{"id":32403,"date":"2017-06-29T13:23:25","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T17:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/?p=32403"},"modified":"2017-07-28T17:43:18","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T21:43:18","slug":"fix-nycs-subway-signal-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/fix-nycs-subway-signal-woes","title":{"rendered":"How to Fix NYC’s Subway Signal Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Subway service in New York City keeps getting less reliable. Five years ago, saying you were late to work because of the subway might have raised an eyebrow in doubt, but not anymore.<\/p>\n

Delays have become such a chronic problem, in fact, that both of the city\u2019s tabloids have featured the subway system\u2019s woes on their covers:<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s causing these delays? According to MTA statistics cited by the New York Times<\/a>, overcrowding is the most common reason on weekdays, and the second most common is signal problems. The subway\u2019s antiquated block signal system<\/a> messed with my commute twice in the past week, and signal failures represent about 13% of delays.<\/p>\n

But, what are signals, and why don’t they work? And what can Governor Cuomo do about it? To learn more, we turned to an expert on the New York subway system, John DeAlto, who runs the NYC Transit-Subway-Signals Shapeways shop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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When the conductor announces a signal failure, what\u2019s going on?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIf the track senses anything on it, that interrupts the circuit so they have to go out and figure out why that signal dropped to red. And they have to clear it, and that might take some time, because a block can be much as 200 feet long, it can be as little as 10 feet long. So you have to go out and clear the block.<\/p>\n

Maybe sometimes it could be a broken rail, maybe sometimes it could be a piece of garbage that got wet and it’s laying against the rail. Condensation would cause a relay to drop out and cause the signal to go to danger. Sometimes it could be a bad relay in the relay house that malfunction, like I said a coil can go bad.<\/p>\n

A coil?<\/em><\/strong>
\nYou remember the old doorbell, ding ding ding? Picture that copper coil, when you send current through that coil, it sends current through a magnet that causes the bell to ring. It’s the same system on the subway, but a little more complicated.<\/p>\n

How did you learn so much about subway signals?<\/em><\/strong>
\nI always had a train layout. It started off with HO and then I graduated to O gauge. But I was always interested in the subway signals. As the years went by, I always wanted to replicate the original signal of the subway, but there is nobody around that had them.<\/p>\n