BMT Sea Beach Line

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Route designation on BMT Triplex equipment
Route designation on BMT Triplex equipment

The BMT Sea Beach Line is a rapid transit line of the BMT division of the New York City Subway, connecting the BMT Fourth Avenue Line subway via a four-track wide open cut to Coney Island in Brooklyn. It has at times hosted the fastest express service between Manhattan and Coney Island, but now carries only local trains. On May 29, 2005, Sea Beach trains resumed operation to Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue after several years of truncation to Gravesend–86th Street while the Coney Island terminal was being reconstructed.

Contents

[edit] Extent and service

A view of the open cut from Kings Highway station.
A view of the open cut from Kings Highway station.
BMT Sea Beach Line
exLUECKE
TUNNELe
uHLUECKE KRZt utABZ3rg uHLUECKE
BMT Fourth Avenue Line
STR uTUNNELe
STRlf uKRZo STRlg
LIRR Bay Ridge Branch
uHST STR
Eighth Avenue
uHST STR
Fort Hamilton Parkway
uHLUECKE uUTurmBHFu UKRZu uHLUECKE
New Utrecht Avenue BMT West End Line
uHST LUECKE
18th Avenue
uHST
20th Avenue
uHST
Bay Parkway
uHST
Kings Highway
uHST
Avenue U
uHST
Gravesend-86th Street
uHLUECKE uUKRZu uSTRlg
yard leads from West End Line
uABZlf uABZlg
uSTR uDST
Coney Island Yard
uKDSa uABZrg uSTRrf
Stillwell Yard
uLUECKE uABZlf uABZlg
uSTRlf uABZ3lf uABZlg
BMT West End Line
uBHF
Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue
uSTRlf uHLUECKE
BMT Brighton and IND Culver lines

The modern line begins as a split from the BMT Fourth Avenue Line at a flying junction immediately south of 59th Street. Between the station and the split, crossover switches are provided between the local and express tracks of the Fourth Avenue Line, and then the express tracks curve east under the northbound local track to become the beginning of the Sea Beach Line. After emerging from the tunnel under Fourth Avenue, the two separate Sea Beach tracks rise on either side of a ramp which formerly connected to the original line to the Brooklyn shore at 65th Street in Bay Ridge.

After passing the former junction with the line to the shore, the Sea Beach widens to the width of four tracks, but the southbound express track is in need of repair. All stations have two side platforms, with no platform access to the express tracks anywhere on the Sea Beach right-of-way.

The Sea Beach Line currently carries N trains.

[edit] Express tracks

The express tracks were originally intended to host the Coney Island Express, a fast train to Coney Island since elevated train days. Express service was carried on these tracks twice in the line's history — for fast summer weekend expresses (1924–1952) to Chambers Street station near City Hall, and again for a short time in 1967 and 1968 to provide a fast rush-hour Broadway Line express service for Coney Island-area riders. Though these expresses are thought of as being Sea Beach Expresses, they did not serve a single station on the Sea Beach Line, as there are no express stations on the entire line.

The express tracks on the Sea Beach had other uses over the years. Most new equipment, especially experimental cars, was broken in on these tracks. The tracks were used for motorman training, and they also were set up with a short stretch of 1950s-era automation to test the ill-fated system later used on one track of the IRT 42nd Street Shuttle.

Historically, the two express tracks were an absolute block, that is, there was no signal control between one end of the tracks near Sixth Avenue and Kings Highway station. A new train was not supposed to enter the block until any train in front of it had departed the block.

The express tracks from Sixth Avenue to Kings Highway were allowed to severely deteriorate, as did much of the system from the 1970s on. In 1998, it was decided to rehabilitate the express tracks in this area, with full signalling. Only one of the tracks was repaired, however, and the other one was left for a future decision. This is why the southbound track (E3) is inaccessible from 59th Street to Kings Highway. The northbound (E4) track was rehabilitated for two-way traffic from its northern end to Kings Highway and the southbound (E3) track remains unused, in need of repair. If it is repaired, it is likely that the whole track will be rebuilt from scratch since the current track is severely deformed. The Northbound express track is sometimes used for reroutes in both directions when either local track is in need of maintenance.

[edit] Southern portion of the line

Before and after Kings Highway, there are crossover switches to the southbound express track from the northbound express track. On both sides of Kings Highway, crossovers exist to allow express trains to switch to the local tracks before the station, or to allow local trains to switch to express after the station.

The express tracks end south of Gravesend–86th Street as the line becomes double-tracked, and cut diagonally adjacent to the Coney Island Yards. After several yard connections, the line ends at the Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue terminal.

[edit] History

Station headhouse at Avenue U station.
Station headhouse at Avenue U station.

The New York and Sea Beach Railroad was organized on September 25, 1876 as a steam-powered excursion railroad.[citation needed] It opened from a junction with the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Railroad (West End Line) and concurrently-opened New York, Bay Ridge and Jamaica Railroad (Manhattan Beach Line) to Coney Island on July 18, 1877.[1][2] After a delay of two years, it was opened to the Bay Ridge Ferry (to South Ferry, Manhattan) on July 17, 1879, at which time the Sea Beach Palace opened at the Coney Island end.[3][4]

Except at its two ends, the railroad used the same route as the current transit line. At the Bay Ridge end, the railroad ran just north of the Long Island Rail Road's Bay Ridge Branch, ending at the Bay Ridge Channel around 64th Street. The current line joins this alignment near Fifth Avenue. The old railroad crossed the Bay Ridge Branch with a pronounced S-curve just east of Seventh Avenue; the crossing is now much straighter, with the Bay Ridge Branch in a deeper cut. On the Coney Island end, the original path curved left soon after the curve to the right at the northern edge of the Coney Island Yards, ending at the combined Sea Beach Palace hotel and depot, on the north side of the BMT Brighton Line at around West 10th Street.

In early 1896 the company went bankrupt, and it was reorganized on August 14, 1896 as the Sea Beach Railway. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) bought it on November 5, 1897, along with the short elevated Sea View Railway on Coney Island, and assigned it by lease to the Brooklyn Heights Railroad. It was soon fitted with trolley wire for electric operation as a branch of the BMT West End Line from Bath Junction to Coney Island, with trains coming from Park Row in Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge and BMT Fifth Avenue Line. Streetcars ran over the rest of the line to Bay Ridge. In 1907, connecting tracks were built connecting to the West End Line just north of Coney Island Creek in order to bring Sea Beach trains into West End Depot. The original alignment was retained for freight service only.

Part of a 1915 brochure for the line
Part of a 1915 brochure for the line

On June 22, 1915, the new four-track open cut was completed, and subway trains started running between Coney Island and Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan. The express tracks were finished several weeks later. When the BMT Fourth Avenue Line was extended south from the Sea Beach Line on January 15, 1916, the Sea Beach trains were shifted to the express tracks on Fourth Avenue, with Fourth Avenue trains providing local service.

The tracks over the north side of the Manhattan Bridge opened on September 4, 1917, along with part of the BMT Broadway Line. All Sea Beach service was moved to the new line, ending at 14th Street–Union Square. This was extended to Times Square–42nd Street on January 5, 1918. It continued to end there for many years.

In 1924 the BMT assigned numbers to its services. The Sea Beach Line service became the 4. This has since become the N train; see those pages for details on service. In general, Sea Beach service has always run express in Manhattan and on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, ending at 42nd Street and later 57th Street. The NX was begun in 1967 as a "super-express" from Brighton Beach on the BMT Brighton Line through Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, and along the Sea Beach Line express tracks to 57th Street with only seven stops between Stillwell Avenue and 57th Street, three in Brooklyn and four in Manhattan. This service was canceled quickly due to low ridership. No regular trains have used the Sea Beach express tracks since.

In later years the N service has been extended from 57th Street, first to Forest Hills–71st Avenue via the BMT 60th Street Tunnel Connection, and later to Ditmars Boulevard–Astoria, which is its current terminus.

[edit] Station listing

Station service legend
Stops all times Stops all times
Stops rush hours only Stops rush hours only
Time period details
Handicapped/disabled access Station Tracks Services Opened Transfers and notes
splits from the BMT Fourth Avenue Line (N all times)
Eighth Avenue local N all times June 22, 1915
Fort Hamilton Parkway local N all times June 22, 1915
New Utrecht Avenue local N all times July 18, 1877 BMT West End Line at 62nd Street (D all times M rush hours until 7:30 p.m.)
18th Avenue local N all times by 1884[citation needed]
20th Avenue local N all times June 22, 1915
Bay Parkway local N all times June 22, 1915
Kings Highway local N all times June 22, 1915
Avenue U local N all times June 22, 1915
Gravesend–86th Street local N all times August 23, 1915
Handicapped/disabled access Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue all N all times December 13, 1918 BMT Brighton Line (Q all times)
BMT Culver Line (F all times)
BMT West End Line (D all times)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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