Williams Bridge station (also known as Williams Bridge–East 210th Street station) is a

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Downtown, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter r ...

stop on the Metro-North Railroad's

Harlem Line The Metro-North Railroad Harlem Line, originally chartered as the New York and Harlem Railroad, is an commuter rail line running north from New York City to Wassaic, in eastern Dutchess County. The lower from Grand Central Terminal to Sou ...

, serving the Williamsbridge and Norwood sections of

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. It is from Grand Central Terminal and travel time there is approximately 24 minutes. The station is located at the intersection of Gun Hill Road and Webster Avenue. Due to its short platform length, only the doors of four cars can open for passengers. The station is located in the Zone 2 Metro-North fare zone.

History

Williams Bridge Station, by Whitney, Beckwith & Paradice

Rail service in Williams Bridge can be traced as far back as 1842 with the establishment of the New York and Harlem Railroad, which became part of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad in 1864 and eventually taken over by the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

. Williams Bridge Station itself, which was originally built sometime in the 19th century, originally had a station house on the southeast corner of the Gun Hill Road bridge and even had a turntable. From 1920 through 1973, the 210th Street–Williamsbridge station of the elevated

IRT Third Avenue Line The IRT Third Avenue Line, commonly known as the Third Avenue Elevated, Third Avenue El, or Bronx El, was an elevated railway in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City. Originally operated by the New York Elevated Railway, an independent railwa ...

was close to the Williams Bridge station. The Third Avenue Line used to curve from Webster Avenue over Gun Hill Road, then crossed over the Harlem Line tracks on a two-level bridge carrying Gun Hill Road and the Third Avenue El. The line terminated at Gun Hill Road station on the

IRT White Plains Road Line The White Plains Road Line is a rapid transit line of the A Division of the New York City Subway serving the central Bronx. It is mostly elevated and served both subway and elevated trains until 1952. The original part of the line, the part op ...

, along White Plains Road to the east. As with many NYCRR stations in the Bronx, the station became a Penn Central station once the NYC & Pennsylvania Railroads merged in 1968. Penn Central's continuous financial despair throughout the 1970s forced them to turn over their commuter service to the

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area of the U.S. state of New York. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in th ...

. The station and the railroad were turned over to Conrail in 1976, and eventually became part of the MTA's Metro-North Railroad in 1983. Access to a parking lot on the site of the former station house was available from the southbound on-ramp of the Bronx River Parkway, which had two way traffic from Gun Hill Road to the parking lot until the 1990s, and was named Newell Street between those two points.

Station layout

The station has two offset high-level

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platform ...

s, each four cars long and accessible from East Gun Hill Road (East 210th Street). When trains stop at the station, normally the front four open cars receive and discharge passengers.

Bibliography

References

External links

Gun Hill Road entrance from Google Maps Street View

Grand Central Platform from Google Maps Street View

Northbound Platform from Google Maps Street View
{{MNRR stations navbox 1842 establishments in New York (state) Former New York Central Railroad stations Metro-North Railroad stations in New York City Railway stations in the Bronx Railway stations in the United States opened in 1842 Williamsbridge, Bronx