any pics floating around that showcase these oddities?

Ask and ye shall receive. Some photos of mine. I meant 4911, not 4907. Some of these are really old shots come to think of it.

And today:

Always forget that panels from the 102-DL3s and D4500CLs/CTs are pretty much all compatible. 2227 is running around with half a blue stripe at the back. Panel must have come from one of the 102-DL3s Castleton had a while ago.

Reminds me of the weird stuff you'd see on RTSes. 5057 had a PBL engine cover from (I think) when it was at Flatbush, 8804 had a TMC's lower bulkhead, 9267 had a PBL bulkhead with space for MBTA taillights, and 4907 also had a PBL engine cover. 

Of course agree with all the above.

Not for nothing, and getting off topic, but one day the whole city is gonna have to have a reckoning about what happened to Mr. Goble. That was one of the most horrific – but also the most heroic – events in recent memory and just about the whole public and news media ignored it because the covid business was just getting bad at that point. I don't know if it'll be the form of a movie, report, biopic whathaveyou but that's one of the most moving and ultimately tragic stories I can think of in years, and I have to think it's going to get revisited and taken seriously at some point. Somehow most of NYC just ignored it when it happened and the details never even made it out. Think those kids should get to know that their father was a hero, if you ask me. I understand he was never even given a proper funeral due to the covid situation.