Bedford Park Blvd-Lehman College
Bedford Park Blvd is a station on the Jerome Avenue elevated, it is the only elevated station on the line that is partially located on a concrete (fully enclosed) embankment for the southern half of the station area. It is the only station north of 167 Street that isn’t directly over Jerome Avenue. This deviation from the line not being a straight elevated over Jerome Avenue is very short at only about 12,000 feet. The northern half of the platform (north of the station house) is back to a standard elevated as Jerome Avenue curves to be under the tracks just north of the station. The reason for the line not just following Jerome Avenue in this area is not fully known to me. The station has two side platforms for the 3-track line, with the middle track not used in regular service.
Just west of the station, with views directly from a few mesh windows and the exposed ends of the Manhattan-bound platform is the Concourse Yard. This yard is the main home of the D train. Bedford Park Blvd, the street, provides views down to the train yard through its chain-link fence as well. 4 Trains also access this yard via a single-track ramp just south of the station. Some 4 trains are stored here because the Jerome Yard (also known as the Mosholu Yard) located just north of the station is too small. The two lead tracks into this elevated yard arrive at an at grade junction north of the station. The Mosholu Yard cannot be viewed from the street, with the parking deck for Tracey Towers Apartment Complex built on top of it.
Due to Bedford Park Blvd’s proximity to both 4 train yards, makes the station the origination point of 4 train put-ins with 3 AM trains (one additional train, I assume coming up from the Concourse Yard enters service at Kingsbridge Road) entering service here towards the start of the AM rush hour, and 8 trains between 3:00pm and 4:30pm at the start of the PM rush hour. No trains are presently scheduled to terminate at Bedford Park Blvd, instead these trains at the ends of the AM rush hour (a few at the ends of the PM rush hour) that end short of Woodlawn run via the express track nonstop from 167 Street to Burnside Avenue, where they terminate. Trains then deadhead north out of service to either train yard via the middle track. Terminating at Burnside Avenue avoids the lengthy delays to regular through 4 train service while the crew fumigates the train, making sure there are no passengers on board before it heads to the train yard. At Burnside Avenue it can sit on the middle track away from regular service.
The station itself, which was renovated from Summer to Fall 2006, feels like a regular elevated subway station. There are green and cream windscreens with some mesh windows providing views to the nearby train yard and automotive-related businesses around the station. The ends of the platforms have low-lying fencing.
To leave the station, two staircases in the middle of the platform lead down (into the concrete embankment) to a concrete-walled station house. This station house has tiled walls, mosaics for Uptown Trains and Downtown Trains, and a trimline with B.P.B written in it at regular intervals like an underground station. The mosaic is a replica of an original mosaic that was replaced during the stations renovation.
To leave the station house and reach the street, there is one bank of turnstiles just beyond the platform staircases. Three sets of two doors lead out from the northern end of the station house to about 15 concrete steps (with a concrete terrace surrounding them) down to the south side of Bedford Park Blvd. These steps are just west of Jerome Avenue, with a gas station between the station entrance and Jerome Avenue. Just east of the station is the Concourse Yard. Lehman College, in the station's secondary name although no platforms signs say it but trains announce it, is on the other side of the train yard. The steps up to the station entrance remind me of a New York City step street (basically a city street of steps, too steep to be a regular street with vehicular traffic) that the Bronx has 64 examples of.
1-7: December 21, 2003; 8-15: April 4, 2004; 16-25: March 24, 2007; 27-38: January 6, 2011;
