Straphangers on the G prepare have a model new trip.
The swap comes a bit greater than six months after G prepare riders discovered themselves aboard among the MTA’s oldest vehicles after monitor defects elsewhere within the system prompted transit bigs to shuffle round subway vehicles — and amid a second summer season of partial service because the transit company works to improve the G line’s signaling system.
An MTA spokesman Tuesday confirmed that each one 13 trains working on the G line now consist of latest, Kawasaki-built R211 prepare vehicles.
Simply noticed down the tracks with its diagonal headlights, the R211 was first debuted on the A line in 2023 after delays as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. The brand new subway vehicles rapidly phased out the Nineteen Seventies-era R46s nonetheless in service on that line, and now make up the majority of A and C prepare rolling inventory.
The G line with new R211 fashions in current weeks. (Evan Simko-Bednarski/New York Each day Information)
The MTA introduced earlier this week that at the least one R211 can also be now in service on the B line.
4 R211s with so-called “open gangways” — articulated connections that enable passengers to freely journey between vehicles — have been working on the G line since March.
The brand new vehicles imply the G line now as soon as once more has a full complement of trains able to speaking with the trendy computerized sign system often known as CBTC, or Communication Based mostly Practice Management.
MTA has been slowly putting in the CBTC system alongside the G line, a venture that required a rolling summer season shutdown final yr, in addition to nighttime shutdowns and 4 weekends with out service this summer season. Modernization work on the G line is predicted to final till 2027.
The G line with new R211 fashions in current weeks. (Evan Simko-Bednarski/New York Each day Information)
In one other quiet subway swap, the MTA despatched the G line’s R160s to the E, F and R, with a purpose to offset a scarcity on these strains attributable to extra frequent upkeep.
The G then received Nineteen Eighties-vintage R68s, know for his or her acquainted orange “conversational” seating layouts — older vehicles the MTA has slated for retirement.
G prepare riders have been advised the borrowed R160s would return by March — however they didn’t.
“We’ve made adjustments to the speeds on several curves, slowing down the trains — just a hint,” Crichlow mentioned in June, including that the pace restrict in these areas had been lowered by 5 mph or much less.
“We had an engineering consultant take a look at the force that was being placed on the rail in those areas,” he continued. “We feel, very confidently, that we’ve found the curves that were [causing] most of the wheel wear.”
