# "Secret" stop on NY Subway



## the_traveler (Nov 12, 2010)

> A 1904 subway stop is visible by those "in the know"!


http://news.yahoo.co...ret-subway-stop


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## AlanB (Nov 12, 2010)

I was in that station several years ago and even with limited lighting and cobwebs all around, it is magnificent!

While I do understand and agree with the reasons that it is no longer used, it really is a shame that it is no longer used. It would be really nice if the plan to turn the station into an extention of the NYC Transit Musuem, that Mayor Guliani killed, could be revived.


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## the_traveler (Nov 12, 2010)

AlanB said:


> While I do understand and agree with the reasons that it is no longer used, it really is a shame that it is no longer used.


Didn't the South Ferry station (IIRC) have a ledge between the gaps, because it was on a curve at the turnaround point at the tip of Manhattan?


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## AlanB (Nov 12, 2010)

the_traveler said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > While I do understand and agree with the reasons that it is no longer used, it really is a shame that it is no longer used.
> ...


It still does, although the trains now use the new station, and not the original station.

The problem was that the original subway cars only had exit doors at the ends of the cars. On the sharp curve, that didn't matter. But the newer, modern cars have doors in the middle of the cars too, and therein lies the problem. So movable, metal plates were installed to prevent people from falling to the tracks. They aren't level with the platform/doors, so you'd still take a stumble if you didn't step over the gap, but at least you couldn't fall onto the tracks.

Similar gap fillers exit at the 14th Street station on the Lexington Avenue line and on the Times Square Shuttle at the Times Sq. station. Although in those cases, not all cars are affected by the sharp curves.

The problem with the gap fillers is that it slows down the trains. Conductors have to wait for them to pop out, after the trains’ stop, before they can open the doors. This wastes precious seconds when you have another train less than 2 minutes behind the current one. Additionally, the motorman must pull out of the station at a very slow speed, until the sensors detect the motion of the train and pull the gap fillers back; again wasting precious seconds.

Now returning to South Ferry and the City Hall stations, part of the reason for the abandonment of these stations is that they were both built to handle 5 car trains. All the IRT lines, except for the #7 and the shuttles, run with 10 car trains. When the platforms were lengthened many years ago to permit 10 car trains that pushed the Brooklyn Bridge stop on the IRT so close to the City Hall stop that the decision was made to close the City Hall stop rather than use gap fillers. As noted in the story, trains still run around the loop, but of course they don't normally stop in the station unless there is a backup of trains going north. And even if they stop, there are no passengers on the train and no attempt to line up the doors, much less open them.

As for South Ferry, with monies from the Fed after 9/11, a brand new station was built to replace the old station. The reasons for this are two-fold. One, without gap fillers they can turn more trains than they could run around the loop. The second and bigger issue, is the fact that at the old station, only the first 5 cars made the platform. If you were in one of the rear 5 cars, then you sat in the tunnel while the front half of the train unloaded and then boarded new passenger.

This was fine if you were a railfan just wanting to go around the loop. But most people riding the trains aren't railfans. So they'd end up missing their stop if they hadn't paid attention to the many announcements and posters in each car warning them that they needed to move up to exit at South Ferry. Many a disappointed passenger wanting to get off at South Ferry found themselves headed back uptown because they had picked the wrong car and/or had no idea where they were located within the 10 car consist.

The old South Ferry station is still linked into the system and in fact during the mid-day and evenings, #5 trains from the Lexington Avenue line still go around the inner loop at South Ferry. It's very rare that a train will go around the outer loop anymore, which is where the #1 trains ran. And I believe that the surface entrance has been largely sealed, other than perhaps a locked metal plate that leads down to the old station, much like the City Hall station. There are some occasions where thanks to track work, trains also run around the outer loop and move from the Lex line to the 7th Ave line or vice versa.


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