BMT Franklin Avenue Line
The BMT Franklin Avenue Line is a lower capacity rapid transit line of the New York City Subway's B Division in Brooklyn, New York, running between Franklin Avenue and Prospect Park. Service is full-time, and provided by the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. The line serves the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and the Prospect Lefferts Gardens subsection of Flatbush and allows for easy connections between the IND Fulton Street and the BMT Brighton lines.
The line was originally part of the Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railway, which was created to connect Downtown Brooklyn with Coney Island. This Franklin Avenue Line opened in 1878 as part of the railway. Trains continued via the Long Island Rail Road to get to Downtown Brooklyn. In 1896, a connection was built with the Fulton Street Elevated, providing direct service to Manhattan. In 1905 and 1906, the line was elevated near Park Place to eliminate the last remaining grade crossings.
In 1913, the line was acquired by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit, which consolidated various railroad lines in Brooklyn. As part of the Dual Contracts of 1913, the BRT planned to connect the Brighton Line to a more direct subway route under Flatbush Avenue as part of Contract 4. The worst rapid transit wreck in the New York City Subway's history, the Malbone Street Wreck, occurred on November 1, 1918, when a five-car wooden elevated train derailed while approaching the Prospect Park station, killing at least 93 people. In 1920, the Franklin Avenue Line was severed from the Fulton Street Elevated, and Brighton Line trains started using the new subway under Flatbush Avenue.
The line's condition deteriorated in the 1980s and 1990s, and as a result it was nearly abandoned. One station, Dean Street, was closed in 1995 due to low ridership. After pleas from the local community and transit advocacy groups, the MTA agreed to spend $74 million to rehabilitate the line. The line was closed for eighteen months in 1998 and 1999, during which the track layout was changed and the stations were rebuilt.
History
Origins
What is now the Franklin Avenue Line was part of the modern-day Brighton Beach Line until 1920, when the two lines were split north of Prospect Park. The Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railway, which built the Brighton Line, was incorporated in 1877 in order to connect Downtown Brooklyn with the hotels and resorts at Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, and Brighton Beach. The line opened on July 1, 1878, originally running from the Willink Plaza entrance of Prospect Park at Flatbush Avenue and Ocean Avenue to the Brighton Beach Hotel. However, the railroad desired to get the line closer to downtown Brooklyn. There was a problem: the line could not pass through Prospect Park, since the park had been built specifically as a retreat from the busyness of New York City. Therefore, the line was to be built in a trench through the hill in Crown Heights, connecting with the tracks of the Long Island Rail Road at Atlantic Avenue. The route was built on the surface between Bedford Terminal and Park Place, and was built in an open cut to Prospect Park and beyond to Church Avenue in Flatbush in order to avoid grade crossings and to placate the local community. This portion of the Brighton Beach Line represented a routing compromise, since the bypass route through Crown Heights was long, while the BF&CI's preferred direct routing to Downtown Brooklyn would have measured only. The Crown Heights routing took the BF&CI north to the Bedford station of the LIRR. This portion of the BF&CI's mainline would become the Franklin Avenue Line. Later on, in order to accommodate larger locomotives for LIRR through-service, the open cut had to be dug deeper.This portion formally opened on August 19, 1878, about six weeks after the rest of the Brighton Line opened. This portion of the Brighton Beach Line went north to the LIRR's Bedford station, where Brighton trains could merge onto LIRR tracks and operate to the Flatbush Avenue Terminal at Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue. However, the LIRR later gained control of the New York and Manhattan Beach Railway, a competitor of the BF&CI, and on December 14, 1883, ended the agreement to provide equal access to the Flatbush Avenue Terminal. The BF&CI was forced to end its trains at Bedford, a situation which led to its bankruptcy in 1884. Three years later, the BF&CI line was reorganized as the Brooklyn and Brighton Beach Railroad.
The Kings County Elevated Railway wanted to link the Brighton Beach Railroad, running west of Franklin Avenue, to its elevated railway above Fulton Street. However, there was a problem: the LIRR's Atlantic Branch right-of-way, running along Atlantic Avenue, separated the Brighton Beach Railroad's Bedford Terminal to the south and the Fulton Street Line to the north. The LIRR vigorously defended its right to prevent any other railroad companies from crossing its right-of-way, and it only backed down after the KCER brought litigation against the LIRR. Moreover, store owners on Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street opposed the creation of an additional elevated link between the Brighton Beach Railroad and the Fulton Street elevated. The BF&CI won its lawsuit against the LIRR in 1889, but the victory was largely symbolic since the Brighton Beach Railroad had replaced the BF&CI.
In February 1896, the railroad was leased by the KCER. On August 15, 1896, the railroad gained a connection with it by means of a ramp and short elevated railway. The connection linked to the Fulton Street Elevated, which ran from Downtown Brooklyn to City Line at the border with Queens County at Liberty and Grant Avenues and had been completed in 1893. From there the line bridged over Atlantic Avenue, where the LIRR was still operating at-grade. As part of the Atlantic Avenue improvement program, this portion of the LIRR was placed in a tunnel between 1903 and 1905. Additionally, provisions were provided for a future two-track connection in Downtown Brooklyn near the current Atlantic Terminal, leading from the Atlantic Branch to the Brighton Line.
Also in 1896, a new entity, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, was created to consolidate the surface and elevated lines in Brooklyn. This enabled the KCER to operate its steam-powered elevated trains on the Brighton Line via the Franklin Avenue Line's right-of-way, providing Brighton riders with direct service to downtown Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn and Brighton Beach Railroad trains continued to run from Bedford Terminal, but this service was soon abandoned, though the track connections were retained. In 1899, elevated trains began to run via the Brighton Line in addition to steam service. All steam service stopped running by 1903.
The first electrification of the Brighton Line, including the Franklin Avenue Line, was accomplished in 1899 using trolley wire. Trains that used third rail in elevated service raised trolley poles at Franklin Avenue station. Some of the line poles that held up the wire required for the operation still exist along the line. In 1905 and 1906, the last remaining grade crossings were eliminated in the vicinity of Park Place by building an elevated structure to connect the old elevated structure and the open-cut portion. In the ensuing years, some existing bridges were strengthened or replaced and some of the elevated trackage was placed on concrete-retained embankment.
A series of leases and mergers at the beginning of the 20th century ended the independent existence of a number of elevated and suburban railroads, including the Kings County Line and the bankrupt Brooklyn and Brighton Beach. Brooklyn was consolidated into the City of Greater New York in 1898. The new city turned its attention to subway building and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company had a leg up in landing the first two contracts. The Brooklyn interests, represented by the BRT, sought to win new subway contracts to integrate its system of elevated and suburban roads into new subways to be built. One such subway connection would bypass the Franklin Avenue route by funneling the Brighton Line through a direct subway route under Flatbush Avenue as part of Contract 4 of the Dual Contracts of 1913. Construction for the connection required the Coney Island-bound track to be diverted in a new tunnel to cross over the new subway connection and enter the rebuilt four-track Prospect Park station as an outside track. This track has a sharp curve that, coming from the north, has a sharp S-curve to the right and then to the left.
The construction of this new connection directly contributed to the Malbone Street Wreck on November 1, 1918, which became at the time the worst rapid transit wreck in world history. A five-car wooden elevated train, heading southbound along the Franklin Avenue Line passed the Consumers Park station without stopping, left the tracks and crashed into one of the new tunnel walls, killing 97. The collision was found to be caused by an inexperienced motorman who was speeding down the line into the southbound S-curve at an estimated 30 to 40 miles per hour into the curve, which had a 6 mph speed restriction. It remains the deadliest crash in the New York City Subway's history, as well as one of the worst rapid-transit crashes in the history of the United States.
Brighton subway connection
On August 1, 1920, the Brighton Beach Line was connected to the Broadway subway in Manhattan via the Montague Street Tunnel under the East River, as well as a tunnel connection underneath Flatbush Avenue. At the same time, track connections to the Fulton Street Elevated were severed so that through service to Brooklyn Bridge was no longer possible. Subway trains from Manhattan and elevated trains from Franklin Avenue shared operations to Coney Island. A connection and cross-platform interchange between the Brighton Beach and Franklin Avenue Lines was made at Prospect Park, where Franklin Avenue trains used the outer tracks and Brighton Beach trains used the inner tracks. South of Prospect Park, there are switches between all four tracks, allowing southbound trains from either line to run either local or express to Coney Island, as well as permitting northbound local and express trains from Coney Island to access either line. On the four-track Brighton Beach main line south of Prospect Park, the inner pair of tracks are for express trains, and the outer pair of tracks are for local trains.The line continued to operate elevated train service on the Brighton Beach main line until 1928, after which similar services were continued with steel subway cars. For the summer excursion season of 1924, the Franklin Avenue Line was upgraded for the operation of six-car subway trains, and was assigned the BMT number 7. This service used the Brighton Line during most daytime hours. During warm weather, express service ran to Coney Island on weekends during the day.
In the 1920s, transportation officials discussed the possibility of an extension of the line. It was proposed that the line would be extended beyond Fulton Street, run across central Brooklyn, and link up with other BRT lines in Long Island City. Provisions for this line were made in the elevated structure at Queensboro Plaza, but no other parts of the line were built as the plan never left the talking stages. A crosstown line would eventually be built in the 1930s; however, it was part of the city-operated Independent Subway System, not the BRT.
The Fulton Street Elevated, to which the Franklin Avenue line was originally connected, closed in 1940 and was replaced by the IND Fulton Street Line. A free transfer was instituted between the Fulton Street subway and the Franklin Avenue elevated.
In 1958, a new switch was installed north of Prospect Park, allowing trains to reverse ends at the easternmost track at Prospect Park, which had formerly served northbound Franklin Avenue Line trains. This eliminated a traffic bottleneck in which southbound Franklin Avenue Line trains, arriving on the westernmost track at Prospect Park, reversed directions by crossing over two active Brighton Line tracks to the northbound Franklin Avenue Line track, thereby delaying train traffic. As a result, most trains avoided negotiating the sharp S-curve where the Malbone Street Wreck had occurred. Trains that are being taken out of service continue to use the old route.
Prior to the Brooklyn Dodgers' relocation to Los Angeles for their 1958 season, the Franklin Avenue Line was one of the busiest routes to their games at Ebbets Field, located in Flatbush near the southern end of the line. A 1982 New York Times article described the line as the "gateway to Ebbets Field".