Why No B Express on the Weekends? or Any Express to Cony Island?

[gprimr1]

I was disappointed to see the B express to Brighton Beach doesn't run on the weekends. It surprises me that there is no express service to the Coney Island area on the weekends. I was looking at the map and the B only runs on weekends and D's express tracks are apparently unused.

It looks like both the D and F have unused express tracks, but only 1 for each line. Have they ever considered using these express tracks to do a Brooklyn Loop? The only thing I can't figure out is where it would turn around. The only place I can see a possible tail track is at West 4th Ave and it's on the wrong side of the station.

Unless is there any room in the Chrystie St Connection area to build a connection from the F track to the D track and make Essex St the last stop?

Any thoughts?

[Allan]

I was disappointed to see the B express to Brighton Beach doesn't run on the weekends. It surprises me that there is no express service to the Coney Island area on the weekends. I was looking at the map and the B only runs on weekends and D's express tracks are apparently unused.

It looks like both the D and F have unused express tracks, but only 1 for each line. Have they ever considered using these express tracks to do a Brooklyn Loop? The only thing I can't figure out is where it would turn around. The only place I can see a possible tail track is at West 4th Ave and it's on the wrong side of the station.

Unless is there any room in the Chrystie St Connection area to build a connection from the F track to the D track and make Essex St the last stop?

Any thoughts?

Weekend passenger load is not enough to justify the cost of running the B. Service in Manhattan (C and D along Central Park West), D along 6th Av is usually sufficient enough and in Brooklyn along the Brighton line the Q service is also enough.

As far as a Brooklyn Loop, something like that was attempted once back in 1967/1968. The NX was created as a rush hour service. It ran from Brighton Beach to Coney Island and then up the Sea Beach line to 57th St/7th Av. It was discontinued April 1968 due to very low ridership. There is not much of a need (if any at all) for a Brooklyn loop.

As for the F train express tracks, the MTA is 'experimenting' with rush express service between Jay St-MetroTech and Church Av but only 2 trains to Manhattan in the morning and 2 in the evening. How long the service will continue has not been announced nor would it extend past Church Av to Kings Highway (as it used to from 1969 to 1976).

If they were to provide service on the "unused" tracks on the D (West End) and F (Culver) there would be an issue as they would have to take car equipment from the regular local service making less service for local riders.

There is no way to connect the F tracks to the D tracks using the Christie St connection as after they leave Broadway-Lafayette, the F tracks continue straight ahead along Houston St) to the 2nd Av station and East Broadway stations while the D tracks curve south at Christie St to the Grand St station. As far as Essex St station is concerned you'd have a big problem there - the station platforms are only 480 feet (8 cars at 60 feet each). An 8 car train of R46 or R68/68As (75 foot cars) as used on the D is 600 feet long and the F trains are R160s (10 cars at 60 feet each or 600 feet).

The short length of the platforms as built are the former BMT Eastern Division and were kept that way for various reasons (including structural). All trains on the J, Z, M and L lines are only 8 cars long (60 feet each or 480 feet).

West 4th Avenue????? As far as I know there is no such street. Perhaps you mean West 4th St in Manhattan? If that is the case there are no tail tracks anywhere in that area. You may be confusing the junction just south of the station where the F train local tracks can connect with the local tracks from the upper level (C and E trains) before ramping down to the Broadway-Lafayette station.
(There are tail tracks from the 'express' tracks at the 2nd Avenue station on the F but those are not near the tracks the D uses on the Christie St connection to Grand St. https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption. ... hattan.png )

[rr503]

I was disappointed to see the B express to Brighton Beach doesn't run on the weekends. It surprises me that there is no express service to the Coney Island area on the weekends. I was looking at the map and the B only runs on weekends and D's express tracks are apparently unused.

It looks like both the D and F have unused express tracks, but only 1 for each line. Have they ever considered using these express tracks to do a Brooklyn Loop? The only thing I can't figure out is where it would turn around. The only place I can see a possible tail track is at West 4th Ave and it's on the wrong side of the station.

Unless is there any room in the Chrystie St Connection area to build a connection from the F track to the D track and make Essex St the last stop?

Any thoughts?

Moreso than there is a lack of demand for weekend B service there is a lack of capacity. Most weekends see a bunch of reroutes where lines end up sharing tracks/merging in unconventional ways, and then have to transit areas of 10mph running thanks to adjacent track flagging rules. This combo can reduce the capacity of a 4 track trunk line from 50-60tph/direction to as little as 15tph/direction, which leaves barely enough room for current services let alone any additional variants.

As for the D/F express tracks, there's a reason they're not used, which is that there's just not much demand for express service from far southern brooklyn to justify bypassing all those stops. The D runs express north of 36 St, and now a few Fs run express north of Church -- those closer-to-core segments are where potential exists for express service, not the 3 track outer segments of the lines.