page_title: IRT Flushing Line
section_title: Service curtailments and slight improvements
hierarchical_section_title: IRT Flushing Line / History / Service curtailments and slight improvements
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a poster created by the New York Board of Transportation in October 1949 to inform passengers of a service change to the city's transportation system on the 17th of that month. This service change ended the joint-BMT/IRT Division operation of the Flushing and Astoria Lines. The former was given to the IRT, and the latter was given to the BMT, and its platforms were shaved back so that the larger B Division cars could fit.
context_page_description: The IRT Flushing Line is a rapid transit route of the New York City Subway system, named for its eastern terminal in Flushing, Queens. It is operated as part of the A Division. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company, a private operator, had constructed the section of the line from Flushing, Queens, to Times Square, Manhattan between 1915 and 1928. A western extension was opened to Hudson Yards in western Manhattan in 2015, and the line now stretches from Flushing to Chelsea, Manhattan. It carries trains of the 7 local service, as well as the express <7> during rush hours in the peak direction. It is the only currently-operational IRT line to serve Queens.
  It is shown in the color purple on station signs, the official subway map, and internal route maps in R188 cars. Before the line was opened all the way to Flushing in 1928, it was known as the Corona Line or Woodside and Corona Line. Prior to the discontinuation of BMT services in 1949, the portion of the IRT Flushing Line between Times Square and Queensboro Plaza was known as the Queensboro Line. Since the mid-2010s, the line's signal system has been converted to an automated system.
context_section_description: Second Avenue Line service, including the connection across the Queensboro Bridge, ended June 13, 1942, and free transfers to the IRT Third Avenue Line were offered at Grand Central. These transfers were valid until May 12, 1955, when Third Avenue Line service ended.
  On October 17, 1949, the joint BMT/IRT service arrangement ended. The Flushing Line became the responsibility of IRT. The Astoria Line had its platforms shaved back, and became BMT-only. Because of this, routes through the then eight-track Queensboro Plaza station were consolidated and the northern half of the structure was later torn down. Evidence of where the torn-down platforms were, as well as the trackways that approached this area, can still be seen in the ironwork at the station.
  During the joint service period, the elevated stations on the Astoria and Flushing Lines were only able to fit nine 51-foot-long IRT cars, or seven 60-foot-long BMT cars. After the BMT/IRT dual services ended in 1949, the New York City Board of Transportation announced that the Flushing Line platforms would be lengthened to 11 IRT car lengths, and the Astoria Line platforms extended to 10 BMT car lengths. The project, to start in 1950, would cost $3.85 million.
  Identification of Trains and Routing Automatically (IDENTRA) was implemented on the line in the 1957 and used until 1997, when a route selector punch box with B1 Astoria, local/express buttons was installed at the 10/11 car marker on the upper level of Queensboro Plaza. IDENTRA used a removable round circular disc type radio antenna assembly, slide-mounted on the small mounting brackets that were attached on the front of R12, R14, R15, and R17 cars that were assigned to the 7 route, which had been used on the line since 1948. Similar to the use of radio transponders in the CBTC installation, the system used the antennas to determine whether a train was running local or express, and then accordingly switched the track at interlockings near the Queensboro Plaza and Flushing–Main Street stations. This move reduced the number of signal towers on the line from 9 to 2 and theoretically allowed to operate 37 eleven-car trains instead of only 30 nine-car trains per hour. The consolidated signal system was in use by 1956 while the selector system was in service by 1958. However, in practice, train frequencies were not necessarily increased. According to an experiment performed by the Long Island Star Journal in 1957, rush-hour headways ranged from 6 to 15 minutes between local trains, and 2 to 6 minutes between express trains.
  In 1953, with increased ridership on the line, a "super-express" service was instituted on the line. The next year, the trains were lengthened to nine cars each. Subsequently, the trains were extended to ten cars on November 1, 1962. With the 1964–1965 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in April 1964, trains were lengthened to eleven cars. The Flushing Line received 430 new R33S and R36 cars for this enhanced service.
  Rolling stock along the Flushing Line received "strip maps" in 1965, the first such installation in the system. The strip maps showed only the stations on the Flushing Line, as opposed to for the entire system, but the transfers available at each station were listed.
caption: A poster describing the changes at Queensborough Plaza in 1949
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