MHV9218

3 minutes ago, RR503 said:

On the contrary, they make damaged equipment hugely easier to repair. You don't have to demolish the bench wall to replace the conduit that got a little water in it. 

I suppose what I meant was, doesn't it virtually guarantee equipment will be damaged, whereas an effective bench wall should theoretically provide cover? Though I suppose historically that didn't really happen...

27 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Yeah, and on here, we have this beautiful prediction (and the subsequent explanation) for the immediate future of the MTA's operation of buses in this city..... It's definitively counterproductive & it's no different than the *MTA will fold* shit that the Honchkrow character was on here fear mongering with....

Damn, I really clicked on that and spent a few minutes trying to get the map to load. Feel like I got rickroll'd. I'm billing him for the hours. Yeah, that's never happening.

Aren't the racked wires going to be complete FUBAR in both Rutgers/Canarsie if there's another tunnel flood (not unlikely)? Seems like they're uniquely susceptible to damage in a way that the bench walls were not.

Grim stuff ahead. Even with federal funding coming in (not a guarantee with these scumbags in the White House), we're look at the MTA maintaining the operating budget only. That means we can wave goodbye to the whole Byford plan, and probably a number of important capital programs. 

That said, the model that some of the advocacy groups have been sharing as an example of 'what could happen' is so stupid that it's almost counterproductive. If dire service cuts were to occur, you'd see express service, extra rush hour service, and overnight service curtailed. You would not see the harebrained stuff on their posters, like entire trunk lines (1/2/3, 7) being abandoned while full service ran on other lines (4/5/6). 

13 hours ago, Calvin said:

One of them was 2824. And only one still has the orange signs, 2926. 

Yeah, I saw 2824 in Midtown on Saturday. Was surprised to see a flipdot out on a weekend.

10 hours ago, UTC Bus Roster said:

FYI, 2926 was originally New York Bus Service #1803. Hopefully they'll save it for the museum,

Given that the entire 1860+ order got scrapped (first coaches) and they already plucked the NYBS seats out of 2926, I'm not too optimistic about that. It'd be great though.

12 hours ago, Bay Ridge Express said:

I'm not. Everyone either doesn't have one or doesn't wear it properly. What's more, people think they can get away with everything now (got caught up with passengers smoking in a subway car once).

17 minutes ago, Bklyn Bound 2 Local said:

I once caught a guy smoking between cars on the sharp curve between W  farms sq and E 180 St. Some people seem to have no brains.

For what it's worth, none of that is new. On the overnight trains? Oh boy. Been on a few overnights where joints got passed around the whole car, strangers included. Don't forget that back in the eighties the last car on New Lots trains was the smoking car!

14 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

You mean the SW corner of Lafayette & Houston?

When I didn't feel like being bothered with the → , I would sometimes get off at B'way-Lafayette (off the ) & take a nice brisk walk over to Christopher to get to work..... I couldn't tell you what's over there now, but back during most of the '00's, that entrance was smack in front of a gas station & it saw heavy utilization (I never exited on the south side of Houston though).... Long story short, it was never exit only during the 2000's..... I don't even remember it being exit only during the '90's, come to think of it....

Yep meant that exit. Word, so you're perfect for your memory on this, that lines up with exactly what I remembered. There was always that big-ass gas station, and there was that little dinky exit by the fruit market on Broadway, next to the Abercrombie/Hollister whatever it was (where's LRG at?). So if you walk by it right now, they're doing renovations so some of the old signs are exposed. And that stairway just reads 'No entry' on the side missing the sign. It's Helvetica, so it can't be any older than '88 or so, but it's gotta be early 90s? Put it this way, the sign across the street is for the BDFV, and the "V" is a tape-over which means they had to update it just to say that lol. Gotta be BDFQ originally, from the Manhattan Bridge project. 

I have a hard time arguing against capital projects – true expansions are so economically beneficial to the regions they go through that they ought to be considered for their net benefit to the area. East Harlem has been screwed over for so long and the notion that we would build the UES expansion but not the far simpler East Harlem one is very difficult to swallow, particularly considering the social justice implications of that sort of denial. Not to mention that the economic benefits of such expansion in covid-era recession are a real and necessary stimulus, and should perhaps be better reflected on the balance sheet for these projects. Hell, Bloomberg's cutesy funding with the synthetic-TIF of Hudson Yards was essentially a statement of that, and frankly that's a model that the MTA could probably push for when it comes to future expansions. And generally, Keynesian policy: when recession hits, you build – austerity might sound tempting, but it hurts everyone. We'll see if Congress listens.

When was the Lafayette/Broadway SW corner exit of Bway-Lafayette last exit only? As part of the MTA's badly-managed sign replacement project (everybody keep your eyes peeled around the city, a lot of interesting stuff is being revealed because they've been too lazy to cover up while replacing), one side of that entrance now says "No entry" despite obviously being open. I can't even remember when that was last the case. It has to predate the 2012 renovation that connected the transfer. I checked Street View and at least as far back as 2009 it's an entrance stairwell. Across the street a sign for the BDFV is now visible again too. 

4 hours ago, Future ENY OP said:

It’s on loan. It’s going back to MQ later on. 

Maybe. It does have MCH stickers now. My photo from this hot-ass afternoon (damn, I really haven't posted photos on here in years)...

17 hours ago, Kris Brain said:

Why aren't those ex-SI #4200 NGs repainted yet?

Only a handful of them were even repainted since the wrap covered the majority of the body. Now that the wraps are off, they are in clear need of a repaint, but they'll probably just go with the next O7 NG cycle. The MTA rarely repaints such a small number of buses at once, unless it's a depot paint shop doing one-offs.

1 hour ago, Future ENY OP said:

In addition most of those SI-NG's now at MHV are currently wrapped.  Wraps are slowly returning back to Manhattan Division, express bus divisions and Brooklyn Division.

Wrapped with an ad around the side maybe, but not wrapped-wrapped a la SBS. And many of the MV buses are still missing ads on the back or rear. A couple even have SI depot stickers still.

11 hours ago, 1train2255railfan said:

6700 seems like an interesting unit. Has cloth seats and also a different number font. 

Also the difference in seating between 6690-6728 vs 6729 on (the first pair of seats on the left side of the bus) is cool as well 

That was the first bus to get repainted in the 6690+ cycle. Probably some weird abnormalities with that. 

17 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

I know we don't like Cuomo appointees, but this is a load of shit, mostly because I have worked at several large companies that are that large and do have direct org charts like that available. Probably not used in the massive blown up form very frequently, but the information is there.

A cornerstone of the modern corp is tracking productivity at the individual employee level, and you can be damned sure that this is the norm. Just because people "do exactly the same thing" as part of their job description does not mean that they all do it at the same efficiency.

10 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

Exactly. Any large organization with any sort of HR department is expected to have a computerized system that shows every employee's supervisor (aka chain of command), which can then be linked all the way up to the top. If you have a complex payroll system, you need to be able to track that sort of thing! Otherwise you end up with fraud...and of course the MTA has NEVER had issues with fraud

Nope, nope, nope. I've spoken to folks with management roles at very similar agencies of this scale and they have never seen a single-use org chart. Sure, there are plenty of individual ones for departments and the like, and of course HR can track things back and forth, but what she's talking about, like there's some science fair poster board that she can regularly consult, absolute BS. Plus why and when would she even look? Just posturing.

21 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

Hmmm...

 

Her comment was completely meaningless. No organization with 40,000 employees has a direct chart like that, and it wouldn't even make sense to have one. Not to mention that thousands of MTA employees do exactly the same thing and wouldn't need to be represented beyond their direct superior reporting. I'm sure they do have many charts that explain the division at a more workable level. She was just blowing her mouth off.

21 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

This is refreshingly honest talk from someone so high up. I honestly wonder how the MTA's lawyers and PR folks let her talk so candidly about this stuff. Some of it could potentially be used in lawsuits, etc.  

Total BS from her end. I'm sure Andrew told her to say it as a preamble to cuts and the like. She last worked at the FRA with like, fifty other people. Totally out of her element.

On 7/11/2020 at 2:53 PM, Cait Sith said:

The difference between Astor Place and Houston Street is a mere 6 blocks. You might as well send it to Houston....

8, just to be a pain in the ass lol. But agree. MTA was smarter when it sent buses down to Houston anyway. Still waiting for the M5 to be restored to its correct turning point...

Just now, R68OnBroadway said:

When it comes to MTA work reform, it’s not really the issue of pay being too high but it’s really just labor requirements being too high- you don’t need 10 people working a 4 man job.

Yeah, I will say the Sandhogs in particular have negotiated some ludicrous provisions into their contracts. At a certain point I wish some of the union guys involved in Capital contracts, where cost overruns are rampant, would think about the negative effect an MTA budget crisis means for their guys working in Operations. When things go south, it's bus and subway runs that cut, and the jobs with them (station clerks, etc.). 

No shame in her making a good wage for a hard job. Whenever I see one of these right-wing papers pretending to get annoyed about a good-paying union job, I always want them to try to keep a straight face about private sector salaries. The problem isn't that MTA employees (company and transit) get paid too much, it's that we've made it acceptable for everybody else to get paid too little, all while CEO salaries are 20x what they ever were before, inflation-corrected. But I'm getting off topic.

20 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

So far this summer the A/C has been working on every R62A I rode on both the  and  lines. Either the mechanics found a fix to the constant A/C failures on that fleet or the lighter ridership is putting less strain on the car's A/C systems. Also the A/C on the 62A's this summer has been ICE COLD! Not that weak A/C found on cars like the R46s for example. 

Hate to say it, but this is another thing that has to do with 24 hour service being curtailed. More time to inspect the cars and figure out which sets have an issue, less all-day strain. Thinking about what the MDBF on the R62s looks like on the part-time  versus the MDBF on the R62As on full-time and  should tell you something. I'd bet what you're seeing is a combination of all these things. 

49 minutes ago, Cait Sith said:

Nah they haven't. Every B99 run has either been a deadhead to Manhattan or a deadhead to the junction.

But they're not doing any deadheads earlier in the day? I was thinking they have more shifters/people available before the overnight so they were deadheading some in advance.

12 hours ago, Xcelsior Man said:

Noon, maybe around 11:47am - 12:11pm.

53 minutes ago, Bill from Maspeth said:

Time of day? 

Traveling to MJQ just to get OMNI installed?

Training bus?

I've been seeing this as well. Usually with a few B/Os on board. I think FB is sending deadheads to MJQ with operators midday to stage for B99 departures in the evening. A version of the SI trips that pull into Quill for a lengthy swing before the evening trips.

1 hour ago, danielhg121 said:

It's also fascinating seeing the slightest differences on the bulkheads. Some have horns and some have 6-screws around the route display (I think 3499 has it). 

The horns go all the way back to delivery! The first 150 cars came with bulkhead horns a la the other SMEE cars, and the rest have them below the car body. Always thought it was interesting they never standardized that during GOH.

2 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

There was a rumor that there is or was an R32 with an R16 truck. No idea of what numbered 32s they might have been nor if it's one of the units that got reefed.. 

I heard the museum R10 the one that's operational one of the trucks of from an retired R32.

IDK if those R36s still in work service count but those still have the legit SMEE braking system, the other cars that went through GOH got an more modern variation of that braking system. So my guess would be those R36WF assigned to work service has the oldest mechanical gear.. 

I think the R36s have controllers from retired R30 cars as well.

You mean the R33WFs in work service? Word, that's a good point. Would be interesting about the 16 truck.

1 hour ago, Coney Island Av said:

@MHV9218

i know this has probably been noticed a while ago, but sadly the original 1980s-era "Akidenz-Grotesk?" rollsigns on 3510-11 have unfortunately been vandalized. i caught it last week doing refuse service along the  (with R42 pair 4830-31), and while the destination signs are still intact, the route bullet signs are missing... 

if you want pictures for proof then i can gladly upload them later.

You mean the R27-R30 rolls on there? Darn. If it's refuse service it was probably somebody savvy in C Division taking home a souvenir. With 3380 vandalized ages ago, that means the 27-30 rolls are just about gone... 

4 hours ago, R32 3838 said:

Add 3380/81 to ENY

Good trivia question is where the oldest physical pieces of car equipment are running in the system. When the R42s were in service, it was on those cars: the pantograph gates on a lot of the fleet were from R1/9s, so 80+ years old. Possible some of the work R42s still have it but not the ones I've seen so far. Might be the bulkhead on 3381, that's 59 years old.

[Eric Oszustowicz photo in Joe Testagrose collection]

Alright what the hell is going on in this one – this looks like a post-GOH R40 (new numberplates) with TA side logos and a completely unrecognizable rollsign I've never seen before? Any ideas?

Neither here nor there, but part of misses the days when we had an interesting fleet with all these new lines running through the city. B99 comes into Manhattan using what, new XD40s or O7 NGs, same as the Quill fleet. But to imagine an FB RTS running that route? Or O7 CNGs running a Bx99? Kinda reminds me of the Hurricane Sandy shuttles, which were something like this. That was a ride...