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Especially for us evening workers who do HARD and SERIOUS work and get out 12:30 AM exhausted and have to run for and wait at filthy, rat infested, homeless shelter like subway stations for trains which CRAWL us home.
Stand up and make yourself heard because you know that the papers won't reveal how many of us there are.
FIRE THOSE "MAINTENANCE WORKERS". GET OFF OUR TRACKS AND RUN THOSE TRAINS!
Especially for us evening workers who do HARD and SERIOUS work and get out 12:30 AM exhausted and have to run for and wait at filthy, rat infested, homeless shelter like subway stations for trains which CRAWL us home.
Stand up and make yourself heard because you know that the papers won't reveal how many of us there are.
FIRE THOSE "MAINTENANCE WORKERS". GET OFF OUR TRACKS AND RUN THOSE TRAINS!
Heck YES, we CAN do something about this.
But its going to take people speaking up and saying something in order for us to be able to expose this travesty and to be able to take this horrible situation to the media in order to make noise and get attention.
So SPEAK UP!
Are YOU tired of waiting on overheated, filthy subway platforms along with diseased filthy bums sleeping or spreading germs through an unaired barn of a subway station? Do you want to KEEP waiting every night for the next ten, twenty, thirty years? Ok then don't say anything. Just ignore this post from this raving loony who isn't part of your in-crowd here and I will GUARANTEE you.........................
Or you can write out your horror stories and do your part to get something started......................
It's up to you, gui. I did my part. It's your move.
09-12-2010, 03:42 PM
grant516
n/a posts
Speaking up to the MTA does absolutely nothing- decisions are made far prior to those hearings.
The only person with control over MTA is the governor. Demand that office of the governor dismantle the MTA as an authority and give voters control over who is elected to run it.
It's a challenging platform since the Governor is represented by the state at large and roughly 65% of it doesen't use any MTA services.
Lawl, seriously. This really can't be helped, giving that it's an extensive subway system, of which many sections are 100+ years old, and which runs 24/7. Wanna know what happens when they give up on maintenance? Look up the 1970's-1980's subway system.
Speaking up to the MTA does absolutely nothing- decisions are made far prior to those hearings.
The only person with control over MTA is the governor. Demand that office of the governor dismantle the MTA as an authority and give voters control over who is elected to run it.
It's a challenging platform since the Governor is represented by the state at large and roughly 65% of it doesen't use any MTA services.
Best luck.
The present governor is a certified incompetent!
(But he's a near Einstein compared to the babbling pinhead we have for mayor).
The next governor or the present candidates will have to answer to us the voters, BUT only IF we start speaking up.
Lawl, seriously. This really can't be helped, giving that it's an extensive subway system, of which many sections are 100+ years old, and which runs 24/7. Wanna know what happens when they give up on maintenance? Look up the 1970's-1980's subway system.
They tell you that and you believe it?
All it takes is one night a month to maintain the system, NOT this nightly excuse for slowing up the trains while (according to the NY Post in a now buried story) these transit "workers" are upstairs in their cars drinking, drugging, sleeping while our trains are being delayed for nothing.
Especially for us evening workers who do HARD and SERIOUS work and get out 12:30 AM exhausted and have to run for and wait at filthy, rat infested, homeless shelter like subway stations for trains which CRAWL us home.
Stand up and make yourself heard because you know that the papers won't reveal how many of us there are.
FIRE THOSE "MAINTENANCE WORKERS". GET OFF OUR TRACKS AND RUN THOSE TRAINS!
I guess that I ought to post this at a forum of adult working people.
I saw your post and being a subway motorman (train operator) I usually post replies to any transit related posts I see on here. I'm going to let you know a few things that might help you out.
To begin with , although your post was mostly against track workers and not train crews , I am going to let you know that when maintenance takes place it is a royal pain in the "neck" for train crews. So we don't enjoy it any more than the public or take it lightly. Conductors have to deal with an often hostile public that take it out of them personally that there are train re-routes , and motormen operating the trains have to be vigilant that we don't take wrong lineups , meaning getting a wrong signal and taking the train where it is not supposed to go , like for example leaving 36th street in Brooklyn going southbound as an N and winding up at 9th avenue (where the D goes). If that happens we get in serious trouble. We also have to be careful not to hit and injure or kill any track workers and that is another subject altogether. So , we don't like the re-routes any more than the public and so letting you know we feel the same that the riding public does when we have to deal with them. Also from a train operators perspective operating through maintenance at a very slow speed is as aggravating for us as it is for a car driver to drive through road construction and traffic , do not think because we are getting paid for the time that we don't roll our eyes each time we realize we're going to slow down to a crawl. I do not know a single motorman in this system if given the chance to operate a train fast anywhere that wouldn't take it. We don't like moving slow , but sometimes it's necessary and we can't avoid it.
ALL THAT BEING SAID , a few things to add ... During the 1970's and 80's as another poster mentioned when maintenance was abandoned the sytem really was hell and with all it's problems today is still nothing compared to that legendary time.
Also , the workers on the tracks are actually out there doing a lot of things that the public does not understand. Tracks need to be walked and inspected for cracked or damaged rails , loose tracks , damaged switches (switch tracks) , electrical problems , and many other things. So if you see some maintenance guys out there walking along the tracks and not actually 'doing' anything to your eye , they may very well be doing inspections.
Also , repairs often take so long because the system operates 24/7. Each time track work is to be done somewhere where the tracks are not removed from service for a length of time requires the track work to be set up and taken apart each night work is going to be done and that can take hours to do in and of itself.
As someone who rode the trains all my life before going to work down here there are many things I've seen and learned about the system that explained to me why certain things that used to drive me nuts as a rider are so and the way they are. The system was designed and is currently managed with safety first and foremost in mind. The MTA will always trade on time performance for safe operation and movement of trains. It can be extremely irritating and yeah I agree the system is dirty and I see the homeless and even graffiti making a comeback , but one thing you can be sure of when you get on a train is that you will get from point A to point B safely as long as you yourself don't break any rules or are not a victim of a crime.
There are may things that can go wrong down here and even though a train is on tracks there are ways accidents and bad things can happen , the reason they don't is because of the safety measures put in place to protect employees and passengers.
Although it will still annoy you and everyone else to be slowed down late at night , at least it might help you to understand why. Hope this helped.
09-13-2010, 10:32 AM
grant516
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by MotormanMike
Although it will still annoy you and everyone else to be slowed down late at night , at least it might help you to understand why. Hope this helped.
You mean because we're dealing with 80 year old track and signals that should be pulled up each week by the city's 100,000+ unemployed overnights for $12.50 an hour, replaced with modern track and computerized signal operators that would put thousands of $60K+ a year union conductors out of business, like in nearly every other modern metro in the world?
Come now... if we operated like that we wouldn't have the tallest building in the world standing in place of the fallen twin towers.
Sorry I haven't been downtown in a few years, that did happen, right?!
You mean because we're dealing with 80 year old track and signals that should be pulled up each week by the city's 100,000+ unemployed overnights for $12.50 an hour, replaced with modern track and computerized signal operators that would put thousands of $60K+ a year union conductors out of business, like in nearly every other modern metro in the world?
Come now... if we operated like that we wouldn't have the tallest building in the world standing in place of the fallen twin towers.
Sorry I haven't been downtown in a few years, that did happen, right?!
Everything you want to do and have suggested has been looked at and seriously considered by those who have the power and authority to make those decisions. And the reason why those things cannot and will not be done is because the system is an old system and if what you wanted to accomplish were to be accomplished by completely renovating the system from the ground up , the system would be completely shut literally for years.
Many of those 100,000+ unemployed that you talk about are unemployed from sectors of work (mostly through no fault fo their own) where they would have never considered working in tunnels with the insane heat , rats , electricity , waterbugs , homeless people that live in the tunnels and with live trains passing by them , even for decent money , let alone $12.50 an hour. Some would no doubt , but don't think an army of unemployed or underemployed persons would kill to take a track worker job. Especially now when our bankrupt governments answer to unemployement is to expand unemployment insurance to 2 years instead of create jobs through tax incentives.
The reasons 'modern metros' are as you describe is because they are 'modern' and were built that way from the ground up. And these modern metros have p*ss poor safety records , like the modern metro in Washington DC where the signals failed on a subway line a few years back causing a collision that killed the train operator and six passengers. Or the high speed rail collisions that have occurred in Germany and France. Since you used the word metro you're probably into all things European so you should know about those.
Conductors don't make 60k a year without overtime , and their jobs ARE necessary on 8 and 10 car trains. Perhaps you confused the job titles of conductors with train operators. Happens often.Train Operators make in the mid-60k range without overtime but we deserve it frankly.
We go through 6 months of training for our jobs and we are trained how to operate 300-400 tons of equipment safely and protect the riders. I cannot post details of what we do and what can go wrong in the system because the wrong eyes could see it here , BUT I can tell you for a fact that things could go wrong if we didn't follow established procedures , and injuries and death could occur.
We do more actual work than airline pilots whose planes fly on auto pilot most of the time yet nobody begrudges them their salaries and the reason they don't is because of the fear factor of flying and the feeling that each airline passengers life is literally in the hands of the pilot. People are not afraid to ride subways so therefore they don't usually think about the job we do and if they do , they don't think there are safety issues involved because the train is on tracks and not in the air. But let me be direct in saying when you get on a train , yeah , your safety IS in the hands of the one operating the train. Some people that don't think we deserve that kind of money usually think so because it is one of the few decent jobs left that does not require a college education , although many of us , myself included , do have some college.
You do not know the culture of the MTA and speaking frankly train operators and track workers are NOT buddy buddy down here and there is at BEST a professional working relationship between those two titles , and I am not on here to say how great they are , but what you are suggesting is to vent your frustrations with the system and not because your ideas are actually practical.
I do appreciate your input though.
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