Kings Highway
Kings Highway is an intermediate Express stop, one of two, on the Culver Elevated. The station has two island platforms for the three-track line. The middle track is the terminus of many terminating and originating rush hour trains because the Coney Island Terminal can't handle the extreme frequency of F train service during rush hours. During AM rush hours trains from the Coney Island yard originate at Avenue X, but these trains terminate at Kings Highway during the PM rush hoursince these trains can discharge and fumigate passengers without delaying through service, these trains use the Express track south to after the Avenue X station to reach the yard. When the Coney Island Reconstruction project was happening from 2002 through 2004 and all F trains were terminating here or at Avenue X, Kings Highway was the station where F trains crews changed (generally on Manhattan-bound trains, there was a slight delay do to the operators switching) because Kings Highway has crew quarters and Avenue X does not. These crew quarters, and places for car cleaners to clean trains are above the southern end of the platform is a building straddling the tracks. From 1967 through 1987 F trains even ran a zonal express operation during peak direction rush hours with Express trains to Coney Island skipping Avenue I through Avenue P (from 1969 through 1976 running express from Bergen Street through Kings Highway), with trains terminating at Kings Highway being local trains making all stops in Brooklyn. When two per peak direction rush hour regular F trains were converted to <F> Express trains in 2019, these trains ran express only from Church Avenue north to Jay Street in order to provide Express options to the maximum number of riders.
The station has two exits, one at either end of the station. At the southern end of the station single staircases lead down from each platform to a small, unstaffed station house. There are a couple of High Entrance/Exit Turnstiles in it, MVMs, and a two staircases, one down to each side of McDonald Avenue, a short ways north of Avenue S and south of Colin Place.
The full-time entrance is towards the northern end of the station. It has a similar layout, with a single staircase down from each island platform to a station house beneath the tracks. This one has the turnstiles and the token booth and exits out to the SE and SW corners of McDonald Avenue and Kings Highway. The platforms are both canopied for their entire lengths except at the extreme northern ends of the platforms, beyond the staircases down to the Kings Highway exit.
Photo 1-3: March 17, 2004; 4: June 15, 2005; 5-16: August 4, 2009
