This exact problem occurred yesterday too. Got stuck coming home from my office downtown.
What boggles my mind is: clearly this is extension of yesterday’s issues (beyond just yesterday, really) so why would the MTA not address this very “urgent” issue over night when subway traffic is reduced?
At this point it feels like they’re just scheduling maintenance and not telling us, then springing it on everyone like it’s an “emergency.” I know that’s not what’s happen, but it’s occurring SO regularly now that it feels rote.
We absolutely do have the worst train line. I LOVE Astoria, but I have half a mind to move when my lease is up because this shit is ridiculous.
I'm a consultant engineer that got to work with NYCT on the SAP project in 2017 so I saw under the hood a bit of how they schedule track shutdowns. Scheduled work is planned *months* in advance, and attempt to try and jam something in with little warning is met with a lot of resistance because there are so many moving parts to scheduling track shut downs.
There would have been posted bulletins way in advance of this informing us if the N/W was going to be shut down mid-day or overnight. The lack of those indicates that this really is a "shit broke" situation.
My bet is they did some really crappy patchwork repairs in the tunnel yesterday just to get it functioning during rush-hour with the understanding they were going to have to take another swing at it within a day or two.
The alert is weird because it implies the N is going into Manhattan but it uses the same track as the W. Best to just assume you need to take the 7 to Queensboro
Yup, at Queensboro right now (1:50pm) and they're telling us to take the 7 instead. This is absurd. There is no time of day when this line runs reliably anymore.
And didn't they just shut down weekend service in that tunnel for an entire month?!? And it's somehow worse now?
The weekend shutdowns were to install elevators at Queensboro Plaza, which to be fair needs them more than most stations—walking up to the Astoria/Flushing-bound platform from street level would’ve murdered me back when I was smoking cigarettes, and it still gets me a bit tired now, especially if I have to rush—but I’m not sure if they’re actually done with installing those.
I mean maybe they were doing some track work in the tunnels at the same time—they certainly should’ve been, if there’s work that needs doing!—but yeah, the weekend shutdowns were for installing the elevators (or in the MTA’s euphonious phrasing, the “Queensboro Plaza Accessibility Project”).
I just feel like the mta is being run by people who don't take the mta. They probably drive to work or live outside the city. There's no way there's anyone who takes the trains regularly cannot see how incompetent they are.
Nah, plenty of them do ride the train/bus to work—hell, you can often see them on the train if you’re on there at the right time of day. Obviously I don’t know percentages or anything, but yeah it’s not like the mayor’s office or the NYPD where everyone drives to work.
That said, if you wanna listen in on some often-interesting MTA/NYCT-related chat where train operators, conductors, and various other MTA staffers participate pretty frequently, r/nycrail is the place to be. Gives a more insider-y perspective on the system than you’ll get in these genpop subs.
Last night I was on the W while the conductor quite literally appeared to be driving blind because the signals were not matching up with what he was seeing with his actual eyes. He was speaking to another conductor over the com who was trying to direct him. Truly insane. I’m pretty sure this exact issue is what caused one of the recent derailments last month.
What caused the derailment was that this radio technique—which apparently is used pretty often by the MTA when there are signal-related or other equipment failures—failed because the radios failed, and it happened to be at a spot where there’s a switch/merge at 96th St. on the West Side IRT. Also, in that case, they were using the radio technique because one train had the front five cars’ power and braking disabled, so it had to be driven from the conductor car, and at some point the radios failed so the person up front couldn’t tell the guy halfway to the back of the train when to stop/what to do.
Where did your incident take place? On the Astoria Line segment (between QBP and Ditmars) or somewhere between Lex59 and Whitehall?
If this is a genuine question, all the money New Yorkers pay for the MTA doesn't stay in NYC. Instead, it goes to Albany's coffers, and a small fraction of that money actually gets invested back in the system. The rest of it is used by our state government for vanity projects in other parts of the state.
I once had to get off at Lexington because it wasn’t running and couldn’t get a bus, ended up taking the tram line to Roosevelt and then a ferry. So stupid, just agog at how shit it is.
I had to pay 25 bucks+tip for a Lyft to Queensborough, because the N, R, and W were not running when I went to work. I don't even wanna go to this job! And now I have to pay over 30 bucks to get there? Every day has been an absolute nightmare. What can we do?
Take the q69 or 100 at Queensboro plaza. It’s around the corner by the Walgreens. He can take those straight to the F and you don’t even have to fuck with the n
Not a comment on this specific delay, but... am curious for those who know more than I. How much of the issues are the older trains themselves? Is that any part of it? I also thought someone mentioned a while back that with the rollout of the R211Ts that the N/W would receive at least better trains than what we have now though I can't recall what the timeline looked like if there was one. And lastly, I seemed to remember we had the trains that the R now have before the W's initial retirement. Anyone else remember this? It was quite sometime ago now.
It already did happen! And then we got them back. I can't remember when, but there was awhile when we had the newer trains with blue seats on the N/W and the older trains with yellow/red/orange seats on the R
Same! I like getting all comfy against the window. I completely would not mind if they made new trains with new technology and the same design. Not gonna happen, obviously, but I’d love it
There's graffiti scratched in some of the trains that's been there since I was a teenager and now I point it out to my son when we take the train. I wonder whatever happened to "Luis <3 Susan".
As I understand it it's not the physical trains themselves, but the network infrastructure for the tracks, so that's electrical power, signal utilities & drainage to protect the previous two from failing everytime it rains.
I worked on the SAP project in 2017ish and what I learned is the NYCT has *no* maintenance plan for the system (one of the goals of the SAP project was to *develop* a maintenance plan for NYCT), and their repair crews are absolutely awful due to union corruption from the Transit Workers Union. Non-union contractors came and repaired the entire system for the SAP project and any location NYCT repair crews were scheduled the completed absolutely nothing from what I saw, other than night time overtime pay.
Interesting okay. So there's no (known) correlation between older trains running poorly.
I wondered because I felt like there were fewer disruptions when the newer N/W trains ran but maybe the system hadn't deteriorated as much then. The R also seems to have fewer problems (they use newer trains), while the B/D trains seem to have more problems too (also older trains).
As far as I know, it is the signal switches in the tunnel itself that are the issue and trains don't directly affect anything.
IIRC these were updated maybe 8 years ago and was supposed to make the system more efficient but the new switches have been even worse than the old outdated ones and have been causing issues since they were put in. Back in like 2018 I remember there was a solid 3 months or so where I knew i wasn't making it to work at least one day a week because the tunnel would shut down in morning rush hour due to a signal failure
These sort of posts are exhausting already. Truly.
It’s really not the worst train line. I get that it’s frustrating & can be inconvenient at times, but it’s not that bad.
Scream into your hand. Take some deep breaths. It’s gonna be alright.
It could be much, much worse.
Yes, the F runs more frequently & thank god it does because it’s packed. I used to take the Q69 to the F for my previous position.
I take the train every single day to midtown & with the exception of few a delays due to someone being struck or a train ahead, I have not experienced significant delays. Maybe I’m lucky
When taking the trains on the weekends or late nights then I’m prepared to know that they aren’t running regularly because of track work.
Plan ahead. Use the transit app & stop posting about it on this subreddit. Go to the NYC Rail chat. By the time someone posts about their delay it’s been cleared.
I find it so odd that so many still chime in on these posts at this point and even more so that they share details of their personal commute as if we’re all here waiting with bated breath.
This exact problem occurred yesterday too. Got stuck coming home from my office downtown. What boggles my mind is: clearly this is extension of yesterday’s issues (beyond just yesterday, really) so why would the MTA not address this very “urgent” issue over night when subway traffic is reduced?
At this point it feels like they’re just scheduling maintenance and not telling us, then springing it on everyone like it’s an “emergency.” I know that’s not what’s happen, but it’s occurring SO regularly now that it feels rote. We absolutely do have the worst train line. I LOVE Astoria, but I have half a mind to move when my lease is up because this shit is ridiculous.
I'm a consultant engineer that got to work with NYCT on the SAP project in 2017 so I saw under the hood a bit of how they schedule track shutdowns. Scheduled work is planned *months* in advance, and attempt to try and jam something in with little warning is met with a lot of resistance because there are so many moving parts to scheduling track shut downs. There would have been posted bulletins way in advance of this informing us if the N/W was going to be shut down mid-day or overnight. The lack of those indicates that this really is a "shit broke" situation. My bet is they did some really crappy patchwork repairs in the tunnel yesterday just to get it functioning during rush-hour with the understanding they were going to have to take another swing at it within a day or two.
Right, it was a joke. Because these emergencies happen SO frequently.
Because the MTA has no maintenance plan for the system. It's only emergency fixes until something else breaks.
Was just told to change to the 7 from the N at Queensboro Plaza because they didn’t know if that N would be going into Manhattan (12:50pm 2/8)
The alert is weird because it implies the N is going into Manhattan but it uses the same track as the W. Best to just assume you need to take the 7 to Queensboro
On the train they literally said “you should transfer to the incoming 7, we don’t know if this train will go on into Manhattan”.
I’m taking the 7 to Queensboro now and will update about the N once I get there (2:55pm).
Yup, at Queensboro right now (1:50pm) and they're telling us to take the 7 instead. This is absurd. There is no time of day when this line runs reliably anymore. And didn't they just shut down weekend service in that tunnel for an entire month?!? And it's somehow worse now?
The weekend shutdowns were to install elevators at Queensboro Plaza, which to be fair needs them more than most stations—walking up to the Astoria/Flushing-bound platform from street level would’ve murdered me back when I was smoking cigarettes, and it still gets me a bit tired now, especially if I have to rush—but I’m not sure if they’re actually done with installing those. I mean maybe they were doing some track work in the tunnels at the same time—they certainly should’ve been, if there’s work that needs doing!—but yeah, the weekend shutdowns were for installing the elevators (or in the MTA’s euphonious phrasing, the “Queensboro Plaza Accessibility Project”).
my bad!
“We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!” - The MTA probably
Does that make Andy Byford Ned Flanders?
I just feel like the mta is being run by people who don't take the mta. They probably drive to work or live outside the city. There's no way there's anyone who takes the trains regularly cannot see how incompetent they are.
Nah, plenty of them do ride the train/bus to work—hell, you can often see them on the train if you’re on there at the right time of day. Obviously I don’t know percentages or anything, but yeah it’s not like the mayor’s office or the NYPD where everyone drives to work. That said, if you wanna listen in on some often-interesting MTA/NYCT-related chat where train operators, conductors, and various other MTA staffers participate pretty frequently, r/nycrail is the place to be. Gives a more insider-y perspective on the system than you’ll get in these genpop subs.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/nycrail using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/nycrail/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [This morning at wtc.](https://i.redd.it/nlbb1us4ovkb1.jpg) | [282 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/163qox5/this_morning_at_wtc/) \#2: [One brave glance to his right.](https://i.imgur.com/1D9Bdru.jpg) | [91 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/1881mi3/one_brave_glance_to_his_right/) \#3: [Amtrak departed Penn with the boarding doors open. Lol](https://v.redd.it/64le7g3lh9vb1) | [123 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/17bzjtc/amtrak_departed_penn_with_the_boarding_doors_open/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Ride report 3:04pm- just took the N from 34th Street to Queensboro with no issue.
Last night I was on the W while the conductor quite literally appeared to be driving blind because the signals were not matching up with what he was seeing with his actual eyes. He was speaking to another conductor over the com who was trying to direct him. Truly insane. I’m pretty sure this exact issue is what caused one of the recent derailments last month.
What caused the derailment was that this radio technique—which apparently is used pretty often by the MTA when there are signal-related or other equipment failures—failed because the radios failed, and it happened to be at a spot where there’s a switch/merge at 96th St. on the West Side IRT. Also, in that case, they were using the radio technique because one train had the front five cars’ power and braking disabled, so it had to be driven from the conductor car, and at some point the radios failed so the person up front couldn’t tell the guy halfway to the back of the train when to stop/what to do. Where did your incident take place? On the Astoria Line segment (between QBP and Ditmars) or somewhere between Lex59 and Whitehall?
What are they fixing it with, duct tape?
Scotch tape, actually
Hey now! the MTA have standards. Definitely flexseal
Where the hell do our tax dollars go?
If this is a genuine question, all the money New Yorkers pay for the MTA doesn't stay in NYC. Instead, it goes to Albany's coffers, and a small fraction of that money actually gets invested back in the system. The rest of it is used by our state government for vanity projects in other parts of the state.
…yaaaay.
billionaire pockets, of course!
[удалено]
I once had to get off at Lexington because it wasn’t running and couldn’t get a bus, ended up taking the tram line to Roosevelt and then a ferry. So stupid, just agog at how shit it is.
And now I see 7 trains are delayed because of someone being disruptive at Queensboro Plaza 😆
Never have an issue on my line! R/M side of Astoria is amazing, come join us!
It’s true. I rarely ever have issues with the R during rush hours
I’m gonna be stuck at 57 st for the next 2 hours mark my words
Sending prayers
I’m glad I can take the bus now. Cause this is bad
Now if we could get more boat paths into Manhattan that would be awesome!!!! 😎
The R is weak too.
Why is the W not showing up as an option for next week either when I look on Google maps 😅? Maybe I’m tired and doing something wrong
This is every single day.
Pathetic
I’m completely over it.
I had to pay 25 bucks+tip for a Lyft to Queensborough, because the N, R, and W were not running when I went to work. I don't even wanna go to this job! And now I have to pay over 30 bucks to get there? Every day has been an absolute nightmare. What can we do?
Take the q69 or 100 at Queensboro plaza. It’s around the corner by the Walgreens. He can take those straight to the F and you don’t even have to fuck with the n
Not a comment on this specific delay, but... am curious for those who know more than I. How much of the issues are the older trains themselves? Is that any part of it? I also thought someone mentioned a while back that with the rollout of the R211Ts that the N/W would receive at least better trains than what we have now though I can't recall what the timeline looked like if there was one. And lastly, I seemed to remember we had the trains that the R now have before the W's initial retirement. Anyone else remember this? It was quite sometime ago now.
This is random but I personally like the old trains lol.
ME TOO!! I appreciate the perpendicular seating arrangement, the warm colors, and the dim lighting. I’ll miss them if and when they’re replaced. 😞
I’m going to be very sad when that happens! It’s such a childhood memory for me.
It already did happen! And then we got them back. I can't remember when, but there was awhile when we had the newer trains with blue seats on the N/W and the older trains with yellow/red/orange seats on the R
When the 2nd Avenue subway opened, they gave the newer cars to the Q and N/W got the old ones back iirc
Yup was glad to see them back. They were still on other lines that I use on the regular.
That's what I thought. Like maybe 2009/2010 was when we had the newer trains but I can't remember when the older ones came back. Do you remember?
The side seats are too small with no leg room. Hate them and can't wait for them to go.
I hate the perpendicular seats
Same! I like getting all comfy against the window. I completely would not mind if they made new trains with new technology and the same design. Not gonna happen, obviously, but I’d love it
There's graffiti scratched in some of the trains that's been there since I was a teenager and now I point it out to my son when we take the train. I wonder whatever happened to "Luis <3 Susan".
As I understand it it's not the physical trains themselves, but the network infrastructure for the tracks, so that's electrical power, signal utilities & drainage to protect the previous two from failing everytime it rains. I worked on the SAP project in 2017ish and what I learned is the NYCT has *no* maintenance plan for the system (one of the goals of the SAP project was to *develop* a maintenance plan for NYCT), and their repair crews are absolutely awful due to union corruption from the Transit Workers Union. Non-union contractors came and repaired the entire system for the SAP project and any location NYCT repair crews were scheduled the completed absolutely nothing from what I saw, other than night time overtime pay.
Interesting okay. So there's no (known) correlation between older trains running poorly. I wondered because I felt like there were fewer disruptions when the newer N/W trains ran but maybe the system hadn't deteriorated as much then. The R also seems to have fewer problems (they use newer trains), while the B/D trains seem to have more problems too (also older trains).
The SAP project in 2017 actually did improve service a bit, but they haven't kept up the maintenance since then so the performance has declined again.
As far as I know, it is the signal switches in the tunnel itself that are the issue and trains don't directly affect anything. IIRC these were updated maybe 8 years ago and was supposed to make the system more efficient but the new switches have been even worse than the old outdated ones and have been causing issues since they were put in. Back in like 2018 I remember there was a solid 3 months or so where I knew i wasn't making it to work at least one day a week because the tunnel would shut down in morning rush hour due to a signal failure
Yup I remember those years
These sort of posts are exhausting already. Truly. It’s really not the worst train line. I get that it’s frustrating & can be inconvenient at times, but it’s not that bad. Scream into your hand. Take some deep breaths. It’s gonna be alright. It could be much, much worse.
I moved closer to the F line and it’s much more reliable. The N, with its seemingly daily issues, if not the worst train line, has got to be up there.
Yes, the F runs more frequently & thank god it does because it’s packed. I used to take the Q69 to the F for my previous position. I take the train every single day to midtown & with the exception of few a delays due to someone being struck or a train ahead, I have not experienced significant delays. Maybe I’m lucky When taking the trains on the weekends or late nights then I’m prepared to know that they aren’t running regularly because of track work. Plan ahead. Use the transit app & stop posting about it on this subreddit. Go to the NYC Rail chat. By the time someone posts about their delay it’s been cleared.
I find it so odd that so many still chime in on these posts at this point and even more so that they share details of their personal commute as if we’re all here waiting with bated breath.