Jerome Av Local·Lexington Av-Eastern Pkwy Express
The 4 train is one of the two Express Lines on what is traditionally (the pandemic and the opening of the first segment of the Second Avenue subway may have changed this) the busiest trunk subway line in North America, the Lexington Avenue Line. From the closure of the Third Avenue elevated in 1955 until the opening of the Second Avenue Subway in 2017 providing some relief at the line’s busiest stations, “the lex” was always overcrowded. As many trains as physically possible were operated on its older narrower tunnel infrastructure compared to the BMT and IND train lines that have wider tunnels and can run with wider train cars.
The 4 train is the full time Lexington Avenue Express line running the full-length of the route. It operates from Woodlawn in the Bronx due south to Bowling Green and through to Brooklyn, ending at Crown Heights-Utica Avenue. Overnight, the line operates local in Manhattan (it’s always local in the Bronx) and Brooklyn along with service extended to New Lots Avenue replacing 3 trains that don’t run south of Times Square.
During late nights the hours for local service very: In Manhattan it operates the shortest window of any late night local service only from about 1:00am to 5:00am (6:00am on weekends). This short window is when 6 trains run only every 20 minutes instead of every 10 minutes with 4 trains providing supplemental service to the local stops.
Service to and from New Lots Avenue (a few rush hour trains also run to and from New Lots to and from the train yard) is significantly longer running local in Brooklyn from about 9:45pm to 6:00am on weeknights and Saturday nights, this includes first trains of the evenings and the last couple of trains in the early mornings running local towards Brooklyn making local stops in Brooklyn but terminating at Utica Avenue.
Sunday mornings (since 1976) 3 train service to Brooklyn has started later with trains not running to New Lots Avenue until between 8:30am to 9:00am (it was until 10:00am through the mid-1990s when there was even a special note on the subway map). Evening local service to Utica Avenue begins at the same time as weekdays around 9:30pm, but the first Manhattan-bound train that runs local in Brooklyn doesn’t leave until 11:22pm along with the first train from New Lots Avenue.
All 4 Trains skip 138 Street-Grand Concourse in the peak direction to Manhattan from 7:00am to 9:00am, to Woodlawn from 4:30pm to 6:15pm. This is done to squeeze just a few more trains through the line per hour so 4 trains don’t have to wait for slow moving 5 trains on the slow curved track that transfers 5 trains from the 2 line to the 4 line just south of the 149 Street-Grand Concourse station.
The 4 train has some other unusual scheduled train runs. 3 (two very early in the morning, one later in the rush hour) trains run as roundtrips from Woodlawn to Bowling Green. There are also 2 PM rush trains extended to New Lots Avenue (that terminate and overnight in the Livonia Yard), with some early AM rush hour trains (and a final one at 7:10am) originating at New Lots Avenue and then running express from Utica Avenue. Extra 4 trains also operate after Yankee Games from Yankee Stadium to Bowling Green (before deadheading back to the Bronx).
Finally, my favorite special 4 trains are trains leaving service that need to enter the Mosholu (or Concourse, used for overflow) yards. These trains, 11 at the end of the AM rush hour, 3 at the end of the PM rush hour all run non-stop from 167 Street to Burnside Avenue and terminate at Burnside Avenue. This is the closest stop to the yard for them to be discharged of passengers without blocking regular service on the local track. They then deadhead using the middle track to the train yards. Trains entering service from the yards simply enter service at Bedford Park Blvd (or for one train Kingsbridge Road).
Historically the 4 train has operated similarly since the line since the line was completed in 1918 and through trains replaced all elevated trains north of 167 Street (where the line used to be joined by the 9th Avenue elevated). The main thing that has varied is where trains have terminated in Brooklyn (at times it was Atlantic Avenue except during rush hours and late at night). For example, rush hour 4 trains ran to Flatbush Avenue-Brooklyn College until 1983.
For Rolling Stock in the 1990s, before New Technology trains, the 4 train was historically a mixture of R62s and Redbirds. With the introduction of new technology trains, the 4 train became primarily R142As with some R142s and R62s thrown in. After most R142A trains were transferred to the 7 train for CBTC operation, the 6 train received the R62As from the 7 train and today the 4 train today is now entirely R142 and R142A “New Technology Trains.”
