IRT Dyre Avenue Line

Background

The Dyre Avenue Line was originally part of the four-track main line of the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway, an electrified commuter line that connected White Plains and Port Chester, New York to a station at the Harlem River adjacent to the IRT Third Avenue Line. The NYW&B opened on May 29, 1912. Soon a transfer station opened at East 180th Street, with transfers to the IRT White Plains Road Line and various surface lines. Express trains stopped within the Bronx only at Pelham Parkway and East 180th Street.^[6] The NYW&B was abandoned on December 31, 1937 due to bankruptcy.^[7]

Plans were made for a parallel subway line even before the NYW&B's abandonment; a 1929 expansion plan included a line along Morris Park Avenue, Wilson Avenue and Boston Road to Baychester Avenue, fed by the IND Second Avenue Line. When the IND Concourse Line was being built, the City, as part of the 1929 expansion plan, planned the line to be extended further east via Burke Avenue and Boston Road to Baychester Avenue.^[8] However, due to the Great Depression, money for the line ran out, and as a result the integration of the NYW&B line was seen as a cheaper way to serve the Northeast Bronx.^[9] In 1939, after abandonment, the plan was to integrate the former NYW&B to Dyre Avenue into the IRT system branching off the IRT Pelham Line as the Westchester and Boston Line. It was later decided to only utilize the line north of the East 180th Street station, even though the line continued to the Harlem River Terminal paralleling the New Haven Railroad right-of-way. However, a track connection to the New Haven Railroad (NHRR) was built in 1955 for equipment and material transfer and interchanges, including new car deliveries.^{[10][11][12][13]} The R17s were delivered via this connection in 1955,^[14] and the R33/R36s were delivered via the connection in February 1964.^[15]

Acquisition

The New York City Board of Transportation bought the NYW&B within the Bronx north of East 180th Street in April 1940 for $1,800,000 and rehabilitated the line.^[16]:59-60 The line was converted to accommodate IRT cars, and the 11,000 Volt AC power supply and the catenary were replaced by 600 Volt DC power supply via the third rails. Signals from the BMT Fulton Street Line also installed on the line. The Board of Transportation decided to rehabilitated twenty old surplus gate cars, numbered 1580–1587, 1589–1600, and 107, that were operating on the Third Avenue Elevated to use on the line.^[9][17]

On March 19, 1941 a trailing point was built in from the existing White Plains Road Line to the former Track 3 of the NYW&B just north of the East 180th Street station, near the original IRT tower, and under the present Bronx River Parkway bridge. This granted access to the newly BOT-owned line for construction purposes, specifically re-electrification and signaling.^[18]

The first train, an official train consisting of four cars with the Mayor and City officials, departed from East 180th Street at 11:21 AM on May 15, 1941.^[19][20] Trains on the line were shuttles, with a paper transfer to the IRT White Plains Road Line at East 180th Street.^[9] When the city began operating the line it was considered as part of the IND Division internally, with IND crews operating the line because the city takeover of the IRT and BMT required that new lines be part of the IND.^{[16]:331[21][22]} The line was known as the IND Dyre Avenue–East 174th Street Line.^[23] However, to the riding public the line was advertised as an IRT line.^[24] Shuttle trains consisting of two cars operated on the line and there was no late night service when the line opened in 1941. The fares were collected in the stations during rush hours, and by conductors on the trains when ridership was light.^[9][20] The signs for stations on the Dyre Avenue Line used IND signs, with white letters on a green background. During its first year of being part of the subway system, 637,148 riders used the line.^[23]

Plans for restoring the old line north into Westchester County failed.^[19] For a few years, the line retained the 11,000 Volt catenary on the express tracks in case service to Westchester was resumed.^[25] After the Dyre Avenue line was opened, using the outer tracks, tracks Y1 and Y2, and once it was certain that service to Westchester would not be revived the superfluous trackage from NYW&B days was removed, along with the catenary supports, for the World War II scrap drive of 1943.^[18]

The connecting switch from the White Plains Road Line was not regularly used to bring in extra equipment or lay up a train on the Dyre Avenue Line itself until November 1952, and then only via new switches and the former Track 3, now Y1, at East 180th Street station. By this time some middle trackage had been restored as “Y3 and Y4” through Morris Park station and south of Dyre Avenue. The Y4 siding was later extended from Morris Park toward, but not to, Pelham Parkway by July 1971.^[18] On March 28, 1955, the NYCTA contracted with the New Haven Railroad (NHRR) for the installation of a non-electrified siding coming off NHRR track 1 below East 177th Street and using what would have been the alignment of NYW&B Track 2, track Y4. Third rail was installed north of East 177th Street, where the siding also swung over to the alignment of NYW&B track 4, track Y2 so as to line into the existing Y2 track at the local side of the station.^[18]

In March 1954, the old gate cars were replaced by Hi-V cars. In October 1956 several Steinway cars were assigned to service on the line, and continued to serve the line until through service began.^[9]

Improvements

The Dyre Avenue Line was connected directly to the White Plains Road Line north of East 180th Street for $3,000,000 and through service began on May 6, 1957. The connection was originally supposed to open in 1950.^[26] The project was started in 1949 but was delayed because the necessary subway cars for the service were not available.^[27] With the connection, the line became part of the IRT Division. Night service would continue to be operated by a shuttle. At this time, the old NYW&B station was closed and the trackage through the former station was made non-revenue, and it remains in part as a siding designated Track Y1A.^[18][28] Through service was operated by Seventh Avenue express trains between 5:30 AM and 8:30 PM. Between 8:30 and 1:15 shuttle trains operated from East 180th Street to Dyre Avenue, and in the early morning hours no trains operated over the line.^[17] On June 27, 1956, late night shuttle service was implemented on a six-month trial basis.^[29]:201

In 1957-1960, on the grounds of the former Starlight Amusement Park grounds the former the last wooden MUDC cars and many Hi-V Steel subway cars were scrapped and burned. The tracks south of East 180th Street were used to hold the cars before the cars were disposed of.^[30]

On February 27, 1962, the Transit Authority announced a $700,000 modernization plan of the Dyre Avenue Line, including the reconstruction of the Dyre Avenue station, and the extension of the platforms of the other four stations on the line.^[31][32] In 1963–1964, the Dyre Avenue terminal station was rebuilt. Previously, trains had used the northbound side platform as the terminal with the southbound platform unused. Remnants of the side platforms still exist.^[33][34] The station was rebuilt with a single center island platform where the northbound express track was.^[35]

On April 18, 1965, IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line trains and IRT Lexington Avenue Line trains swapped their northern routings, with Broadway–Seventh Avenue 2 trains running via the IRT White Plains Road Line to 241st Street, and Lexington Avenue 5 trains running via the Dyre Avenue Line to Dyre Avenue.^[36][37][38] The line is still operated as a shuttle late nights.^[39]

Removal of vestiges

The siding connection between the Dyre Avenue Line at East 180th Street and the Penn Central (former New Haven Railroad) was discontinued on August 12, 1975, and the third rail was removed south of the station in 1979, where retired IRT subway cars were stored, and as of 1979 the physical connection between the line and what is now the Amtrak Northeast Corridor/CSX was permanently removed.^[18] The elevated structure between East 177th and Lebanon Streets was dismantled in the early 2000s, and housing was built on part of the former rail line's right-of-way in 2013.

In 2003–2004 the former NYW&B elevated structure was demolished south of Lebanon Street.^[40][41] The former right-of-way was redeveloped with new buildings, and parking lots. Between 2006 and 2008, the earthen embankment from East 177th Street south to East 172nd Street at the Amtrak ROW was totally excavated and all that fill was removed to provide flat ground for redevelopment. The section between East 177th Street and East 174th Street was redeveloped into the Bronx Greenway–Starlight Park. A catenary signal gantry from the NYW&B was preserved and is located inside the park.^[14][42]