More New York memory: After the 2nd Avenue elevated was abandoned and torn town, some of its traffic, including the rush hour Freeman Street expresses that shared tracks with the 7th Avenue and Lexington Avenue subway trains on the West Farms Bronx elevated structure, was shifted to the Third Avenue elevated. In the direction of rush hour, the express track and the local track each saw a train about every 120 seconds, departure from station to departure from station. The center reversable-direction express track was signalled to handle a 90-second headway, just like signalling on most subway lines. (Signalling does not mean that the close headway is acheived. In most cases, except those noted earlier, the headways were longer.) But all this equjpment had to turn around in downtown Manhattam which meant that the local track in opposite direction from the rush hour was seeing a train every minute, every 60 seconds. The local tracks were not signalled exept at switches. The reverse-direction trains thus ran on site, not very fast, sort of like the Chicago loop perfomance except for a much greater distance. All carried passengers and ran as locals making all local stops, including gate-car through expresses on the non-rush direction trip. The exceptions were the composite-car through express equpment moves which ran light, without passsenger, and didn't need to stop at stations, just running very slowly. This was because they weighed more and the local track did not have the strengthening that the center express track had.
In the early 1960s, CTA was running the State Street Subway (ABS with track trips) on an alternating 60-90 second headway (Englewoods were on the 60 second interval, with Jackson Parks running to the 90 second interval). Pre-cab signals, and also pre-State Street Subway (so before 1943) the Loop "L" was operated with trains double-berthing at stations in the peak. While it might have been slow-going, this meant the time between trains was probably on the order of at most 15-20 seconds from the time the first one took off till the follower got going.
There's no valid comparison to today, because the demand has changed so radically. Still, I hope this helps, Art
From what I recall, during WWII, the express tracks in the direction of rush hour from 59th Street Columbus Circle to just south of 145th Street on 8th Avenue and Central Park West had a train every 90 seconds. This I believe was the minimum headway ever operated on the New York subway sytem. Three ten-car services operated, all express, the A, Washington Heights - 8th Avenue - Fulton Street Brooklyn, the C, Concourse-Bronx-8th Avenue-Jay St. or Euclid Avenue only, Brooklyn, and D Concourse-Bronx-6th Ave-Hudson Terminal. At various times similar close headways have been operated on other lines, specifically the Lexington Avenue Express between Bowling Green and just south of 149th Street in The bornx.
On PATH, the minimum was two minutes, 120 seconds, that is, but may have been shortened to 100 seconds at present. On the Newark line, the closeness is limited by not having hostlers at Newark and the use of only two pocket tracks, so headways can not be closer than four minutes.
On the Green Line Light Rail in Boston, even closer headways are provided, but still not as close as a train a minute.
The closest rail operaton I ever witnessed was rush hour on St. Catherines Street in Montreal, where six or seven individual streetcars would be lined up at each intersection, and when the light turned green they would move out as if coupled (which they were not) with each "Guarde du Moteur" advancing his K-type drum controller with the confidence that the equivalent ahead was doing the same thing. With a two-minute traffic light cycle, this means a car every 9 or 10 seconds. The cars were all two-man operated, not articulated, about 50 feet long, with a big rear platform, with the ability to load three lines of people at once. When the conversion to bus operation took place, it took two streets, St. Catherans and Dorchester Avenue, to handle the bus traffic that was handled entirely on one pair of streetcar tracks on St. Catherans Street.
I have ridden NYC and PATH trains looking at markers many times! Good place to get a shot is along one of the elevated lines, like the J line Brooklyn to Jamaica's LIRR station. I've often seen trains one block behind the occupied, actually see four or five trains in a row!
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What is the maximum frequency (i.e. number of trains per hour) that is - or has been - run on the New York subway, or indeed on other systems such as Chicago or New York?
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