7 Avenue Express-Eastern Parkway Local
The 3 train is the IRT 7 Avenue Express Line’s less important counterpart to the 2 train. This is because the line doesn’t touch the Bronx, ending at 148 Street-Lenox Terminal, and after its second stop 145 Street shares the rest of its stations with other subway lines. The first subway line is the 2 train through Manhattan until Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn where the 4 train takes over. During the hours the 3 train runs to Brooklyn (except late nights) it doesn’t share the Livonia Avenue elevated stations with 4 trains that terminate at Utica Avenue, but 4 trains do replace 3 trains during late nights when 3 trains are reduced to a service between Times Square and 148 Street only.
As of 2023, 3 trains operate with 10 car long trains of R62 and R62As. The line before 2001 operated with only 9 car long trains of R62s due to issues storing 10 car trains on certain tracks the Lenox Yard and lower ridership on the 3 train compared to all other IRT subway lines.
The 3 train operates on tracks that were part of the opening day of the IRT (October 27, 1994) with the line between the Lenox Yard (trains terminated at 145 Street) and 96 Street being completed on November 23, 1904. Trains originally ran then via the 42 Street Shuttle and Park Avenue South line to City Hall via local. The 7th Avenue subway line was completed 1918 and the closest direct predecessor to today’s 3 trains were rerouted there, still operating local between 145 Street and South Ferry.
It took until February 6, 1959, for service to 145 Street to operate express. The junction at 96 Street is poorly designed and isn’t a flying junction (where basically an arriving track arrives between two other tracks and switches onto both of them), instead the line continuing up Broadway, the West Side Line (the 1 train) becomes the local tracks, and the line to Lenox Avenue becomes the Express tracks. A few 3 trains begin running to Flatbush Avenue via the Express track during morning rush hours starting in 1955, and in 1959 under the West Side Improvement, which included extending all local platforms to accommodate longer 10 car trains, all West Side Line (1 trains) began operating via the local track to South Ferry, and all 3 trains from 145 Street begin operating express to Brooklyn operating to Flatbush Avenue. Brooklyn terminuses kept being swapped between 2 trains and 3 trains, with 3 trains finally swapped to terminating at New Lots Avenue permanently in 1983 as they do today.
On the northern end, the final extension to the 3 train was the opening of a platform and station on former yard tracks in the Lenox Yard on May 13, 1968 . This was the opening of 148 Street-Lenox Terminal, this was originally designed to be a replacement for the 145 Street station but community opposition prevented the closure of this station which to this day is the only IRT station to only accommodate 5 cars, with only the first 5 cars of trains stopping at this station opening their doors at the station in each direction. The platforms cannot be extended at 145 Street because of the curves into tunnel portal into the Lenox Yard just north of the station, and the junction where 2 trains curve onto the Lenox Avenue line at the 142 Street junction just south of the station.
Late Night Service to and from 145 Street and later Harlem-148 Street has always been tricky for the Subway system to figure out due to quite low ridership at these stations. These (along with Broad Street on the J train) are the only stations on the subway system that have seen consistent overnight closures due to low ridership and haven’t stayed open 24/7.From the lines opening, originally ‘shuttle’ service during late nights ran from 145 Street to 96 Street, in 1955 shuttle service between 12:12 and 6:57am was discontinued overnight resulting in 145 Street being closed, before being reinstated later. This shuttle service was cut back to running between 135 Street and 145 Street (later 148 Street), called the SS at various times instead of the 3 train soon thereafter.
From 1990 until 2008 (except for a yearlong reinstatement of the 135 Street to 148 Street from September 1994 through September 1995 before being discontinued due to low ridership) 3 trains didn’t operate overnight with a shuttle, M7 or M102 buses replacing subway service at these stations overnight. On July 27, 2008, the current service pattern began with Late Night 3 train service running between Times Square and Harlem-148 Street via the Express tracks.
After the Cortlandt Street Station was destroyed during the September 11 attacks, 3 Train service was cut back from Brooklyn, running only between from 14 Street through 148 Street (except late nights), providing the only 7 Avenue Express service. With no location to terminate 1 trains in Lower Manhattan, they replaced 3 trains to New Lots Avenue, with 2 trains also running local in Manhattan.
