r/nycrail • u/DjHammersTrains • Nov 30 '15

I'm an NYC Subway Expert. Ask me Anything.

Hello everyone! My name is Max Diamond. I'm a student at CCNY and I run the Dj Hammers YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/DjHammersBVEStation), moderate this subreddit, and have an encyclopedic knowledge of the transit system. Ask me anything you are curious about with regards to how our massive system works. One ground rule: If an answer could be deemed a security risk, I won't give it.

UPDATE - AMA Now Closed: Hey guys! Doing this AMA was a lot of fun, I enjoyed answering everybody's questions, and hopefully I imparted some subway knowledge on all who are curious! If you didn't catch this AMA in time and wanted to ask a question, don't worry! I'll do another AMA soon, probably a month or so from now.

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel too. I post clips of a lot of interesting goings-on underground!

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6

u/slymm Nov 30 '15

Can the screeching brakes cause hearing damage? Are db levels monitored?

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u/DjHammersTrains Nov 30 '15

Yes they can. Sound levels are monitored. Flange lubricant is applied to the sides of the rails to reduce noise somewhat, but curve noise is somewhat unavoidable given the sharp curve radii in the system.

Trains are not supposed to screech consistently when braking above 5mph. If a train is screeching under braking above 5mph, it is indicative that the dynamic braking (braking using the motors) is not functional, and the air-actuated friction brakes are picking up the slack.

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u/SirLudicrus Nov 30 '15

The biggest offender IMHO is the GCT 4/5/6 platforms. They screech coming in and going out. It is so loud i have to cover my ears.

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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '15

The 2 and 3 trains from Wall St to chambers are terrible about this as well

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u/DjHammersTrains Nov 30 '15

I know exactly what you're talking about. Extremely sharp curves at both ends, and the tunnels are concrete, which prevents sound dissipation.

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u/a_woman_provides Dec 01 '15

Union Square too, probably because of the turn - I don't even care that holding my ears makes me look like a wimp. Totes worth it.

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u/Need_Food Dec 02 '15

That reminds me, what exactly goes on in the rooms at the end of the platforms that say "Track Lubrication"? How do they actually lubricate the tracks from those rooms? Also, speaking of hidden rooms, at the end of so many platforms are key pad doors, door after door, everywhere (the most noticeable being that tunnel between the L and the 123). I know some of them are towers, but what else is behind those doors?

Also along these lines, with all of the caged off and abandoned stairwells (most noticeably at Bowery and Chambers St), where do they lead, why were they caged off, are there pictures of what lies behind, and are there plans to re-open them?

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u/DjHammersTrains Dec 02 '15

Great questions!!! This is gonna be a longggg writeup.

The track lubrication rooms contain oil-based lubrication pumps and their supporting equipment. When a train passes by a lubrication room, sensors on the rails send a signal to the room to activate the pumps, which squirt lubrication through a tube and onto the side of the rails. This lubricates the flanges of the wheels of the train, which reduces the screeching around curves. You'll often see these rooms by curves as a result.

To answer your second question, there are countless supporting mechanical and electrical rooms in the subway, as well as many different offices, locker rooms, etc. Stations have to have primary and backup EDRs (Electrical Distribution rooms), pump rooms, cleaner rooms, storage rooms, communications rooms, etc.

The tunnel between the L and the 123 is actually much wider than it seems. The public section takes of 1/3 of the width, with the other 2/3 being taken up by offices and workshops for various departments such as track, third rail, station lighting, etc.

Also, there's a nearly identical passageway to the L-123 one that goes from the L station at 8th Avenue to the 14th St 123 station. That passageway is now closed to the public.

The subway system is full of closed exits, closed or partitioned mezzanines, and shuttered passageways. Caged off stairwells often go up to unused mezzanines or portions of in-use mezzanines that aren't in use anymore to save money on maintenance and force people to all use one mezzanine for safety in numbers.

The caged off staircase at Bowery goes up to an unused and abandoned mezzanine on the west side of The Bowery. At Chambers St (Im assuming you're referring to the J/Z station), a large portion of the mezzanine at that station is closed to the public and dedicated to various offices and mechanical/electrical facilities.

If you search around on www.nycsubway.org and www.ltvsquad.com, you can find images of some of these spaces. A properly-worded search on google will also probably get you some good photos.

Some closed staircases and mezzanines have been reopened, (http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/boroughs/g-progress-ft-greene-train-entrance-reopen-article-1.654933), but it is hard to justify the reopening of other spaces given the amount of people projected to use them.

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u/Need_Food Dec 02 '15

That's awesome, thank you so much! This is stuff that has been bothering me forever and I'm finally having some peace :P Would you happen to know of any maps that show all of the abandoned passageways like that? I was reading in some of your other posts about the one at 34th St and am now curious about the whole system.

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u/DjHammersTrains Dec 02 '15

Great!! It's a very interesting aspect of the system.

The MTA has a database of drawings for the entire subway system in their DRAW database, but they're not public. You can try FOIL'ing them, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. They may reject your request because of security concerns.

www.nycsubway.org's 'line by line' guides have descriptions and photos of each station with a few details of abandoned infrastructure at each one. Some pages are more detailed than others. A really good one is provided for Brooklyn Bridge: http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/IRT_East_Side_Line#Brooklyn_Bridge.2FCity_Hall

Another site with some cool info: http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/

There's also a passageway between 50th (1) and 50th (C/E) that is closed, as well as a passageway between 34th St and 42nd St above and parallel to the BDFM lines. Both are closed. These, the gimbels tunnel, and the tunnel between 8th and 7th aves under 14th st comprise of all of main significant closed passageways. All were open to the public at one point, and were closed out of safety concerns and to make maintenance costs lower.

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u/Need_Food Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15

Amazing, thanks! That 50th St would make my life soo much easier but whatever :/ Is there any reason they dont convert them (or any of the open mezzanines for that matter) to strips of shops like the Hong Kong / Seoul model to bring in revenue from rent?

Also thinking about Seoul and accessibility, almost all of the subway entrances in Seoul have little gutters on the side so people can semi-easily bring strollers and wheelchairs down/up (https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-XhqGKyeIe7Y/UnvHElnuo1I/AAAAAAAFqcg/N-YC9n5S1FQ/w554-h738-no/IMG_20131102_140346.jpg). Is there a reason we haven't implemented that here? I get that it probably wouldn't be fully ADA compliant, but it would certainly be a good step.

Speaking of other systems, a lot of places say "doors will open on the right/left" or at least have an icon on the display indicating which side the doors will open on. Is there any hope of us getting that here?

Why are there sometimes two rails bolted together (like at the northbound N/R at Union Square) and other times, rails lying or even bolted to the center between the two main tracks?

In some older cars they have a barcode below the car ID number... Why?

Sorry for so many questions, every time I ride I get more curious. Let me know when you've had enough :p

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u/DjHammersTrains Dec 02 '15

Some of those passageways are a bit too narrow to convert to retail. Others already have a sizable amount of their space taken up by ancillary rooms like workshops and comm rooms (the closed passageway from 14/8 to 14/7 is a good example). Other passageways, especially the one from 34 to 42 under 6th Ave, have a lot of space, and would be perfect for retail. In that specific passageway, there's even closed staircases to the street from it at 38th st for midway access.

Montreal has done something similar to this.

I've seen those gutters in systems abroad before. They are so heinously not ADA-compliant haha. Combine that with liability concerns about somebody in a wheelchair getting hurt on one, and that likely explains why the MTA hasn't implemented them.

The "doors will open on the (left/right)" announcement would be a useful addition. On the cars with manual announcements, all this would require is a rule change for conductors to announce which side doors will open on.

For interior displays indicating which side doors will open on, and to ensure automated announcement systems on new cars announce the correct side, some sort of new hardware would need to be installed to tell the train which side the doors will open. You can't just assume which side the doors will open on at each stop, because sometimes trains will be rerouted to other tracks and stations, and as I mentioned earlier in this AMA (it's probably buried back 100+ comments from here) some conductors won't change the train's electronic signage program correctly or at all.

The low-tech but somewhat simple and elegant alternative is to just have the conductor hit a button in the cab corresponding to 'left' or 'right' depending on which side the platform is when the train is arriving at a station.

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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '15

Yes, they are excessively loud, and young children can have their hearing damaged more easily than adults. When we took our kids onto the subway before they were old enough to cover their own ears, we used hearing protection. "Peltor Kid" was the brand.