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The third night of MTA New York City Transit's ambitious maintenance effort — FASTRACK — took place late last night and early Thursday morning along the Sixth Avenue Line between 14 St and 57 St. 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, July 27. Partial-line closures to service allows, maintenance crews to work on and/or near the tracks without having to stop work every few minutes to accommodate train movement. This is a safer work environment for employees and a more efficient way to maintain and clean New York City's extensive underground transportation system that normally runs around the clock.

With no trains running along Sixth Avenue, 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, surfaces 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 better station environment.

Major achievements from last night's maintenance effort include improving the condition of the track by replacing five sections of track, 222 track tie plates, 12 tie blocks, and 341 friction pads. Workers also corrected 391 third rail defects, scraped and cleaned 665 linear feet of track under and around the third rail, serviced four switches and continued the inspection of an interlocking (an arrangement of signals and track switches that govern train movement on and between adjoining tracks). Track cleaning was included as maintenance crews scraped 1,580 linear feet of track floor, generating 2,860 bags of debris, removed 110,300 pounds of scrap material and debris and cleaned 2,000 feet of track drain line. Maintenance personnel also repaired 15 linear feet of benchwall (an extension of the station platform that is located in tunnels and used by maintenance personnel and for emergency egress) and 145 linear feet of handrail.

For a more enhanced subway station environment, workers replaced seven platform edge signs and 71 station light bulbs, painted 48 columns and seven doors, installed two new drain lines and cleared a drain line. In addition, work crews washed 141 light fixtures and were able to do preventative maintenance on three escalators and one elevator.

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.

Accomplishments:

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Wednesday, July 25, 2012