page_title: W (New York City Subway service)
section_title: Context
hierarchical_section_title: W (New York City Subway service) / Service history / Context
caption_attribution_description: English: This is an R68A W train. It is car 5078 and is at the Broadway station in Astoria, Queens.
context_page_description: The W Broadway Local is a rapid transit service of the New York City Subway's B Division. Its route emblem, or "bullet", is colored yellow since it uses the BMT Broadway Line in Manhattan.
  The W operates weekdays only except late nights between Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, Queens and Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan, making local stops along its entire route; limited rush hour service is extended beyond Whitehall Street to and from 86th Street in Gravesend, Brooklyn, making local stops in Brooklyn. The W is internally staffed and scheduled as part of the N.
  Introduced on July 22, 2001, the W ran at all times on the BMT West End Line and BMT Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn to Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue across the Manhattan Bridge, running express on the Broadway Line. It was truncated in 2004 to its current service pattern, running local on the Broadway Line to Whitehall Street until June 25, 2010, when it was eliminated due to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's financial crisis. The route was later reinstated on November 7, 2016, using its original emblem and 2004–2010 routing, as part of the updated service pattern related to the opening of the Second Avenue Subway.
context_section_description: The W was originally conceived as an extra Broadway Line local service running on the Astoria and Broadway lines to Whitehall Street in Manhattan. This service was essentially a variant of the N route, which in the 1970s and 1980s ran express on the Broadway Line between Forest Hills–71st Avenue in Queens and Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn. At the time, some trains ran local on Broadway and only traveled between Forest Hills and Whitehall Street. However, reconstruction of the Manhattan Bridge's subway tracks between 1986 and 2004 forced the N, which normally ran express on the Broadway Line and via the bridge, to run local via the Montague Street Tunnel. This service change precluded W local service from running as envisioned. The W bullet appeared on older roll signs as a yellow diamond bullet, while newer roll signs featured the modern round bullet. The W also appeared on the digital signs of the R44s and R46s with any route and destination combination that could be used for the Broadway Line.
  The W label was first used in 2001, when the two tracks on the Manhattan Bridge's northern side, which connected to the IND Sixth Avenue Line, were closed for repairs. This required the suspension of Sixth Avenue B service south of 34th Street–Herald Square as it used those tracks to travel to and from Brooklyn. The W service replaced the B on the BMT West End Line and BMT Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn, ran on the BMT Broadway Line in Manhattan and BMT Astoria Line in Queens. It replicated the route of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s old 3 route, later named the T, that operated from 1916 until 1967, when the B replaced it. The W also replicated the split in B service from 1986 to 1988, when the bridge's north tracks were first closed, although both halves of the route were labeled B.
caption: A W train of R68As leaving Broadway
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