Over the last five years, we’ve been documenting the construction along the Second Avenue Subway. On our second visit, we went deep into the Lexington Avenue/63rd Street stop and in 2015 we revealed the new “Lex 63” lettering on the tiles of the station. Now, as reported by Second Avenue Sagas and 6Sqft, a videographer happened to catch some test trains heading down the tracks yesterday. The Second Avenue subway track was behind a construction wall for years along the active platform, but a public area was recently opened. DJ Hammers, aka Max Diamond, writes that he captured the video from this public area between the two levels of the station.
Tech and Transit also has their own video and state that it was the first day of testing:
The trains utilized for the test of the third rail were not the new R179 cars that just arrived but R160 trains brought in from Coney Island rail yard and a set of R68A trains. They used metal weights – 5000 pounds of metal plates in front of each door – to simulate the train weight of a car with passengers and ran the trains between 57th Street – 7th Avenue on the (Q) line and 96th Street – 2nd Avenue.
The first phase of the Second Avenue Subway line has a launch date of December 2016 – and transit watchers are awaiting to see if that deadline will be met.
Next, check out our behind the scenes construction photographs from last year in the Second Avenue Subway. Read about the Top 10 Secrets of the NYC Subway.
