Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the past and present operations of the NYC Subway, PATH, and Staten Island Railway (SIRT).

Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain

 #444979  by Trainmaster5
 
As a motorman/train operator on the Lexington Ave line for over 20 years I see two errors in most of the proposed solutions. Longer trains and platforms can't speed up travel on the corridor because of the dwell times each train spends in the station. Longer dwell time means a slower ride because of the amount of people getting on and off at each stop. We actually have expresses about 90 to 120 seconds apart during rush hours. Because of the configuration on the Lexington corridor 1 sick customer or police investigation backs up the whole line from Bowling Green to 125th Street. As for CBTC or ATS , it has been tested in the IRT and has made every train 4,5, and 6 late. It can't really be used when you have such small headways between trains. It appears to be made for the newer subway or light rail systems or even Amtrak, where you have more space between trains and ways to re-route around blockages. As for eliminating whole stations I can assure you that the riding public and the Federal government would never ever allow it. East Siders are looking for more choices, not less. They were cheated out of service that they had over 60 years ago on Second and Third Avenues so I think a FULL line 2nd Ave subway is the only solution.

 #445018  by Jeff Smith
 
2nd Av will go a long way. Given the number of lines on the West Side, even with 2nd Av, they'll still be underserved. I wonder if they'd ever consider LRT on Fifth, on the Central Park side.

 #445081  by UpperHarlemLine4ever
 
One of the things mentioned here is the size of the IRT cars and tunnels. It's a shame that they were built so small in comparison to the BMT and IND. A project to widen the tunnels to accomodate the larger IND-BMT cars could never be undertaken. What a sad mistake they made over 100 years ago when they built the IRT. Incidentally, I understand that the elevated structures built under the dual contracts, except for the station platforms widths can accommodate the larger IND-BMT cars and that there all that would need to be done is to cut back the edge of the platforms, as was done on the Astoria line when it was switched from IRT to BMT.