All I get is a blue panel with 8 black&white circles and 1 yellow dot.

The six tracks asked about on WNYC, tracks at 135th street are indeed a branch line to the Bronx. This is part of sorting out trains before the fork at 145th street. Some then go north towards Washington Heights & Inwood. Others go east to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, then north under the Concourse to Norwood.

Thanks for all your efforts. I grew up on the IRT so to speak, the west side Van Cortland Park to Battery Park line now known as the 1 train.

We lived on 108th street in Ascension Parish, we used the 103rd street station, not 110th.

Then in Harlem on 124th street, where we used the 125th street station, but still went to Ascension not the local church which was German.

Then to the Bronx, 238th street station, Visitation Parish near Van Cortland Park. Vissy & Vanny,

Very catholic, very non liberal. Once when I held the door for a lady at 96th street, I was scolded by an MTA employee: “What are you? A good time Charley? I’ll have you arrested you do that again kid.”

The IND system that I knew was for the elite. The Concourse was the cat’s meow boulevard in the Bronx. The other branch, Inwood, Washington Heights, Presbyterian Medical center, Audobon Ballroom, 145th & 125th Streets in Harlem, then Central Park West, these were swell places in those days.

I had this sense that the BMT system was full of Socialists or Communists. After all it served Brooklyn didn’t it?

This was confirmed by a ride on the L train where the conductor operated not in a closet but in the middle of a passenger car. How Socialist was that? Working among the people, among the customers!

Today, I use this L train all the time. It runs very well but I miss the presence of the conductor out in the open among the passengers, chatting with them, small talk.

And the G train, I used it every day also for several years when I finally got to know and love Brooklyn.

My big question has always been about almost all of the trains coming into Manhattan. All except the G. why don’t we one or two “ring” lines?

And wouldn’t it be neat if the 7 train extension interfaced with the L, A & E trains at 14th street? Think of this in the context of the branch out to Secaucus Transfer!

You mentioned St George, Staten Island. I have some notes on George Law, the man who is this Saint.

Let me know if you want to see this.

Don’t let the flag touch the ground.

Tom Byrne
January 03 2012