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MTA New York City Transit's ambitious maintenance initiative — FASTRACK — began its third round last night along the Seventh Avenue Line from 34 St-Penn Station to South Ferry and to Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr, 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 through 5:00 a.m. Friday, June 29.  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 New York City's vast subway—a system that runs around the clock.

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, resulting in the removal of muck and debris. In subway stations, paintable areas not reachable during normal train operation were scraped, primed and painted. 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 an pleasant station environment.

Major accomplishments from last night’s maintenance effort include servicing ten switches, four signals, removing 1,537 bags of debris (29,600 pounds) and scraping 215 feet of track.  Workers also installed three running rails (sections of track), 163 track tie plates, 21 cross tie blocks and replaced 35 linear feet of handrail.   In addition, 950 feet of track drain lines was serviced, 16 square feet of tactile warning (ADA) tiles were replaced and 60 linear feet of benchwall (an extension of the station platform that is located in tunnels and used by maintenance personnel and for emergency egress) was repaired.  Work crews also corrected 372 third rail defects, scraped 740 feet of track under and around the third rail and Infrastructure crews sealed 38 leaks.

With an eye towards enhancing customer safety and convenience, four platform edge signs were replaced, 5,800 square feet of paintable surface was scraped, 5,850 square feet was primed and 7,050 square feet was painted. Workers also removed 72 graffiti hits (markings).  With stations free of customers, workers were able to do preventative maintenance on escalators at Park Place and Borough Hall stations and on elevators at Chambers Street, Clark Street and Borough Hall stations.  At Wall Street station, workers responsible for the maintenance of Closed Circuit Television system components were able to optimize for clarity 12 cameras and 9 monitors and replace a monitor.

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 critical components you never see. Pumps, signals, track, and power are just some of the vital system equipment we are focusing on so that we can continue providing our riders with train service that is safe and reliable.