14th Street-Union Square (IRT Lexington Avenue Line station)
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Manhattan
Template:NYCS station rowIRT Lexington Avenue Line
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Template:NYCS station rowOctober 27, 1904
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14th Street-Union Square is an express station with two island platforms, located at Park Avenue and 14th Street. The uptown and downtown platforms are offset from each other and slightly curved. Gap-filling movable platforms are automatically operated via proximity sensors mounted on the outside wall when trains arrive. The station has two abandoned local side platforms; the nouthbound one is visible through windows, bordered with wide, bright red frames. It looks like this platform is being used as a utility chase. From the north end of the downtown platform's mezzanine one can see the abandoned southbound side platform thorugh a hole in the plywood. The station's mezzanines are located over the platforms.
On August 29, 1991, an accident occurred just north of the station, killing five people in one of the worst wrecks since the Malbone Street Disaster of 1918. The train operator, Robert Ray, had been overshooting platforms on the entire run. Just north of 14th Street-Union Square the train was to be shifted to the local track due to repairs. He had been running the train at 40 mph (65 km/h) in a 10 mph (16 km/h) zone and took the switch so fast that only the front of the first car made the crossover. The third and fourth cars ended up perpendicular to the tracks, having sheared off support columns and split in half. The line suffered heavy damage and service was disrupted for six days as transit workers toiled around the clock to clean up the wreckage. The entire infrastructure, including signals, switches, track, roadbed, cabling, and 23 support columns needed to be replaced. The motorman was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The wreck occurred between 18th Street Station and 14th Street-Union Square on the downtown side at the entry to a former pocket track. Like 72nd Street on the Template:IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line, 14th Street-Union Square was built with extra tracks on the approach to the station. These were between the incoming local and express track and were one old IRT train length long. The idea was to have a 'stacking' track where a train could be held momentarily until the platform cleared for it to enter the station. The tracks here and at 72nd Street were rendered useless when train lengths grew beyond their capacity. When the damage from the 1991 wreck was repaired, the stacking track was removed, but the crossover was not made gentler.
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External links
- NYCsubway.org - 14th Street-Union Square (http://nycsubway.org/irt/eastside/irt-eastside-14.html) (text used with permission)