on the Washington Heights/Inwood Line

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

MTA New York City Transit's comprehensive maintenance program—FASTRACK—continued its second night in Washington Heights and Inwood on the  line resulting in no trains at stations between 168 St and 207 St.  The 2.35-mile long line was closed from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. suspending service in both directions in Upper Manhattan. This FASTRACK line segment shutdown continues for the next two nights through early Friday morning, March 1.

Suspending all train service on a subway corridor on four consecutive nights for seven continuous hours gives subway repair crews the opportunity to perform many 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 maintain and clean the nation’s largest rail transportation system. 

The FASTRACK project environment, introduced in January 2012, experienced a significantly lower accident rate by participating employees. During FASTRACK, the Lost Time Accident (LTA) rate per 100 Employees was 1.38 versus a rate of 2.42 during all other operations.  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.

With no trains running along the more than 80-year old Washington Heights/Inwood Line, an army 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.  We also performed high-intensity station cleaning providing a visible improvement to the station environment.

Key accomplishments from last night’s maintenance effort include correcting 86 third rail defects, scraping and cleaning 615 linear feet of track under and around the third rail, installing five sections of track, six track ties, 234 track tie plates, 46 friction pads and cleaning 200 linear feet of track trough, the space between the rails.  Maintaining the subway’s physical infrastructure and keeping the delivery of electrical service in good operating condition continued as workers repaired 26 leaks, repaired or replaced 75 linear feet of handrail, and cleaned 800 linear feet of track drain.  Workers also performed maintenance on the DC (direct current) feeder breaker and 12 other components in the power substations.

To enhance customer and employee safety and have stations that are aesthetically-pleasing, work crews replaced 850 tunnel lights, 27 blue tunnel lights, six platform edge signs, and cleaned one station air vent  and six platform drains.  Workers also scraped 11,400 square feet of paintable surface, primed 2,500 square feet, and painted 1,500 square feet and also repaired 175 linear feet of rubbing board, the fiberglass extension of the platform edge, that is parallel to the side of the train.   Preventative maintenance was also performed on elevators, escalators and Closed Circuit Television monitors and cameras and 33 public address system speakers were inspected, cleaned and tested.

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, February 25, 2013