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‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

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Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#211

Post by bogomipz »

CPLX wrote: post #189
bogomipz wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never been "entirely" dependent of one person, although the majority control seems to be the Governor. Either through his direct 5 seat appointments or indirectly through the 7 other non-NYC seats. I don't believe it was ever under Mayoral control. The current governance structure came under then Gvernor Nelson Rockefeller. But anyway Nassau, Suffolk, Westcheste, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, and Putnam counties e…

The MTA isn't just the subways it's the regional rail and transit system too, including Metro North, LIRR, and so on. It's not obviously irrational for all the constituent counties to be involved.

Yes and that's also a huge structural problem.

The LIRR, the Metro North and NYC Subway system are completely independent lines, with completely separate payment systems, completely separate citizens as their majority riderships and they don't share any tracks. They are completely separate concerns - the LIRR and Metro North serves the commuter belt people that most likely have a car or two in the driveway. The NYC Subway's majority ridership are people that have neither a car or a driveway at home.

They are non-contiguous in every way. The only thing they share is a bloated org chart.

So yes, the idea that someone from Duchess County who drives a car to work and has most likely never ridden the NYC Subway to get to work is making "informed" decision about whether or not to address the problem of overcrowding on say the 456 line is perhaps the height of "irrationality."

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#212

Post by nugi »

kelnos wrote: post #176
stefan_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is the crucial difference. In a train or plane crash, hundreds die in a single event. But when a hundred people die in a hundred car crashes every day, the individual event is barely worth a mention on page 6 of the news. It's the same mentality that means we have root cause analysis for plane and train crashes but for a car crash, SOP is pretty much to blame 1) whoever died or 2) noone at all, and…

I think the cycle feeds into itself though: part of the reason planes and trains are so safe is because of the extensive root-cause analysis of crashes, which routinely result in suggestions for improvement that make the rest of travel safer. Remove the investigations and you'd end up with more plane and train crashes. When a car crashes, we just scrape up the debris and move on, after usually assigning blame to one…

Different risk profile. Trains generally don't have belts, crumple zones, padded surfaces, etc. Their risk profile dictates they avoid accidents. Cars are more chaotic, even in automated form. They are designed to crash safely as possible first, then anti-crash measures are added. Because trains depend soley on the anti crash measures, they must be stricter. The issue of harming dozens rather than a few humans also factors. Its an uneviable position for those responsible imho. Every move is going to be a little wrong and costly on some level.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#213

Post by CPLX »

bogomipz wrote: post #211
CPLX wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MTA isn't just the subways it's the regional rail and transit system too, including Metro North, LIRR, and so on. It's not obviously irrational for all the constituent counties to be involved.

Yes and that's also a huge structural problem. The LIRR, the Metro North and NYC Subway system are completely independent lines, with completely separate payment systems, completely separate citizens as their majority riderships and they don't share any tracks. They are completely separate concerns - the LIRR and Metro North serves the commuter belt people that most likely have a car or two in the driveway. The NYC S…

This comment doesn't really make sense. There are people that never fly on airplanes but still vote for Federal officials who manage the FAA. There are people in NYC who vote for Federal officials that administer cattle grazing. So what?

If anything the problem with regional transit systems in the US is that they are far too provincial and federated, leading to all sorts of overlapping and wasteful things. For example the fact that the Port Authority and the MTA don't get along means I can't take a fucking train to any airport in the most important and densest city in the country.

Or stuff like how they didn't bother to connect the 4/5/6 line to the PATH system during WTC reconstruction despite the fact that they are compatible, and they apparently had over three billion dollars to light on fire.

Or stuff like how the PATH train runs to Newark and inexplicably stops a mile or two short of the airport despite the fact that NJ Transit/Amtrak right of way runs right there down the exact same line.

The idea that separating LIRR from Metro North from the Subway and creating yet another set of competing bureaucracies is going to somehow help things is delusional, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how NYC area politics works.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#214

Post by rtkwe »

LolWolf wrote: post #67
gsnedders wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Drivers go even slower than 45mph because the train is automatically stopped when going faster (as you would want to do if there was a train ahead) instead of just giving a warning and letting the train keep going. Is there any protection system that allows the maximum speed to be exceeded with just a warning? Certainly all those I can think of (TPWS, TVM, PZB, or something more modern like ETCS) have a given maxim…

There are... one of them is given in the article—which calls the current system "one-shot"—there exists k-shot variants which allow for at least k opportunities/warnings before automagically braking. The (apparent) reasoning behind the MTA not putting these (for some number k>1) was "safety," but the article states that, in general, the timing circuits are much more complicated therefore resulting in a higher cost.[0…

I think the reason that it's a single shot instead of multi shot and full emergency braking instead of moderate is that the stops are all track based not train based, at least for the 'train in circuit' stops. The original signals basically put up a metal arm that trips the emergency brakes on the train itself so if they piggy backed off this existing system by just adding a speed sensor there's no way to do a slow deceleration because the signals are designed to work without any real cooperation from the train beyond the emergency brake functioning.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#215

Post by matt4077 »

himlion wrote: post #206
klodolph wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MTA subway isn't really intercity, unless you think of the boroughs as different cities. Although the express trains should be able to go much faster than they do, like the A from 59 St to 125 St, which takes ~8 minutes for 5.3 km even though there are no stops and no other trains on the track. This kind of thing makes a huge impact on the quality of life for people living in the city.

For intercity trains in the Netherlands some stops are only kilometers apart as well. 50 kilometers between stops would be the absolute maximum.

Yeah. The larger point is still that you just can’t compare IC trains to subways. The TGV gets to 300km/h+, but it’s irrelevant to the Disneyland Monorail.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#216

Post by matt4077 »

klodolph wrote: post #191
shoo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of your summary, but I don't believe the article provided evidence that installation of signals to enforce a lower max speed "does not increase safety". I'd speculate, without evidence, that it probably has increased safety. But maybe it's just a bad tradeoff, compared to other options.

This is one of those comments that is annoying to respond to because it may be technically correct because the original comment wasn't worded ever so precisely, but we all know that "does not increase safety" is not an absolute statement. You could strap a pillow to your chest and get ready to jump out of an airplane, and I'll say "that won't cushion your fall," but "technically, it will," you argue. Besides--reduced…

Enforcing the speed limit the system is designed for intuitively sounds like very reasonable and effective safety measure, not comparable in any way to your fantasy scenario.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#217

Post by maratd »

mistermann wrote: post #86
DiabloD3 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fire everyone. However, if I remember correctly, they're unionized, which is why this hasn't happened yet.

Which will never happen. Yet another of China's many advantages: ease of optimization.

> Yet another of China's many advantages

Yes, you can fire everyone in China, throw them in a work camp, take their property for the greater good, etc.

Funny thing happens when you walk all over people that way for the "greater good" ... a few people at the top, who define what the "greater good" is, tend to become extremely wealthy and powerful. The society becomes lopsided. The peasants become frustrated. Then there's violence.

Not that the people at the top are idiots. They understand this.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-spends-more-on-domestic-s...

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#218

Post by jbfoo »

smcl wrote: post #203
bsder wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And this isn't even getting into the longer term prospects of the very real danger of the efficiency and scale of China starting to eat into the core economies of other nations as they move away from simple manufacturing and beginning moving up the value chain, as we are now seeing. I wasn't really that worried about China as they are automating extremely quickly and have shown no better ability to utilize the disp…

I think I'm missing something - TSMC should move their fabs off the island because of some goings-on in the mainland? The countries are obviously connected in various ways, but they're definitely not yet united so I'm struggling to see what the reasoning here is

Well, I guess, one could argument than after losing contact with working class and solidifying their rule, China's ruling class will what every non-democratic regime did --- try to expand territoriality. And they have grudges with Taiwan.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#219

Post by maratd »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #173
mistermann wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends. You may not enjoy certain micro-optimizations, but to me it seems perfectly possible that even though living in a communist dictatorship has many negatives, the net benefits under a benevolent dictator could easily surpass the drawbacks, especially when compared to a free but largely corrupt Western society where the benefits may not make it outside the top 10%. And this isn't even getting into the longer…

No benevolent dictatorship has ever existed. It is hard to imagine how it could exist; it seems that corruption is such a natural and apparently reasonable behavior that we will always see it. Your a theoretical should be discarded.

> No benevolent dictatorship has ever existed.

I can quibble with this just a little. A truly benevolent dictator will recognize how harmful dictatorship is and will immediately remove himself from it.

http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdstatehouse/html/gwresignation....

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#220

Post by jandrese »

Kelbit wrote: post #158
smilekzs wrote: post #14

Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?

Vancouver SkyTrain opened in 1985 and was fully automated from day one. The rolling stock used on the majority of the system (Bombardier ART) was specifically designed for driverless operation. Interestingly, at the time the Vancouver SkyTrain was undergoing construction, the same tech was being installed in Toronto for the Scarborough rapid transit line. The transit union in Toronto opposed automation, so the trains…

The Las Vegas monorail is entirely automated, but that doesn't stop it from being horrendously expensive and not terribly useful.
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