Photo of the day:
An idol N train sits behind a snow drift in the New Utrecht Avenue Station.
Today I was off to meet up with a railfan friend for lunch in Brooklyn Heights. I took the A down to Jay Street-Borough Hall I mean -MetroTech like old times when I was in high school, I couldn’t believe that the tiling at Broadway-Nassau and all the signs have been fully changed to Fulton Street.
After lunch we decided to go on an adventure and see how South Brooklyn Service was doing, the Sea Beach (N) and Brighton (B,Q) lines were still out of service. The B and Q not operating at all, the N only north of Whitehall Street. We took the 4 train from Borough Hall (1 additional photo), where snow had somehow managed to make its way down to the platform level:
To Atlantic Avenue and attempted to transfer to the B,Q, the platform entrance was taped off but many people were ducking under the tape–(3 photos added to mezzanine page) and we did and make it down to the B,Q platform–(2 photos added) where people were attempting to wait for trains that still as of this evening were suspended:
After this we went up one of the direct staircases to the LIRR platforms and saw that trains to the Atlantic Terminal were running but only as shuttles to and from Jamaica, the platforms looked empty:
Then it was on for some subway in the snow photos and we walked through the entire station back to Pacific Street–(1 photo) and got on the D train which was running local on 4 Avenue, trains were lined up in the express tracks being stored. The first stop for photos was 9 Avenue where many of the tracks still had snow on them and trains were extremely slow over the grade portion of the line (It must have been quite a bit of work to get the open cut between 9 Avenue and 36 Street re-open, much less the entire Sea Beach or Brighton Line):
Next we continued on the D to 55 Street whose Coney Island-bound platform (D trains were still running only as far as Bay Parkway) was nearly impassible they had gotten around to shoveling the Manhattan-bound one:
Walking down new Utrecht Avenue we saw the de-icing train (using diesel locomotives to avoid third rail issues) from street level:
We walked down beneath the elevated to 62 Street where we turned left and walked over to the secondary entrance to the New Utrecht Avenue Station–(22 added photos!) at its eastern end at 15 Avenue which no one had bothered to lock although N service was suspended. On the platforms were a couple of trains lined up:
When we got to the other end of the station and the shared station house (currently the only entrance for the West End Line, its secondary elevated entrance is closed for reconstruction), we had to duck under some more tape:
We then took the D train (still running local) to 9 Street-4 Avenue–(5 photos added) to get some photos of the Culver Line in the snow. First stop was Ditmas Avenue–(15 photos):
Then it was onto 18 Avenue–(15 photos) for our final photo stop:
Then we headed back towards Manhattan, Robbie left me at Carol Street I continued to Jay Street where I did a full photo essay of the new station complex (which I’m not quite ready to release), in the process I tested my unlimited by first swiping back in at the Jay Street, A,C,F portion of the station before leaving again (walking up the now off older exit only escalator), I then successfully swiped back into the system at Lawrence Street, it definitely wasn’t 18 minutes (the time before you supposed to be allowed to swipe back in at the same subway station or on the same bus) after I had swiped back into Jay Street. I left the station again to go to Hoyt Street-Fulton Mall–(3 photos added) and took the 3 train to Penn Station that I did a bit of a walk through off wanting to see how much of a zoo it was (I know on Sunday night like a thousand people spent the night. The LIRR sign for the next train to every destination was amusing, some in the next hour a bunch right after midnight on the branches not operating yet (I guess they hadn’t canceled those trains yet, the MTA’s website isn’t decent enough to say if these trains are operating or not):
The LIRR train boards, the amazing photo is one showing that only two tracks out of a bunch are in use at the height of what should be the evening rush hour, and the fact there very few ‘Change at Jamaica Connections’ for any trains, just for Oyster Bay on one train:
I also walked through the Amtrak lobby which had very few long-term delays (on the arrivals monitor I even noticed that the Lake Shore Limited arriving from Chicago was listed as On Time):
I was then off to the A train to finish riding home after an excellent day of an old friend, adventures and memorable snowy photos and moments, such as the UPS truck we watched people trying to get unstuck from the elevated at 62 Street while waiting for the quite infrequent D train
Also, My final Two-Week MetroCard usage so far, this is going to be one cheep per ride Unlimited MetroCard if I keep up with my current pace:
Saturday: 2
Sunday: 4
Monday: 5
Tuesday: 8