on the Grand Concourse

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

FASTRACK—MTA New York City Transit's pro-active maintenance program continued its third night along the lines in the Bronx between the 161 St-Yankee Stadium and the 205 St Stations.   This is the first line segment of FASTRACK outside of Manhattan's Central Business District and Downtown Brooklyn.  The five-mile long Grand Concourse 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 18.

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 tasks 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 around the clock.

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 Grand Concourse Line, which opened in 1933, 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.

Significant achievements from last night's maintenance effort include servicing 21 signals, installing four sets of train holding lights, 13 sections of track, 80 friction pads, five track tie blocks and 511 track tie plates.  Maintenance crews also corrected 394 third rail defects and scraped and cleaned 1,085 feet of track under and around the third rail.  Inspecting and repairing to the subway's physical infrastructure and clearing the track of debris was also critical as crews corrected 10 leaks, installed 150 linear feet of handrail, repaired 60 square feet of benchwall (an extension of the station platform that is located in tunnels and used by maintenance personnel and for emergency egress) and cleared 1,300 feet of track drain.  Work crews also removed 3,270 (17,500 pounds) of scrap and debris and replaced 200 tunnel lights, ten platform edge signs, and four conductor indication boards.

In an effort to make the station environment safer and more attractive for customers and employees, work crews replaced 45 linear feet and painted 575 square feet of rubbing board (the fiberglass extension of the platform edge that is parallel to the side of the train), scrapped 8,700 square feet of paintable surface, painted 3,100 square feet and 30 station columns.  Closed Circuit Television equipment was also included in this maintenance blitz.  At the Fordham Rd Station the picture was optimized on nine monitors and two defective monitors were replaced, at 182-183 Sts Station the picture was optimized on two monitors and at 170 St Station one monitor and one camera was replaced.

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 14, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013