I care a lot about the 5 Lexington Avenue Line. It is a fascinating subway route. The core reason isn’t the fact the line runs through the first tunnel in Brooklyn, or the southern half of New York City’s first Subway Line, nor the unique curves and scenic routing of the lower White Plains Road Line in the Bronx, but because of the last 4 miles of line, and branch with the last 5 stops in the Bronx between East 180 Street and Dyre Avenue.

The most northern 4 miles between East 180 Street and Dyre Avenue are the only part of the 5 train that runs on its own separate stretch of track and the tracks aren’t shared with 2 or 4 trains.* This section is the only portion of the 5 train to run at all times. The rest of the 5 train acts as just a deviation of the 2 train that runs via Lexington Avenue (with the 4 train) instead of via 7 Avenue, and not receiving 24 hour 5 train service. 5 trains run south of East 180 Street rexcept late nights into Manhattan as a far as Bowling Green, with service extended to Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn Weekdays only from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. The 2 and 5 trains are operated in combination, they share crews and R142 rolling stock. The situation with basically shared northern and southern terminals (I guess this as changed some with the new Battersea Power Station Extension) reminds me of the Northern Line in London. Although the Northern line doesn’t share its tracks with any other routes, with 2 trains sharing the non-2/5 portion with 3 trains, and 5 trains with 4 trians.

All trains run express in the Bronx, nonstop from 3 Avenue-149 Street to East 180 Street (saving 3 minutes of travel time because the line is so curvy) in the peak direction rush hours. Their also 12 peak direction rush hour (to Manhattan in the AM, from Manhattan in the PM) trains that run to Nereid Avenue via the White Plains Road line due to the larger train yard at that location and to provide Lexington Avenue line service on this busier line compared to the Dyre Avenue line. These service deviations are marked on the subway map and were a quasi-sperate routing, the <5>, until May 27, 2005. R142 trains running to and from Nereid Avenue even displayed <5> on their front and rear signs.

A deviation that isn’t on the subway map is in Brooklyn there are roughly 12 round-trips per day to Utica Avenue instead of Flatbush Avenue. This is due to limited capacity at the Flatbush Avenue terminal and the fact that Rogers Junction, where the Nostrand Avenue line branches south from the Eastern Parkway Line, only has switches with the local tracks requiring 5 trains to temporally block both the express and local tracks, with 2,3, and 5 trains all sharing (albeit briefly) the same tracks. This is the biggest bottleneck on the subway. The first 5 train of the AM rush out of Brooklyn even starts at New Lots Avenue at 5:47am and makes local stops to Atlantic Avenue, before continuing to Dyre Avenue.

The reason the last 4 miles of the line are so special is because the Dyre Avenue branch of the 5 train isn’t just a conventional subway or elevated but runs on the former right of way of the New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad. The NY,W&B was a high speed, grade-separated 4 track express/local railroad that opened in 1912 and only ever ran from the Harlem River to Westchester with two branches, one to White Plains and one to Port Chester (19 and 20 miles away respectively). After the railroad closed and went bankrupt in 1937, the subway took over only the portion in the Bronx between East 180 Street and Dyre Avenue (then just a local stop, but the last stop in the Bronx, south of the City of Mount Vernon in Westchester County) with shuttle trains running starting in 1941 and through - albeit slow - service beginning in 1957 into Manhattan (trains ran originally via 7 Avenue) with Lexington Avenue trains taking over the line in 1965.

This portion of the subway is also one of the most interesting because the stations (although the MTA removed the unique columns on the platforms in 1992 renovations, I remember my Dad talking about them before he took me to ride the line for the first time in 1994) were built as railway stations in the Italian Villa style, the station at East 180 Street in particular is an underappreciated public architectural gems in New York City.

The planner in me really wishes – and the NY,W&B was so close with a bill to create a public authority actually on Governor Lehman’s Desk, but vetoed under pressure from Mayor LaGuarida who wanted the Bronx portion for the New York City subway – that the line all the way to Westchester was preserved. It would have been a good candidate (at least based on post World War II transit funding sensibilities) northern extension for the 1960s and 1970s High Speed Second Avenue subway proposals and service into Westchester probably would have potentially made the Second Avenue Subway more politically feasible in Albany with suburban Westchester constituents wanting it for their residents to improve travel. This fantasy subway line really reminds me of the BART/WMATA/MARTA post-war city-suburban rapid transit systems.

Anyway, I grateful today at least a small portion of this unique railway that only operated for 25 years still has subway service, as one of the most unique parts of the New York City subway system providing important service to certain North Bronx neighborhoods.

*To be technical there are the curving tracks that carry 5 trains from the lower level after 149 Street-Grand Concourse to the Upper Level, and to get really technical, maybe the South Ferry Loop where trains terminate evenings and weekends.