4 ms·

No downtime. The system runs 24/7/365.

by lr4444lr 9y ago

CoolGuySteve 9y ago
I'd believe you if my local R line wasn't shut down every weekend for the next year.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Precisely my point: no regularly scheduled downtime to do these things results in major outages when the situation gets too bad to ignore. Same with the impending L-train shutdown.
strictnein 9y ago
Is it impossible for them to schedule downtime?
- smelendez 9y ago
  They do. They do some work on nights and weekends, and some lines have shut down and will shut down for periods of months. The L train (Manhattan to Brooklyn) is scheduled to shut down for over a year to do residual repairs from Hurricane Sandy's flooding. But it's a major pain. The system is at capacity many hours of the day, as are surface roads, and some points in the city are only near one line, so there's no easy way to get people where they need to go when their train can't run.
nine_k 9y ago
But parts of the systems do shut down time to time, by rerouting trains, or by just canceling them and providing shuttle buses. It's perfectly possible to get 8-12 hours long uninterrupted work windows for significant stretches of the railway. The work has to be incremental, of course.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  Incrementally redoing the signal system is difficult, particularly because the system has lots of branches and reverse branches--which means you have to basically have it enableable on the entire system before you can enable it, rather than doing lines at a time.
  - nine_k 9y ago
    Difficult, of course. But not impossible, and not specifically because trains cannot be stopped for doing work. Most of the tunnels have 4 lines, so half the line can be worked on while the line still operates; this is being done all the time.
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    Except that the MTA is doing it on sections of lines at a time. It is actually not hard, because the equipment does not have to be aware of things beyond whatever sections of track it controls (otherwise, any upgrade would require national coordination, since most rail systems, including the NYC subway, are connected to the national rail network).
js8 9y ago
That's interesting. In Prague, subway (which is IMHO superior to NY subway in some ways) is closed every day from midnight till 5 am (roughly, I think it is extended by an hour during weekends). Instead, we have night trams and buses, so the downtime is not a big deal. Maybe a change of culture would be helpful?
- smelendez 9y ago
  That's what most US cities do, too. Chicago has some all-night rail service, but it's mostly just buses, for instance. But in NYC, an advisory group suggested that recently, and people hated the idea. The problem is traffic can be heavy even after hours, especially on the weekends, so buses would be a lot slower. Lots of people rely on the subway at all hours of the night.
  - phil21 9y ago
    > Chicago has some all-night rail service, but it's mostly just buses, for instance. Anyone that can tends to avoid (e.g. prefers to live off the red/blue line) the lines that do not operate 24x7. Not providing universal service means you lose peak time ridership as well, as witnessed by ridership numbers on those lines.

No downtime. The system runs 24/7/365.

CoolGuySteve 9y ago

I'd believe you if my local R line wasn't shut down every weekend for the next year.

lr4444lr 9y ago
Precisely my point: no regularly scheduled downtime to do these things results in major outages when the situation gets too bad to ignore. Same with the impending L-train shutdown.

strictnein 9y ago

Is it impossible for them to schedule downtime?

smelendez 9y ago
They do. They do some work on nights and weekends, and some lines have shut down and will shut down for periods of months. The L train (Manhattan to Brooklyn) is scheduled to shut down for over a year to do residual repairs from Hurricane Sandy's flooding. But it's a major pain. The system is at capacity many hours of the day, as are surface roads, and some points in the city are only near one line, so there's no easy way to get people where they need to go when their train can't run.

nine_k 9y ago

But parts of the systems do shut down time to time, by rerouting trains, or by just canceling them and providing shuttle buses. It's perfectly possible to get 8-12 hours long uninterrupted work windows for significant stretches of the railway. The work has to be incremental, of course.

jcranmer 9y ago
Incrementally redoing the signal system is difficult, particularly because the system has lots of branches and reverse branches--which means you have to basically have it enableable on the entire system before you can enable it, rather than doing lines at a time.
- nine_k 9y ago
  Difficult, of course. But not impossible, and not specifically because trains cannot be stopped for doing work. Most of the tunnels have 4 lines, so half the line can be worked on while the line still operates; this is being done all the time.
- betterunix2 9y ago
  Except that the MTA is doing it on sections of lines at a time. It is actually not hard, because the equipment does not have to be aware of things beyond whatever sections of track it controls (otherwise, any upgrade would require national coordination, since most rail systems, including the NYC subway, are connected to the national rail network).

js8 9y ago

That's interesting. In Prague, subway (which is IMHO superior to NY subway in some ways) is closed every day from midnight till 5 am (roughly, I think it is extended by an hour during weekends). Instead, we have night trams and buses, so the downtime is not a big deal. Maybe a change of culture would be helpful?

smelendez 9y ago
That's what most US cities do, too. Chicago has some all-night rail service, but it's mostly just buses, for instance. But in NYC, an advisory group suggested that recently, and people hated the idea. The problem is traffic can be heavy even after hours, especially on the weekends, so buses would be a lot slower. Lots of people rely on the subway at all hours of the night.
- phil21 9y ago
  > Chicago has some all-night rail service, but it's mostly just buses, for instance. Anyone that can tends to avoid (e.g. prefers to live off the red/blue line) the lines that do not operate 24x7. Not providing universal service means you lose peak time ridership as well, as witnessed by ridership numbers on those lines.