Everything about Sea Beach Line totally explained
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.
Extent and service
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 trains.
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 didn't 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 wasn't 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's repaired, it's 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.
The Sea Beach line express tracks are still the only test track in the
BMT/B1 Division. Each of the divisions now has test tracks, a third track on the
Rockaway line is the test track for the
IND/B2 Division, and the former downtown express track on
Dyre Avenue Line is the test track for the
IRT/A Division.
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.
History
The
New York and Sea Beach Railroad was organized on
September 25,
1876 as a
steam-powered excursion railroad. 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. 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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
Station listing
Further Information
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