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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

This past Monday, MTA New York City Transit's ambitious maintenance program — FASTRACK — began its second round on the Eighth Avenue line from 59 St-Columbus Circle to Jay St-MetroTech, Brooklyn.  FASTRACK entails the partial closure of a subway line to train service on four consecutive nights for seven continuous hours (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.).  This round of FASTRACK on the  lines runs nights through 5 a.m. Friday, April 27.  Because no trains are running along the line segment, workers can work on and 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 maintain and clean the massive New York City subway—a system that runs around the clock.

With no  trains running along Eighth Avenue last night, more than 800 Transit employees were able to inspect and perform maintenance work on signals, switches and associated components. Workers were able to replace rails and cross ties and scrape track floors, thereby removing muck and debris. In subway stations, paintable areas not reachable during normal train operation were scraped, primed and painted. Maintenance crews also took the opportunity to clean lighting fixtures, change bulbs and repair platform edges while performing high-intensity station cleaning. These maintenance activities improve train performance and efficiency while also providing a pleasant station environment.

Major accomplishments from last night’s maintenance effort include servicing five switches, 14 signals, removing 4,830 bags of debris (22,500 pounds) and scrapping 1,500 feet of track.  Workers also installed five running rails (sections of track), 376 track tie plates, and 29 tie blocks.  On the downtown local track north of Canal Street, the track’s gauge was corrected and the alignment was adjusted.   In addition, 390 linear feet of handrail was installed, 225 square feet of leaks were sealed, and 14 drains were cleaned by the "vacuum train." For an aesthetically-pleasing station environment, 46 columns and 11 stairway copings were painted and 45 graffiti “hits” were removed. Also, 925 square feet of paintable surface was scrapped, 2,000 square feet was primed and 3,800 square feet was painted.

Six conductor boards, 727 light bulbs and 22 square feet of tactile warning (ADA) tiles were replaced. At World Trade Center station, picture quality was optimized on three cameras on three monitors on Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) equipment. Three elevator doors were also adjusted at this station. Maintenance crews were also able to replace two monitor housing glasses and perform maintenance on six cameras and four monitors and optimize the picture quality at Fulton Street Station.  

How this impacts service?

Reliable service – where you can depend on getting to where you need to go when you need to get there – requires constant care and attention to critical components you never see. To improve safety and reliability, pumps, signals, track, and power are just some of the vital system equipment we are focusing on repairing and maintaining so that we can continue providing our riders with train service that is safe and reliable.

Accomplishments:

Accomplishments: Monday, April 23, 2012