The Express Stop That Never Was

The tunnels of the NYC subway system are dark and full of mystery.

This one in particular contains ‘bell mouths’ – which were usually built where a planned subway route was suppose to diverge from a route that was actually built. They were meant to allow for later construction of the planned route without disrupting the now existing, active tracks. Many many subway routes were planned all over NYC, and after WW2, nearly all of those planned routes were never even started.

The bell mouths of this tunnel are different though. They were meant to allow for the eventual reconstruction of a nearby local subway station into one that could accommodate both local and express trains via island platforms. This of course never took place, but the widened tunnel bell mouths remain.

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Stop hating.

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Ride.

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And face life head on. (note the widen tunnel to the left)

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Bell mouth with station in the distance.

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That’s a lot of fucking volts.

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Another bellmouth.

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View of the tracks…

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Go the fuck home.

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Comments

7 responses to “The Express Stop That Never Was”

  1. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    If these were taken near the 63rd Drive station, those bellmouths are for connections to an abandoned LIRR ROW. If they were taken near the Woodhaven Station, then yeah the bellmouths are for platform conversions.

  2. Mitch45 Avatar
    Mitch45

    Brian: The nearby station has to be 63rd Drive. Take a look at the white on black sign on the stanchion directly to the right of the train in the last photo. I’m pretty sure that says 63rd Drive.

  3. sbaez.1 Avatar
    sbaez.1

    Love the posts as always. You guys should really have a search feature, although rummaging through the site and stumbing upon what you’re looking for are indeed rewarding…

    1. Bad Guy Joe Avatar

      Yeah we do have to come up with a good search solution sooner or later. There’s a few more ‘category’ pages in the works that will make rummaging a bit more easy and interesting.

  4. ROBERT CIPRIANI Avatar
    ROBERT CIPRIANI

    Guys, if you go to:
    https://www.google.com/advanced_search

    And put ltvsquad.com in the site field you can search.

  5. Anthiony Spalinger Avatar
    Anthiony Spalinger

    Excellent.
    A map/plan was necessary.

    Details are in:

    Peter Dougherty, Tracks of the New York Subway (New York; Peter Dougherty; 2013), 49-50.

    and with excellent data:

    John Landers, Twelve Historical New York City Street and Transit Maps from 1860 to 1967 (Flushing: H & M Productions; 1997), the plans are provided for this abortive project: see them with the page commentary and the 2 plans under “1929. Board of Transportation Engineering Dept. Proposed Additional Rapid Transit Lines and Proposed Vehicular Tunnels”

  6. Roman Avatar

    That is Kackson heights roasevelt ave

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