The 60th Street Tunnel Connection or 11th Street Cut is a short
rapid transit line
Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...
of the
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...
connecting the
60th Street Tunnel under the
East River (which connects to the
BMT Broadway Line) with the
IND Queens Boulevard Line
The IND Queens Boulevard Line, sometimes abbreviated as QBL, is a line of the B Division of the New York City Subway in Manhattan and Queens, New York City, United States. The line, which is underground throughout its entire route, contains 23 s ...
west of
Queens Plaza in
Long Island City, Queens,
New York City,
United States. The 11th Street Connection name comes from the street above the split from the 60th Street Tunnel. The line does not have any stations, and carries trains at all times but late nights.
History
The connection opened on December 1, 1955, and permitted BMT trains from Brooklyn to use the IND Queens Boulevard Line; the first service to do so was the ''Brighton Beach Local via Tunnel'' (
1, now
Q). This connection allowed for an increase of 20 trains per hour on Queens Boulevard. Unlike the later
Chrystie Street Connection
The Chrystie Street Connection is a set of New York City Subway tunnels running the length of Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is one of the few track connections between lines of the former Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit ...
, this was of the nature of a
trackage rights operation, without the mixing of BMT and IND equipment or crews, as opposed to a true operating integration.
Service history
The first service to use the connection was the daytime
1 local via
Montague Street Tunnel
The Montague Street Tunnel is a rail tunnel of the New York City Subway under the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, connecting the BMT Broadway Line and BMT Fourth Avenue Line. The R uses the tunnel at all times, the N us ...
, which became the
QT in the early 1960s. The QT was rerouted to
Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard on January 1, 1961, and the
RR was sent through the connection during daytime hours. The
EE was created on November 26, 1967, when the
Chrystie Street Connection
The Chrystie Street Connection is a set of New York City Subway tunnels running the length of Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is one of the few track connections between lines of the former Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit ...
opened and the RR moved back to Astoria. On August 27, 1976, the
N was extended through the connection, absorbing the EE; this change sent late night and weekend trains through the tunnel for the first time. The N and
R were swapped in Queens on May 24, 1987, taking the R through the connection in a move that reassigned a former BMT route (the R) to the IND's Jamaica Yard (it had heretofore used the Coney Island Yard). Late night service was later truncated to
36th Street in Brooklyn, then later extended to
Whitehall Street in Manhattan. The connection is not being used during late nights .
Routing
References
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Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation
New York City Subway lines