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Take a look inside New York City's century-old subway system that more than 6 million riders use a day and that desperately needs an upgradehttps://www.businessinsider.in/take-a-look-inside-new-york-citys-century-old-subway-system-that-more-than-6-million-riders-use-a-day-and-that-desperately-needs-an-upgrade/in-our-system-its-not-just-the-architecture-thats-100-years-old-says-wynton-habersham-vice-president-and-chief-officer-of-subway-delivery-its-a-lot-of-the-basic-technology-as-well-the-infrastructure-is-old-/slidelist/58562877.cms2017-05-07T19:11:17+05:30

Take a look inside New York City's century-old subway system that more than 6 million riders use a day and that desperately needs an upgrade

May 7, 2017, 19:11 IST

"In our system, it's not just the architecture that’s 100 years old," says Wynton Habersham, vice president and chief officer of subway delivery. "It's a lot of the basic technology as well. The infrastructure is old."

Here, at the West 4th Street control tower, MTA employees log train movements by hand ...

And use antiquated equipment to announce where they are.

The interlocking machine and indication panel seen here was installed in the 1930s. "While safe and reliable, it's an old one," Habersham says.

Every signal on each line is mapped on this board.

Here's a closer look.

Staff members manually pull handles to operate track switches and signals that tell train operators when it is safe to pass through a section of track.

These antiquated signals are changed by the manually operated handles in the control room.

In the relay room, which houses equipment that allows trains to flow safely along the tracks, much of the technology still dates back from the 1930s and before.

The cabling that provides the connectivity between the interlocking machine and the relays and the equipment on the tracks is the original cabling. It's so old that it's covered in cloth rather than a more protective covering like plastic, which could pose a fire risk. "If there was any small fire, there's a lot of risk of us losing this entire interlocking machine because it would be so hard to contain the fire," Habersham says.

"Reliability is certainly becoming more and more of an issue with the age," Habersham says. "It's very hard to maintain."

Just check out the year on that sticker — over 50 years ago!

In fact, a lot of equipment like these relays are no longer manufactured.

"This equipment is not supported at all by the railroad industry," Habersham says.

That means when equipment breaks, the agency has to either scavenge the system for an extra component or turn to its own machine shop to produce a replacement.

"The components come back from the field when they need to be rebuilt, and we actually strip them apart here and put them back together with newer parts," says Kenneth Cabrera, a superintendent at the machine shop.

These magnets are from the 1930s but have been refurbished to work good as new.

Whatever parts can't be bought, the craftsmen of the workshop have to fabricate them.

Change is coming, but slowly. The MTA is working to modernize things by switching over to a Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) system, which is already in place on Canarsie Line L trains.

The rest of the trains currently operate using the older fixed-block signaling system, which allows MTA employees to know the general area of a train —its "block" of about 1000 feet — but not its precise location.

The new CBTC system attaches transponders under cars, so they can all be tracked in real time.

This means the new CBTC system can handle more trains at even higher speeds because trains can communicate with each other and will automatically brake to avoid collisions if they get too close.

The CBTC system is currently being installed on Flushing-bound 7 trains, and someday it will find its way to the entire subway system. It might just take fifty years or so.

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