NEW YORK CITY

Because of the complexity of the New York streetcar and subway network, there are four maps showing the routes:

• A map showing Manhattan
• A map showing The Bronx
• A map showing Brooklyn & Queens
• A map showing Downtown Brooklyn

FIRST MAP: MANHATTAN (except for Upper Manhattan)

SECOND MAP: THE BRONX (including Upper Manhattan)

THIRD MAP: BROOKLYN & QUEENS

FOURTH MAP: DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN

I created the above maps by overlaying OpenStreetMap (OSM) maps with my own data. Copyright on the OSM maps is © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under a CC-BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence).

Please note that the OSM maps used as templates for these maps correspond to the situation at the time the maps were downloaded and may show features that did not exist at the time the GS Tram Site is supposed to show. In particular, they may show bridges and highways that were built later.

ABBREVIATIONS ON THE MAPS

BROOKLYN

MANHATTAN

ROUTES

Operator: New York City Board of Transportation

STREETCAR ROUTES

THE BRONX (and some lines extending into Manhattan)

* Some lines shared their letter designations (B, S, T, V). In these cases, I added a second letter for clarity.

** There was one crosstown line designated with the letter X. For clarity, I added 138 to it (since it was also known as the 138th Street line).

BROOKLYN (and some lines extending to Manhattan and Queens)

MANHATTAN

Note: Crosstown routes were simply designated as X. The designations X42, X59 and X125 are used for clarity.

QUEENSBOROUGH BRIDGE LINE

Operated by Queensborough Traction

Note: The QB designation above is for clarity, and was not used by the operator.

SUBWAY LINES

Note: Subway routes in New York City sometimes varied in function of the day of the week, time of day and other factors. In the list below, I tried to present the normal weekday operation for each route.

BMT LINES

Line numbers (in the first column) are those used by the operator in 1946. Letters (in the second column) indicate the letters used today for the same (or similar) route in the New York City transit system.

IND LINES

* Rush hour service only

Single-lettered lines were express (at least partly), while double-lettered lines were always local (i.e. stopping at all stations).

IRT LINES

IRT Line indicators (I1 etc.) as given above are for clarity, and were not used by the operator. The number part tends to correspond to their number designation today, which are given in the second column.

ELEVATED RAILROAD LINES

(Part of the IRT system)

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SYSTEM

NETWORK LENGTH

• Streetcar lines: ? km.
• Queensboro Railway: 3 km.
• Subway: ca. 400 km.
• Elevated line: ? km.

HISTORY

• Horse-drawn streetcars: (Manhattan & The Bronx) 1853 - 1899; (Brooklyn) 3 July 1854 - 1893.
• Electric streetcars (Manhattan, conduit system): 1899 - 1 July 1947.
• Electric streetcars (The Bronx) 1899 - 21 Aug. 1948 ; (Brooklyn and Queens): 1893 - 31 Oct. 1956.
• Queensborough Bridge Railway: 1909 - 7 Apr. 1957.
• Subway: 27 Oct. 1904 (but first overground component of the later subway system: 8 June 1864 - ) - today.
• Elevated railway (Manhattan & Bronx): 1 July 1868 - Apr. 1973.

GAUGE

• Manhattan streetcars: 1435 mm.
• Subways & Elevated lines: 1435 mm.

TRAM PRESERVATION

The Trolley Museum of New York (in Kingston NY, 146 km north of New York City in the Hudson Valley) runs heritage stretcars in the summer season on ca. 25 km of track.

SOURCES

PRINT

• Ballard, C.L. Images of Rail: Metropolitan New York's Third Avenue Railway System. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005
• Branfors Electric Railway Association Images of Rail: Brooklyn streetcars. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008
• Byford, A. "‘Train Daddy’ and the Big Apple", Tramways & Urban Transit, Nov. 2024 (87: 1043), p.418-420.
• Meyers, S.L. Images of Rail: Lost trolleys of Queens and Long Island. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006
• Meyers, S.L. Images of Rail: Manhattan's lost streetcars. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005
• Taplin, M.R. Tramways of North America, including rapid transit [Tramway Handbooks No.4]. Hassocks (West Sussex, England): Light Rail Transit Association, 1981.
• Track map of Brooklyn, Surface Lines Division, N.Y City Transit System. Hoboken, NJ: Electric Railroaders Association, 1946 (reissued 1950).
• Trackage map, Third Avenue Transit System: Lines in Manhattan below 125th Street. Hoboken, NJ: Electric Railroaders Association, 1946.
• Trackage map, Third Avenue Transit System: Lines in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. Hoboken, NJ: Electric Railroaders Association, 1946.
• Volkmer, W.D. New York City Trolleys in Color. Flemington, NJ: Morning Sun Books, 2002.

WIKIS

• Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)
• Interborough Rapid Transit Company
• IRT Third Avenue Line
• List of streetcar lines in Brooklyn
• List of streetcar lines in Manhattan
• List of streetcar lines in Queens
• List of streetcar lines in the Bronx
• MTA Regional Bus Operations
• New York City Omnibus Corporation
• New York City Subway
• New York City Subway nomenclature
• New York Transit Museum
• Rapid transit operations of the BRT and BMT
• Third Avenue Railway
• Trolley Museum of New York

WEB SITES

• MTA
• New York City (on UrbanRail.Net)
• New York Transit Museum
• Time traveling on the 3rd Ave. El
• Trolley Museum of New York
• www.nycsubway.org/

Special thanks to Bob Townley of Fairfield, CA for supplying me with much of the material used for the creation of this page, and for his kind suggestions for improving it.

Special thanks also to Russell Powers for information on the Queensboro railway.

Copyright Gabor Sandi 1998-2024

Disclaimer: Everything on this site was written and/or prepared at the author's discretion. The author has tried to be accurate where facts are presented, but this does not mean that these facts are necessarily accurate. People needing more reliable information should refer to appropriate sources presented, on the Internet or elsewhere, by authoritative professional or academic bodies.

To get in touch with the webmaster, send an e-mail to g_sandi at hotmail.com.

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