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| The Rock Park Shuttle (was:Re: Bergen St...; ex RE:Adding C...; nee RE:F train...; WTF Wallyhorse?) (843014) | |||
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The Rock Park Shuttle (was:Re: Bergen St...; ex RE:Adding C...; nee RE:F train...; WTF Wallyhorse?) |
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Posted by WillD on Sun Oct 11 20:44:43 2009, in response to Re: Bergen Street Lower Level, posted by Broadway Lion on Sun Oct 11 12:50:19 2009. If all of the (A)s were to divide between the Rocks, you eliminate the shuttle entirely. THAT would require less equipment and fewer crews.For the two hour period starting at 6am and ending at 8am there are 5 A trains and 6 shuttles departing Beach 116th. I am assuming all trains are 75 feet because this is arguably most advantageous to your position of the full-length trains requiring less equipment and fewer cars. Those 11 trains means that there are 64 cars and 16 operating employees being utilized during that 2 hour block. At the moment there are 16 trains originating at one of the Rockaway terminals (Far Rock or Beach 116th), and splitting that headway between the two terminals would result in 64 trains and 16 operating personnel being utilized at 116th between 6 and 8am. Thus simply based on effective asset utilization this concept would provide no net savings in the number of utilized cars or the number of crew. Indeed, because the shuttle trains do not disappear into a black hole past Howard Beach one can say that while they potentially move 24 carloads between 6 and 8am, there are only 12 cars and 3 to 4 crew members utilized for the service (derived from working backward from 4 car trains, 16 minute round trips and ~15min headways). Because of this we really can only say 52 physical cars and 13-14 actual operating employees are utilized for service from Beach 116th. Similarly the riders would be forced to trade 11 trains per 2 hour period for 8 trains per 2 hour period if the Howard Beach throughput were split between Far Rock and Rock Park. The Shuttle operation allows NYCT to combine the marginal operations on the Rockaway penninsula at their interface with the rest of the world and in doing so to multiply the the capability of those 12 cars to much greater effective capacity and more convenient travel without saddling them with a full round trip to 207th. Thus while effective capacity in terms of carloads moved from 116th and other Rock Park branch stations would remain constant, your plan would require an increase in the number of trains and crews required to provide that service all while making the service less convenient for the passengers. Then of course you have to worry about the other end of the Rockaway Penninsula. You'd have to hope around 7:50, when the Far Rock branch headways drop to about 8 minute headways, that you could continue to accomodate the Rock Park trains. If you simply split the current 8tph A train service through Howard Beach between Beach 116th and Far Rockaway then Far Rock would be faced with just 4tph between 7 and 8am. As we established above 4tph from Beach 116th is a marginal solution in terms of capacity (admittedly the utilization of that capacity is debatable), and convenience to the riders along the Rock Park end. However, regardless of whether they'll utilize all 8 cars you can't short shrift the Rock Park riders by sticking them with headways longer than 15 minutes during the morning peak. You've already done away with the shuttle so that's not an option. Thus the only possible outcome would be to use more trainsets for the Far Rock line, perhaps bringing the number of northbound trains through Howard Beach (that is, combined Far Rock and Beach 116th originating trains) up to 18 or even 20 between 6am and 8am. But then you're adding service to a line you've already established is marginal at best in terms of its equipment utilization by those station's ridership. Finally you have to consider the E to Lefferts and its 15tph along with a potential 9-10tph of A train service from the Rockways combined north of Liberty Jct. 24-25tph is a hell of a lot of service for the stations between Euclid and Rockway Boulevard. Even the 20tph of the A train without a service increase and the E train combined would likely be overkill during that time, as it'd be a vast increase over the current 15tph through Rockaway Blvd. And as an addendum: Wallyhorse, is it really neccesary to change the subject of the thread every time you post? It makes it virtually impossible to follow a given thread in the chronological view and can even make a threaded view difficult to follow. If you feel your post marks some tangent from the OP then I see no problem with inserting a note to that effect. However, I hardly see how Bergen St LL justifies a subject change in a thread about the F train in Brooklyn. And please, I humbly beg you to at the very least document the subject title change. At least attach the the original thread title for those of us who don't care to continuously come back to subthreads of the same original posting because you continue to change the thread subject. |
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