on the

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Night three of the second round of MTA New York City Transit's ambitious maintenance initiative — FASTRACK — took place late last night along the Eighth Avenue Line from 59 St-Columbus Circle to Jay St-MetroTech in Downtown 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 27. 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 Eighth 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 a pleasant station environment.

Major accomplishments from last night's maintenance effort include servicing seven switches, 12 signals, removing 5,545 bags of debris (12,000 pounds) and scrapping 2,030 feet of track. Workers also installed four running rails (sections of track), 365 tie plates and 31 tie blocks. In addition, 733 track defects were corrected, 4,935 linear feet of track under and around the third rail was scraped and cleaned and 17 drains were cleaned.

In the station environment, workers replaced 12 platform edge signs, 741 station lights, and 27 square feet of tactile warning (ADA) tile. Nearly 2,000 square feet of paintable surface areas was scraped and 1,900 square feet was primed and 3,100 square feet was painted. Crews also painted 16 stairway copings, eight KA (street level) rails, 128 stairway threads and risers. Elevator maintenance workers adjusted comb stop and comb impact switches on four machines, and performed maintenance on other units. Infrastructure crews repaired 49 square feet of leaks and performed "sound and tap" work on 150 square feet of structure and repaired 30 defects.

Crews were able to replace one Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) camera lens and optimized the picture on two monitors from two cameras at 7 Avenue. The picture was also optimized on two monitors from cameras at 50 Street. New public address system speakers were installed and tested at 34 Street.

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:

Accomplishments: Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Accomplishments: Monday, April 23, 2012