Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City Subway/Historical Discussion

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[edit] BMT Map

Looked over the map. Great progress! I'll start at the bottom and incrementally make my way up.

• Sea Beach Line former alignment: Sea Beach Terminal (Palace) was more or less in between West End Terminal (Stillwell) and Culver Depot (W8), so the dotted line should begin about where you show it and go straight down. For perspective, it was at the east end of Luna Park, much of which was built on Sea Beach property.
  • I have it going to the east end of Luna Park, right at W 8th St. --SPUI (talk) 21:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, not quite. Sea Beach Palace extended from the line of W10 to a point roughly between the lines of W9 (if it existed) and W8. The passenger tracks came in roughly at W10. When the Sea Beach Land Company sold land for Luna Park (and Sea Beach trains were moved to West End Depot) a bypass for freight was built around the east side of Sea Beach Palace, curving into what became the Norton's Point Line of the Culver. So you had (west to east) Sea Beach Palace, the freight line, then LA Thompson's Railway and finally W8. You can get an idea from this 1888 map. [1] What I'm trying to avoid is the impression that the Sea Beach was very near Culver Depot, which was between W5 and W8. In fact, the Sea Beach was closer to West End Terminal. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:51, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Culver LIRR connections. There was also a curve from LIRR west to Culver North. I'll give you dates later. The Culver south to LIRR west connection survived under about 1975, freight only.
  • I really only want to show passenger service though. Maybe I'll remove the dates; too many are very approximate. --SPUI (talk) 21:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • The northeast quadrant was passenger. Seyfried should have better dates. I'll look.
• The wording "former extension of Culver Line" would better read "first route of Culver Line" since it predated the line to 39th Street Ferry. This trackage remained in passenger service as the McDonald Avenue trolley until 1956.
  • Hmmm, I'll add that it was the McDonald Ave Trolley. I'm not really using extension to mean that it was literally built after; I may just remove extension and say 'former XX line'. --SPUI (talk) 21:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

More to come... -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 21:17, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here are some more:

• The Brighton-LIRR connection was 1878-1883.
• Service numbers:
  • There should be no 3 on the Broadway Line below the Manhattan Bridge branch.
    • You're right, tunnel service ended at City Hall. --SPUI (talk) 17:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • 14 did not go south of Canal Street on the Nassau Street Line
    • It did in 1924. --SPUI (talk) 17:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • 13 should show on the 14th Line 8th Ave. to Pitkin Avenue -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 04:49, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Hmmm, the only mention of that I see calls it 'Fulton Street-14th Street-Canarsie', without giving it a number. I could see it as 13 or 16. However, the '4th Avenue-Nassau Loop' service has to have been 2, so I'm adding that to the Nassau Loop. --SPUI (talk) 17:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • 14th St.-Fulton St. carried "13" on the Multis to distinguish them from "16" Canrasies using the same equipment.

[edit] What year for the map?

Is this an all-time map? If we have "14" going south of Canal in 1924, it is not comtemporaneous with showing the Nassau Street Line, which opened in 1931, or 14th Street service to Canarsie. If we have to settle on a year, I think maybe 1939.

As to Nassau Street, all Southern Division subway lines used Nassau Street, except Sea Beach. The rush hours configuration was as follows:

• 1 - Brighton Specials : one way loop
• 2 - Fourth Avenue Express: one way loop
• 3 - West End Local: northbound loop only
• 5 - Culver Express: southbound loop only

and just for fun, on summer sundays (and sometimes saturday):

• 7 - Franklin-Nassau via bridge to Chambers Street -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 18:34, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm not really trying to have one year for it, but to show how the services have gone over the years. How did the 7 get to the bridge - did it reverse at Prospect Park? Or did it go to Coney Island and then continue along one of the other lines? --SPUI (talk) 18:44, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It went down the Brighton Line as an express. It came into track A at Stillwell then ran on the Sea Beach express tracks to 59th, 36th, Pacific, then Chambers Street via bridge where it used the turning tracks usually used by the 10. Exactly the reverse coming back except Track D at Stillwell. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 19:21, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In re: 5th and 3d Avenue els

37th Street. Cecropia | explains it all ® 05:09, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• I'm curious - what's the source for this? [2] says 38th - "The line ran on 3rd Ave to 38th Street, turned on 38th Street for two blocks before turning again onto 5th Ave." --SPUI (talk) 13:12, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• My source is my typing. It's my keyboard's fault--they put the "7" next to the "8" and I didn't catch it. :( It is 38th Street. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 19:14, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Image:BMT map.png has been updated once again. I fixed more stuff, and removed the Manhattan service patterns (which I'll make a separate map for). --SPUI (talk) 02:54, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm really getting done to minutiae now, but I guess you'd want to hear them and "be governed accordingly." :)

1. Maybe I made an error in describing it to you, but the third connection at Parkville (LIRR/Culver) was LIRR east to Culver north. It was used for a service from Brooklyn Bridge via 5th Ave el, Culver, LIRR Bay Ridge Line (name now), Manhattan Beach branch to Manhattan Beach. This was an LIRR service, not a BRT service. This was when LIRR owned Culver Line.
2. Showing the Franklin-Nassau 7 on the map to Chambers may puzzle people since it is such a counter-intuitive service (but ran for a quarter-century). Do you think it should have an asterisk or something?
3. I guess you could show a 5 on Norton's Point if you're so minded. It was an elevated service until (IIRC) 1919.
4. Brighton Line: I don't know if you care about the shape of lines or not. The [Sheepshead Bay] Race Track branch was shaped like a cup handle--made a big curve from south to north then straightened out east. This was to jockey around LIRR tracks and still have enough straight trackage to enter a terminal at Ocean Avenue near (current) Avenue X (adjacent to a similar LIRR spur).
5. Brighton Line to Manhattan Beach. There was a switch NW to SE below Sheepshead Bay for Brighton Train access to LIRR Manhattan Beach in the first decade of the 20th century. Trolley wire was string for this and IIRC it was the first Brighton electric service of any kind.
6. Brighton Line shoo-fly. During a period of more than a year 1906-1907 the Brighton Line operated on the OLD Manhattan Beach Line (surface) under trolley wire while the Brighton and MB both were placed on the current embankment between E15/E16 Streets. This was an electric service, trolley wire again. The shoo-fly began south of Manhattan Junction to the LIRR and returned south of Sheepshead Bay (LIRR station) on a NE to SW switch at about the same location as the NW to SE switch I mentioned above. There is a picture of a train on the Sheepshead shoo-fly switch here (bottom pic on page). You can get an idea what the Brighton and LIRR routes at the time looked like on [here http://rapidtransit.net/net/gcbook/images/m3.gif].

-- Cecropia | explains it all ® 05:40, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)