on the Nostrand Avenue

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

FASTRACK—MTA New York City Transit's forward-looking maintenance initiative continued its third night along the line in Brooklyn between the Franklin Av and Flatbush Av-Brooklyn College Stations.  The three-mile long Nostrand Avenue Line was shut down from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m suspending service in both directions. This FASTRACK line segment shutdown continues tonight and concludes
at 5 am Friday morning, January 25.

With all train service suspended on a subway corridor on four consecutive nights for seven continuous hours, maintenance workers have an opportunity to perform numerous jobs on or near the tracks without having to stop work every few minutes while a train moves through the area.  This is a safer and more efficient way to repair and clean North America's largest rail transportation system—a system that runs 24 hours a day and seven days a week..

The FASTRACK project environment, introduced in 2012, experienced a dramatically lower employee accident rate.  During FASTRACK episodes, the Lost Time Accident (LTA) rate per 100 Employees was 1.38 versus a rate of 2.42 during all other maintenance activities.  An LTA is a job-related incident that results in the inability of an employee to perform their duties for at least one working day beyond the day of the incident.

When trains were not running on the Nostrand Avenue Line, which opened in 1920, hundreds of maintenance workers were able to inspect signals and switches, repair and replace track rails and cross ties, clean track floors, perform elevator and escalator repair work, repair water damage, clear drains, and clean stations. They were also able to clear the track-bed of debris and paint areas untouched in years because they are not reachable during normal train operation.  In addition, work crews were able to clean lighting fixtures, change bulbs, and repair platform edges.  Work crews also performed high-intensity station cleaning providing a visible improvement to the station environment.

Major achievements from last night's maintenance effort include servicing 12 signals and replacing 12 sections of track, 230 friction pads, 7 track tie blocks and 33 track tie plates.  Maintenance crews also corrected 256 third rail defects and scraped and cleaned 710 linear feet of track under and around the third rail and 125 linear feet of track trough, the space between the rails.  Keeping the subway's physical infrastructure in good condition and clearing the track of debris is also critical as crews installed 150 linear feet of handrail, cleared 300 linear feet of track drain and removed 2,900 bags (2,800 pounds) of scrap and debris.

Work crews also, replaced 30 tunnel lights, 6 platform edge signs, and painted 2,800 square feet of rubbing board, the fiberglass extension of the platform edge that is parallel to the side of the train.  A pipe under the platform at Newkirk Av and eight square feet of platform edge was repaired and all public address system equipment inspections and testing was completed at Newkirk Av and Flatbush Av-Brooklyn College Stations. 

How this impacts service?
Reliable service - service you can depend on to get you to where you need to go when you need to get there - requires regularly scheduled maintenance to the critical components you never see.  FASTRACK is having a positive impact on service reliability as train delays on subway lines that have undergone FASTRACK maintenance have dropped 4.4% and track fires have declined by 50 %.  FASTRACK is improving employee safety and service reliability.

Accomplishments:

Monday, January 21, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013