on the

Accomplishments:
Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Night three of the second round of MTA New York City Transit's ambitious maintenance initiative—FASTRACK—took place late last night and early Thursday morning along the Seventh Avenue Line from 34 St-Penn Station to South Ferry and to Atlantic Av, Brooklyn.  FASTRACK entails the partial closure of a subway line to train service on four consecutive nights and 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, April 13.  Because no trains are running along a designated area of a subway line, maintenance crews can work on and near the tracks without having to stop work every few minutes while a train moves through the area.  This is safer environment for employees and a more efficient way to maintain and clean New York City's massive underground transportation system that runs around the clock.

With no trains running along Seventh Avenue Wednesday night into Thursday morning, 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. 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 four switches, 20 signals, removing 1,570 bags of debris (8,300 pounds) and scrapping 625 feet of track.  Workers also installed five running rails (sections of track), 10 linear feet of handrail, and cleaned 1,500 linear feet of “no clearance” signs.  In addition, nearly 1,040 linear feet of track was serviced by the vacuum train, 385 tunnel lights and 35 square feet of tactile warning (ADA) tiles were replaced.  Also, 394 third-rail defects were corrected and 19 tie blocks were replaced.  To allow for a smoother ride, 322 track plates and 298 friction pads were installed.   Infrastructure crews grouted 30 leaks, performed ‘sound and tap’ work on 390 square feet of structure and repaired 78 defects.

For a safer, comfortable and more-pleasing station environment, 12,100 square feet of paintable surface areas was scraped and 7,500 square feet was primed and painted.  Maintenance and inspection work was performed on two elevators and one escalator.  At South Ferry Station, maintenance crews were able to replace ten Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras and four monitors, while the picture quality was optimized on three cameras and three monitors.

FASTRACK was credited for the quick cleanup of a water main that broke last week disrupting subway service between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Thousands of gallons of water entered the tracks of the trains around 2:30 a.m. Thursday, April 5 when a 12-inch water main installed in the late 1880s fractured under West Broadway between Warren and Murray Streets (between Chambers St and Park Place Stations). Transit workers quickly responded and cleared the tracks, and service resumed shortly after 8 AM. About seven inches of water had accumulated and reached the top of track rail but, was swiftly removed by external pumps and track drains that were recently cleaned as part of the previous FASTRACK which shut down service on the lines for four weeknights in February. "Those drains were all recently cleaned, so they were handling water amazingly," said Senior Vice President of Subways Carmen Bianco. "All the hard work put into FASTRACK several weeks ago, paid off.”

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 components we are focusing on repairing and maintaining so that we can continue to provide our riders with safe and reliable service.

Accomplishments: Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Accomplishments: Monday, April 9, 2012