Today I had quite a long day, first attending the Afternoon’s Yankee Game before some evening rush hour rail fanning as I had some extra time wending my way down to Brooklyn Heights to meet up with friends, before an extremely late (really wee-hours of the morning) subway ride back uptown.
Yankee Stadium is a nice walk from where I lived so I walked down, over the Macombs Dam Bridge to attend this afternoons game, and my first in the new stadium which really doesn’t feel right, and I miss the old one already, with its charator that is being demolished already. After the game I had a bit of extra time and decided to wend my day down to Brooklyn Hieghts and doing a bit of railfanning along the way. I didn’t have a MetroCard on me so I decided to walk up to 167 Street. Of interesting note almost right next to the northern end of the stadium along River Avenue is a substation that looks very out of place next to the new fancy stadium. I also realized that the new stadium covers a place with a bit of New York elevated railroad History, the former 9th Avenue elevated, that became the Polo Grounds Shuttle from 167th Street to 155th Street it its later years, would have gone right through the outfield fence. That’s right the little structure of steel where the elevated used to go ends right at the exterior wall of the stadium. After getting on a 4 train that got quite crowded at the Stadium, I was sitting down already, and purchasing the standard $7 MetroCard at 167th Street I took the 4 train to 59th Street to the R train that I took out to finish the Queens Blvd Line Stations I’m missing. I made quick photo stops, staying within fare control at 36th Street and Steinway Street before continuing out to Roosevelt Avenue, doing a partial photo essay there changing to an F train back to 21 Street-Queensbridge. During this ride I got some faith that there are at least two R42 sets running on the Queens Blvd Line. I looked out the railfan window on one on the R and saw one running on the F. There seem to be quite a few R160s now running on the F too because I saw quite a few.
At 21 Street-Queensbridge I did a full photo essay of the strange 1989 station (one of the four newest on the subway system) before walking through Long Island City and to the Court Square Station on the G, and used my free MetroCard Transfer to re-board the subway. I really wish more than two of these existed. I took the G train to Hoyt-Schermerhorn Street and did more of a photo essay there before ending this portion of my subway adventures.
The Late Night Saga: At around 12:15am I entered the subway at Pacific Street to take the D to the A and get home. This wasn’t a railfanning trip but late-night subway rides are often full of strange and interesting surprises. I walked up to the front of the platform to where my exit is at 181 Street and did take some photos of the quite empty platform before watching a R160 N train enter and leave the station, its destination signs simply said N|Astoria-Ditmars N|Broadway Local N|via Whitehall. A bit while later my R68 D train came in also running local in Brooklyn and we slowly went to stop at DeKalb before reaching the Myrtle Avenue interlocking where slow zones had been established. Here, for the first time, I noticed the Masstransiscope basically a subway kaleidoscope of 224 images that looks like an animation from the subway car, installed on one of the platforms of the abandoned Myrtle Avenue Station. Unfortunately because of men on the tracks and our slow movement it looked like a series of images and not an animation. We made it up and over the Manhattan Bridge before reaching Broadway-Lafayette, where I saw something I’d never scene before. There were lots of wet floor signs on the Brooklyn-bound platform and what looked like a soapy liquid was spread all over the, still opened, platform. MTA employees were housing the platform done with what looked like extremely high-pressure hoses getting water everywhere as they thoroughly washed the platform. I also witnessed the same thing at one of the Central Park West Local Stops. At 59 Street there was an A local across the platform that I decided not to hop on, and took the express up to 125 Street where the same A train that was at 59 Street pulled in about four minutes afterwards. I took that and noticed all the destination signs of the R44 said 168 Street. Track work was requiring shuttle service north of there. We pulled into 168 Street and there was a Shuttle train right across the platform that I hopped on, it wasn’t fallowing the posted half-hourly schedule at all, I arrived at 168th thinking I would have to wait another 15 minutes. Also at 168th I saw one of the few R40 sets in all of its glory reentering service to make that long late night run to Far Rockaway, I’m amazed there running them at night.
i apologize if this post wasn’t written in English, I’ll edit it tomorrow morning after I get some much needed sleep