From: jmd@bear.com (Josh Diamond)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: Report on exhibition of prototype NYC Subway trains
Date: 28 Dec 92 21:45:52 GMT
Followup-To: rec.railroad
Distribution: usa
Organization: Bear, Stearns & Co. - FAST
In-reply-to: mckenney@cims.nyu.edu's message of 28 Dec 92 15:27:10 GMT


In article <Bzz6xB.GqE@cmcl2.nyu.edu> mckenney@cims.nyu.edu (Alan McKenney) writes:

   >Last weekend the NYCTA had both of the New Technology trains (R-110a
   >and R-110b) on display ...

   >... both are permanently coupled trainsets --
   >the R-110a [IRT] having a minimum length of 5 cars, and the
   >R110b [IND/BMT] having a minimum length of 3 cars.

       (1)	Does "permanently coupled" mean that the cars share equipment?
	   If so, this means less redundancy than with the present
	   equipment.  (A complaint about the "slope-front" car-sets
	   was that they had only one compressor, so if it went, the
	   train was stuck.  Combine this with the TA's idea of
	   maintainence ...)

Yes; "permanently coupled" means that the cars share equipment.  They 
cannot exist on their own -- remember, you need a cab to run a train,
and the cab cars have no batteries or power equipment...

       (2)	5-car trainsets make sense on the IRT -- the platforms take
	   10-car trains.  Why 3-car trainsets on the IND/BMT?  The
	   platforms there take 8-car trains.

Not 3-car trainsets -- 3-car _minimum_ trainsets.  More trailers can
be added, and a TA employee hinted at the possible existance of
cabless power cars as exist on the R-110a...

   >4) Air bag suspension.  Compressors are used to inflate air bladders
   >which are used instead of springs.  A computer ...

       As someone who has ridden the NYC subways for over 11 years
       now, all this high-tech stuff (including mention of a CRT
       monitor for all manner of things) makes me a little nervous.
       What makes anyone think that the TA is capable of keeping all
       this high-tech stuff working?

Metro-North and LIRR have had air suspension for years.  They don't
seem to have much trouble keeping things working. 

Also, the CRT gear looked to be pretty rugged -- in fact, the whole
thing appeared to have the look of military equipment -- _very_
rugged, everything in shock mounts...

I've been here in NYC for 5 years and every time a train which I have
been on has been taken out of service it has been for one of the
following reasons:

  1) Some jerk pulled the emergency cord
  2) Some jerk through garbage on the track which got wrapped up 
	in the traction gear.
  3) Some jerk held the doors open and burned out a door motor.
  4) Someone on the train got seriously ill.
  5) There has been a power failure or a signal failure.

I have never been on a train which was taken out of service because 
the traction system just failed on it's own...

       About 10 years ago, when the R-40's (? with the cab all the
       way across) were the latest thing, I noticed that the cabs
       have speedometers, but they didn't seem to work.  A motorman
       told me that the shops never fixed them, so *no* R-40 has
       a working speedometer.  Newer trains don't have them at all.
       (And the newer cabs look just like the cabs on the oldest
       trains I have seen in service.)

They were doing that for a while.  But after a few recent incident 
where the trainman didn't know how fast he was going and then got
the train in trouble, the public got pissed off, and there was hell
to pay when the discovered that the trains didn't have speedometers.

       Generally, the TA seems unwilling to fix anything until it is
       so broken it just won't run any more.  For example, I once
       read (the NY Times, if you can trust them) that trains are
       not taken out of service as long as at least 8 (or is it 7?)
       cars (for a 10-car train) have working motors.

That seems reasonable to me.  Why disrupt service when it is
incredibly unlikely that the train will get stuck?  After all, that's
one of the reasons for using MU cars as opposed to locomotives and
trailer cars -- redundancy.

       My own experience with high-tech stuff (e.g., cameras) suggests
       that it is more delicate and has less benign failure modes (esp.
       when abused) than more old-fashioned stuff.  I fear that the
       high level of abuse and poor-to-nonexistent maintainance will
       turn these new trains into ``turkeys'' (cf. the Grumman Busses
       in NYC.)


   >5) Passenger alarm system.  A pressure sensitive tape switch is
   >mounted throughout the interior of each car.  When pressed, the
   >operator is notified, and a light on the outside of the car comes on,
   >alerting police as to in which car the emergency exists.  (this has
   >already been installed in some cars on the J line).

       How well does this work?  I can imagine problems with abuse.

According to a TA conductor it seems to be working pretty well.  When
people realized that hitting the alarm brings the Transit Police very
quickly, they stopped the false alarms...

   >6) Door motors are now electronically controlled and use worm drive as
   >opposed to the older lever style actuators.  It is now impossible to
   >force a door open once it is closed.

       This sounds like a technical fix to a non-technical problem.
       The problem is not people pulling doors open (I've never seen
       that) but people holding the doors, either voluntarily (e.g.,
       so the conductor will open them again) or involuntarily (bags,
       body parts, etc., stuck in the door.)  Unblockable doors may
       discourage voluntary door-holding (especially after a few
       people have been maimed or killed), but won't prevent involuntary
       door-holding.  I predict an upsurge in ``dragging incidents''.

According to the conductor, there is a holding open problem.  But that
will stop when a few people have their fingers crushed in the door. :-)

On the serious side, he told me that while doors being held is a
problem, it is not as big a problem as doors being _forced_ open.
Apparently a couple of months ago he caught a kid who had forced the
doors open and was taking a leak out the door while the train was
moving.  Could have been a very electrifying experience...

The holding doors problem should be solved by better sensors on the
doors -- so the motor to turns off before it burns out.

In general I feel that the TA is doing a fairly good job.  They have
managed to rebuild or replace almost the entire fleet, and that on
what still amounts to a starvation budget.  Somewhere along the line 
the public is going to have to realize that you can't get something 
for nothing.  If they want better service, they are either going to
have to pay for it through fare increases, or through tax revenue.


Spidey!!!


--
You don't hunt ducks with a turnip! 

 /\ \  / /\  Josh Diamond                                          jmd@bear.com
//\\ .. //\\ AKA Spidey!!!                        ...!ctr.columbia.edu!ursa!jmd
//\((  ))/\\
/  < `' >  \                                              Do whatever it takes.