{"id":2398,"date":"2007-06-11T11:36:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-11T19:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2007\/06\/thirty_seconds_over_broadway_junction.html"},"modified":"2008-01-24T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T17:43:58","slug":"thirty_seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/thirty_seconds.html","title":{"rendered":"Thirty Seconds Over Broadway Junction"},"content":{"rendered":"

These people are going to get really, really good at gauging commercial breaks<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In three years, the easiest job in New York will be L train operator — whose only job will be pushing a button every 30 seconds to prove he’s still breathing.<\/p>\n

The trains will be so automated, they’ll be able to start, stop, speed up and slow down without any human help.<\/p>\n

The operator will take over only in an emergency — such as a passenger falling off a platform, or if the automatic system fails.<\/p>\n

Normally, the operator’s only duty will be pushing the button to prove to the system he’s awake and capable of springing into action.<\/p>\n

If he or she doesn’t push the button, the train will come to a stop.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then there’s the concept of the “dead man’s switch”:<\/p>\n

It’s the updated version of the current “dead man’s switch” — which is part of the train operator’s controls.<\/p>\n

Unless the operator keeps downward pressure on it, the brakes engage immediately.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Train operators say the dead man’s switch is most often activated when operators fall asleep at the controls.<\/p>\n

Often, when that happens, “they report that there was no cause for the brakes to be [activated], and that maybe someone pulled the brake,” one veteran train operator said.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes, it is released by accident. If you hold it down hard and then let it up a couple of inches, it will go off.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These people are going to get really, really good at gauging commercial breaks: In three years, the easiest job in New York will be L train operator — whose only job will be pushing a button every 30 seconds to prove he’s still breathing. The trains will be so automated, they’ll be able to start, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture_infrastructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}