Two weeks ago, subway riders in Queens had the pleasure of experience the pitfalls of aging infrastructure. Heavy rainfalls and what the MTA termed a “preexisting water condition” damaged 800 feet of track in the Manhattan-bound Steinway Tube, and thus the 7 train could not operate into the city.
Transit sent maintenance employees to conduct the emergency signal repair work that Friday, and until midnight on Sunday, crews worked feverishly to restore this important artery into Midtown Manhattan. To complete the repairs, Transit installed new insulating materials between the rails and track ties. This work included new wiring, removing and replacing the track rails, realigning the third rail and grouting the tunnel wall to prevent future leaks.
“Thanks to the dedication and hard work of hundreds of our employees, we were able to resume service in time for Monday’s rush period,” Transit President Thomas F. Prendergast said in a statement last week. “We thank our customers for their patience while we worked to correct this problem. Our top priority is customer safety, and a fully functional and dependable signaling system is a key component to running trains safely through our system.”
Part of the reason why Transit officials were so keen to praise their repair crews concerned the confined quarters in the Steinway Tube. Daily News transit reporter Pete Donohue took a tour of the tight tube for his column this week. He writes from inside the tunnel:
Looking west, subway tracks stretch thousands of feet toward Grand Central, a hazy blur of light looming like a star in the midnight sky. To the east, the rails run through the Steinway Tunnel, which was built at the turn of the century for electric trolley cars that carried riders under the East River between Manhattan and Long Island City, Queens. There are 13 other underwater tunnels in the city’s 468-station maze. They’re all unique, but Steinway has a dubious distinction. “This one gives us the most headaches,” NYC Transit President Tom Prendergast said as he walked the Manhattan-bound tube at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Trains had been halted between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. so track workers could inspect rails and other equipment. In the pitch black up ahead, the workers were identifiable only by their muffled voices and the beams of their flashlights, which bobbed up and down with each step like buoys rising and falling on a bay.
On other stretches of track in the sprawling system, workers can do similar equipment inspections and maintenance in the time gaps between trains, tucking themselves into concrete niches or between iron columns when a train approaches and emerging when it passes.
That’s not possible in Steinway. The two cast-iron tubes – Manhattan-bound and Queens-bound – are narrow. Very narrow. The only way to avoid getting struck by an approaching train is to scramble up a high bench wall along the tracks. It’s too dangerous and impractical to pull that off repeatedly with regular train traffic. “We can’t have people working in here at all when the trains are moving,” Prendergast said. “We can’t respond to make repairs.”
Eventually, says the MTA, they’ll have to shut down the 7 for another overnight to give the tube a thorough cleaning. It could need it.
As this story unfolded, it highlighted the never-ending quest to reach a state of good repair and why that’s an important goal to attempt to attain. When aging infrastructure reaches a certain point, it cannot withstand the daily beating it takes. That’s what happened to the Steinway Tube ten days ago, and it will likely happen again to this 110-year-old tunnel. Without the money for preventative maintenance, renovations happen only after an emergency. That seems to be the way of things underground these days.
14 comments
While it is a major undertaking, the article makes it sound as if there’s never been a major GO for the 7 train in the past shutting down weekend service between Times Square and Queensborough Plaza.
The lack of preventive maintenance funding is a concern, but Flushing Line riders have been through weekend shutdowns of the Steinway Tubes many times before. But it would be nice this time if they could extend the trains past QP to Hunter’s Point and use the crossover there to turn the trains back, once the new transfer point at Court Square opens, so detoured riders could also use the 53rd St. tunnel (and running the M at least to Queens Plaza during the weekend GO on the 7 after Court Square opens would be even better, since it would provide direct Sixth Ave. service via the new transfer)..
They’re jackasses about weekend shutdowns. I have seen, on occasion, the M extended from Myrtle-Broadway to 42nd Street to make up for lost L service – which suited me fine. The L getting bustituted is worse than useless to me. There’s no way in hell the buses can pick up the load.
I guess there’s no track connection that would allow the G to reverse towards Manhattan and terminate at 42nd – that would be about as close as you could get to a replacement service for the 7 between GCT and 45th Road.
I found, this time, the service advisories to be confusing. They didn’t say that the 7 was still operating between Queensboro and Flushing-Main St, just that it was suspended into Manhattan with suggestions for alternates. I assume it was still running? (not that it affected my trips at all).
John-2 is right, these service suspensions in the tunnels happen all the time for one reason or another. It’s really nothing new. Since the tunnels are cast-iron, does that mean they sit on the river floor (much like the PATH tubes) or are they really embedded under the river?
I’m pretty sure they’re actually beneath the East River. PATH uses air switches because of the dampness of being on the river floor; if the Steinway tunnels were the same way they’d use them as well for reliability.
I was on it while it was single-tracked from 42nd to 45th Road. Pretty painful trip.
http://nycsubway.org/articles/steinwaytunnels.html describes the tunnel construction nicely.
great article. long, didn’t read all of it.
there are a few bits in those diagrams that say ‘abandoned’, such as the loop at lexington avenue. does anyone know if those areas were obliterated later, or are they still there?
All of the NYC area’s subaqueous transportation tunnels, regardless of whether they are rail or vehicular, lie under the river bed, with sufficient cover between the top of the crown (the uppermost edge of the tunnel) and the river bottom.
I believe that it is a well-known fact that the PATH tunnels lie on the river bottom, but are of course covered by a thick layer of silt.
Isnt the tunnel that connects the subway to Roosevelt Island an immersed tube?
I believe it was placed in a trench and covered.
After I posted my reply, it occurred to me to go to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....ans-Hudson
People still read Wikipedia? :-\
sounds like they got alot done in a short time, tip of the hat to the crews.
“looming like a star in the midnight sky”
crikey
Just wait until they installing the CBTC equipment on the Steinway Tunnel in a couple of months or years, it will be a nightmare…with all those extra service interruptions, and it’s not slated to be done until 2016.