Transit Authority

Q: If the Second Avenue subway becomes a reality, will it be a numbered or lettered train? And while the city has nos. 1-7 trains and a no. 9 train, there isn't a no. 8 train. Did one ever exist?

A: New York City Transit has not officially determined a designation for the new train. Unofficially, though, it is being designated the T line, according to the NYTA's spokesman, Charles Seaton. It could still change to P or some other unused letter. I proposed O, for its distinctive sound, but Mr. Seaton said he'd never heard of the letter O being used at any time in history, and he seemed to think it unlikely that the decision-makers would go for it.

In the 1940s, a T train ran from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and a TT that designated the local.

Secondly, there was indeed a no. 8 train, the old Third Avenue El that ran from Chatham Square, near City Hall, to White Plains Road and Gun Hill Road in the Bronx. It was the country's first elevated train, and it spurred the whole wave of urban mass transit. It was in use from 1878 to 1973. Few remember its number because the subway car used on it, known as the "low V," had no signs on the front.

According to the Web site Forgotten New York (www.forgotten-ny.com), a remnant of the no. 8 is visible in the Bronx, on White Plains Road just south of the Gun Hill Road Station in the form of a double deck of elevated tracks. The top layer is for the nos.2 and 5 trains, and the bottom was the terminus for the no. 8. The Web site includes photos of other relics of the Third Avenue El, like platform signs. But don't go searching the city for them, because they are behind locked doors.

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