NYC is proud of its 24/7 subway service. Tell a NYer another city’s subways are better because of XYZ and they’ll shake their fist and say “but we have 24/7 service and they don’t!”
But I can’t feel part of the reason for the NYC subways many woes is because of the 24/7 service and the lack of maintenance and cleanup.
If I'm waiting at 2am for a subway in NYC for 1 hr, versus waiting 6 hours for the first subway to kick back in if it's say, 12:01am in Japan or South Korea? Then IMHO it's better to just eat the cost, take a taxi, feel the burn of $100 to get home vs. say $2-4 for a 3am subway ride, and give the NYC MTA subway system time to work on repairs, renovations, additions, etc.
24 hour subway leaves no time at all to do any maintenance.
I really, really, really really really wish that NYC would just straight up plagiarize Japan or South Korea for their metro systems. Even their "next stop" displays are far superior than what NYC currently has.
I live in NYC and am well aware of the so-called 24/7 service. The fact is that it's 24/7 only in midtown Manhattan. If you are on the 1/2/3 or ACE or 4/5/6 lines it's likely you'd get 'For the next 3 weekends services from some outer borough station to 178th street will be suspended from 10PM to 8 AM. Please use the connection bus from blah to blah."
Even the Q line, that is less than 10 years old, went though the same hassle in Feb, and that's squarely in midtown.
The 24/7 claim is exaggerated. Just ask the 7 line folks at the Hudson Yard's end what they think of the claim.
Also, during the weekend I find taking the bus to usually be faster than taking the subway. Literally buses creeping across New York is faster trains.
As someone who lives in a city where we have both a train network that doesn't run 24/7 but also seems to have crippling malfunction once every 2 weeks that causes delays of hours across the whole network; the number of hours that transport is shut for per day are not reflective of how many hours there are for maintenance.
The lack of maintenance is an issue, but it's got very little to do with the 24/7 service - it's set up so they shut down half of each line overnight and do maintenance on alternate pairs of tracks, which should be a fine way of working (and is the same way that e.g. European night trains work - they'll keep one line open overnight for night trains while they work on the other). It's just decades of not doing it, not having enough funding, and more generally a total breakdown in state capacity to do anything.
I can live with a few hours for maintenance here and there, but I generally wish my city's tram service was more continuous. I don't think they do maintenance every night and it feels like defeat to have to take a taxi just to get home after midnight.
The maintenance cycle is also amazing for nightlife. In Tokyo the majority of late night establishments are open until 5am when the trains start back up.
I wish we could just do maintenance in the US. Here in Boston, we underfunded the MBTA for a decade[0], and now the system is hanging on by a thread.
Roads are falling apart, lighting poles are falling down, our natural gas infrastructure is leaking like crazy. Why can't we just take care of our stuff?
"Dr. Yellow" is a Shinkansen inspection train. They are painted bright yellow like other maintenance equipment, and otherwise look much like the regular Shinkansen rolling stock. They run at the same speed as regular trains, so they don't delay service.
There's a cult thing of wanting to see "Dr. Yellow".[1] Dr Yellow slowly passing a grade crossing.[2] 8 million views!
The illustration style reminds me of a young children's book of trucks or machinery that I had.
IIRC, besides the normal fascination with big machines, the book seemed to glorify the machines and the idealized and determined workers operating them, a bit like propaganda posters from some other countries.
I think the book I had was from Japan. (Half my family is from Hawaii, and there was a lot of cultural cross-pollination as part of ordinary life.)
We kinda forget about the people that make our cities efficient engines of capitalism. It's only when services stop (trash pickup, water, sewage, etc.) do we take notice of them.
Whether in capitalism or socialism, work needs to be done. The more work done, the more efficient the system is. Infrastructure workers doing great work don't always get the respect they deserve.
These train illustrations are also bit of propaganda (not that I have any issues with them, they are awesome!).
> The illustrations of trains seen here are part of Project Toei, an initiative from the The Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation to highlight various aspects of the city’s incredible infrastructure.
This article doesn't touch upon it, but the tasks of these trains are computer vision and AI problems. The majority of inspection work is done by software.
JR has aspirational plans that by 2032 all of these maintenance vehicles will be fully autonomous.
TIL the US has ~100x (!!) more derailments / year than Japan.
> In 2018 there were just 2 derailments across the entire country. The average over the past 20 years is a bit higher (roughly 10 per year) but have been in a downward trend. And while it’s not a fair comparison, just for reference the U.S. (according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics) had 1376 derailments in 2018. While also in a downward trend, the U.S. has over 1000 derailments each year.
Freight trains have been getting longer to save labor. Tight schedules encourage skipping the effort to rebalance the train into a safer car ordering. When braking, a long line of heavy cars at the back can push empty cars at the front off the tracks.
https://www.propublica.org/article/train-derailment-long-tra...
Spoon and Tamago is probably the newsletter I've been subscribed to the longest, every single (infrequent) email is beautifully crafted with very nice content, highly recommend.
I saw a yellow maintenance train in Montreal metro once after getting off the last train at night. I had a digital camera with me (2006 or so) and I started to take pictures but I was immediately chased away my multiple (several) very angry employees shouting at me in French. I couldn’t believe that they treated it with such secrecy but also ran the train through while people were in the station still.
"shouting at me in French" implies to me that you don't speak French and had no idea what they were yelling about, which I would be in the exact same boat, er train, er whatevs. Did you find out what they were yelling and if any of it would make sense? Maybe you had a Canon and they were all Nikon fans? Maybe they were die hard film fans and hated digital cameras?
I'm not sure if these are the same trains that are typically accompanied by a team of 10-15 railroad workers and a whole electric lights orchestra. It's such a treat to see them working diligently through the night, dead quiet, passing through sleeping neighbourhoods in perfect unison. It always gave me the impression that the railroad workers took utmost pride in their work.
I would make two distinctions by my experience ten years ago, the inter-provincial trains where you go seated, and the metropolitan trains where you go standing.
In the first ones, even in the older trains that takes you to the most remote village, the separation between the seats is very generous, what made them very comfortable, which is strange since the height of the people is supposed to be lower than Europe. If they are renowned this I want to try it and keep criticizing the ridiculous separation of the seats here, like if it were planes...
The second ones, metropolitan at rush hour, on the way to and from work hours, are hell. There is no other definition. But this is exclusively a matter about they would need triple the number of trains in rush hours. Nevertheless, as those companies managing it are private, I'm not sure if that number of trains increment for rush hours would be profitable (probably not due what keeps happening along decades).
Off topic: Clearly in Europe the politics go against car ownership for the next years (bad decision). If trains keep being as they are now, all is gonna be a pure shit and pain. Does exist any kind of prevision over this? In the last years I started to think politicians in Brussels are not able to think. In this aspect I envy the Chinese "politicians" prevision.
You have a point - I find riding a train during Tokyo rush hour to be quite miserable. But not everywhere is as crowded as Tokyo, and lots of trains have reserved seating, and they are very comfortable indeed.
[+] [-] decafninja|2 years ago|reply
But I can’t feel part of the reason for the NYC subways many woes is because of the 24/7 service and the lack of maintenance and cleanup.
[+] [-] deebosong|2 years ago|reply
If I'm waiting at 2am for a subway in NYC for 1 hr, versus waiting 6 hours for the first subway to kick back in if it's say, 12:01am in Japan or South Korea? Then IMHO it's better to just eat the cost, take a taxi, feel the burn of $100 to get home vs. say $2-4 for a 3am subway ride, and give the NYC MTA subway system time to work on repairs, renovations, additions, etc.
24 hour subway leaves no time at all to do any maintenance.
I really, really, really really really wish that NYC would just straight up plagiarize Japan or South Korea for their metro systems. Even their "next stop" displays are far superior than what NYC currently has.
One can dream...
[+] [-] guardiangod|2 years ago|reply
Even the Q line, that is less than 10 years old, went though the same hassle in Feb, and that's squarely in midtown.
The 24/7 claim is exaggerated. Just ask the 7 line folks at the Hudson Yard's end what they think of the claim.
Also, during the weekend I find taking the bus to usually be faster than taking the subway. Literally buses creeping across New York is faster trains.
[+] [-] Atsuii|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beckler|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fatnoah|2 years ago|reply
Come to Boston. We don't have 24/7 service and still close lines for entire days, weeks, or months to do maintenance.
[+] [-] solarkraft|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tade0|2 years ago|reply
No problems with maintenance and cleaning whatsoever. Then again no homeless either, considering it's closed for a few hours of the day.
[+] [-] elif|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw7|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 7952|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comte7092|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VyseofArcadia|2 years ago|reply
Roads are falling apart, lighting poles are falling down, our natural gas infrastructure is leaking like crazy. Why can't we just take care of our stuff?
[0] To pay for more car stuff which ended up being a boondoggle in its own right, of course https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/i-team-big-dig-root-mbta...
[+] [-] poidos|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manojlds|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itsmartapuntocm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freetime2|2 years ago|reply
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-cult...
[+] [-] glandium|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|2 years ago|reply
"Dr. Yellow" is a Shinkansen inspection train. They are painted bright yellow like other maintenance equipment, and otherwise look much like the regular Shinkansen rolling stock. They run at the same speed as regular trains, so they don't delay service.
There's a cult thing of wanting to see "Dr. Yellow".[1] Dr Yellow slowly passing a grade crossing.[2] 8 million views!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j2SHLdL8yI
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXbST7EoNZw
[+] [-] pcurve|2 years ago|reply
You don't realize how tall these trains are because of platform heights, but that video puts things into perspective.
Video of inside Dr. Yellow
https://youtu.be/AKxJJka12NE?t=346
[+] [-] neilv|2 years ago|reply
IIRC, besides the normal fascination with big machines, the book seemed to glorify the machines and the idealized and determined workers operating them, a bit like propaganda posters from some other countries.
I think the book I had was from Japan. (Half my family is from Hawaii, and there was a lot of cultural cross-pollination as part of ordinary life.)
[+] [-] e4e5|2 years ago|reply
If you go on their website, you can see that most of the toys are machines: https://www.tamiya.com/english/e-home.htm
[+] [-] bb88|2 years ago|reply
Whether in capitalism or socialism, work needs to be done. The more work done, the more efficient the system is. Infrastructure workers doing great work don't always get the respect they deserve.
[+] [-] freetime2|2 years ago|reply
> The illustrations of trains seen here are part of Project Toei, an initiative from the The Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation to highlight various aspects of the city’s incredible infrastructure.
[+] [-] wongarsu|2 years ago|reply
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s38VVmlV7kc
[+] [-] suction|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] elif|2 years ago|reply
JR has aspirational plans that by 2032 all of these maintenance vehicles will be fully autonomous.
[+] [-] GalenErso|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] insane_dreamer|2 years ago|reply
> In 2018 there were just 2 derailments across the entire country. The average over the past 20 years is a bit higher (roughly 10 per year) but have been in a downward trend. And while it’s not a fair comparison, just for reference the U.S. (according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics) had 1376 derailments in 2018. While also in a downward trend, the U.S. has over 1000 derailments each year.
[+] [-] gc9|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanjshaw|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inasio|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptoz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylan604|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zkirill|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whalesalad|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aeolun|2 years ago|reply
It’s true I’ve never seen them actually drive though.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] qgin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qiqitori|2 years ago|reply
Yes, who doesn't love being packed into a tin can with some fellow sardines?
[+] [-] drtgh|2 years ago|reply
In the first ones, even in the older trains that takes you to the most remote village, the separation between the seats is very generous, what made them very comfortable, which is strange since the height of the people is supposed to be lower than Europe. If they are renowned this I want to try it and keep criticizing the ridiculous separation of the seats here, like if it were planes...
The second ones, metropolitan at rush hour, on the way to and from work hours, are hell. There is no other definition. But this is exclusively a matter about they would need triple the number of trains in rush hours. Nevertheless, as those companies managing it are private, I'm not sure if that number of trains increment for rush hours would be profitable (probably not due what keeps happening along decades).
Off topic: Clearly in Europe the politics go against car ownership for the next years (bad decision). If trains keep being as they are now, all is gonna be a pure shit and pain. Does exist any kind of prevision over this? In the last years I started to think politicians in Brussels are not able to think. In this aspect I envy the Chinese "politicians" prevision.
[+] [-] freetime2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|2 years ago|reply
Go to London. Repeat.
Go to New York (Brooklyn is recommended). Repeat.
Tokyo is the place least likely to smell like sardines.
[+] [-] astrange|2 years ago|reply
Also, it rarely smells since people don't eat on the train.
* ok, not sure about this one