First of all, I had documented on my website that I've ridden the entire NYC subway system. Wrong! Before today I had never ridden the 3 train beyond Utica Avenue in Brooklyn (and thus never saw where it runs on the elevated), and had never gone beyond Broadway Junction on the L.
We took an NJ TRANSIT train to Penn Station, and that Secaucus Junction station will still elude us until the Fest next week since we were on an express train that did not stop there (in both directions in fact!). After stocking up on current NJT and LIRR timetables, we took the 3 train all the way to the end at New Lots Avenue. Right after Utica Avenue, it becomes a typical New York elevated line, and it uncermoniously ends at New Lots Avenue in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.
We took the same train back west 3 stations, and got off at Junius Street. This station is just west of where the 3 line passes over the L line. There is no free transfer between the lines, but this station is only one block walk from the Livonia Avenue station on the L. The one drug dealer we saw left us alone.
We learned when we got to the station that the L was operating in this section as a shuttle only between Broadway Junction and Canarsie/Rockaway Parkway, as there was trackwork between Broadway Junction and Lorimer Street. So we could go outbound on the L to the Canarsie station, and then go back to Broadway Junction and take another line.
The L line uses the newest subway cars. There is a small yard facility near the Livonia station, and strangely there is a track connection into it from the 3 line above. It did not appear, though, that there was any physical connection between the two lines.
We rode the L out to Canarsie/Rockaway Parkway, and then returned on the same train. We were told we had to get off at Broadway Junction, and either take a bus, or transfer to the A, C, or J. Then we got a little treat. Construction around the Atlantic Avenue and Broadway Junction stations on the L line is quite involved; in fact it appears that the entire viaduct was relocated about a block to the west. The Broadway Junction station itself on the L line was under heavy construction, so the train took a very rarely-used connecting track, and terminated at the Broadway Junction station on the J line. That was a special treat!!
Since I had also decided that we would ride the J back to Manhattan since a good chunk of the L was out, we were lucky enough to have a J train come in immediately after we arrived, right across the same platform. The J line is more scenic than the A C line anyhow, as the former runs overhead through Brooklyn and over the Williamsburg Bridge before ducking into the subway in Manhattan.
We got off the J in Manhattan at Canal Street, and walked through the passageways to the W train, which runs on the Broadway local tracks on weekends. It was packed, the only train where we had to stand.
Things only got worse as we went uptown through Manhattan, since the 7 train is once again not running west of Queensboro Plaza (QBP), so we gained all of its refugees as well. We were not able to sit down until a couple of stops past QBP.
We got off the W at its final stop, Dittmars Blvd. in Astoria, and we were directly underneath the approach to AMTRAK's Hell Gate Bridge. Looking at my schedule, we had just missed by about 5-10 minutes a southbound Acela Express that would have passed overhead.
We went across to another W across the platform, but to our dismay, the train on which we had arrived departed first. Others on our train also cursed out loud at the lack of announcements to that effect.
We rode the W back towards Manhattan, once again picking up the hoardes of people from the 7 at QBP. We continued into Manhattan, and got off at 34th Street/Herald Square, where we walked one block west on 32nd Street to Penn Station.
After a quick dinner at the small food court near the AMTRAK area of Penn Station, we caught our express NJ TRANSIT train back to Metropark.
My mission was accomplished
, as we used up the $8 left on my old Metrocard. I spent a good part of today at home posting MTA service advisories to this board, but in between, we got caught by one too!
