An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks).
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Large portions of the subway outside Manhattan are elevated, on embankments, or in open cuts, and a few stretches of track run at ground level. In total, 40% of track is above ground.
In certain areas changes in terrain have made it necessary to run the trains above ground. The 1 line comes out in Harlem and run above ground into The Bronx because of this. The same is also true of the train going to Coney Island. It comes above and stays there for most of its run through South Brooklyn.
According to the MTA, much of the 7 line is elevated because the two divisions that operated it, the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Company and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT), specialized in elevated railroads. The IRT and the BRT continued to build on this line up until 1928.
In the early evening of May 12, 1955, a train pulled out of Lower Manhattan's Chatham Square, near City Hall, bound for upper Manhattan and the Bronx via Third Avenue. It was the last run of the Third Avenue elevated, and the last time a train ran up a large chunk of Manhattan east of Lexington Avenue for six decades.
Maneuver Manhattan's train system like a localHere, Archer Hotel New York's consummate host offers timely tips on navigating the New York City subway (aka train) system like a boss. LOCAL TIP: New Yorkers typically call the subway “trains” (not underground or metro) or by their alpha name (the C or the Q).
The original IRT line opened in 1904, and 116 Street - Columbia University (now a 1 train stop) was part of the first wave of stations that ran from City Hall to 145th Street at Broadway.
The sole long-distance intercity passenger railroad in the continental U.S. is Amtrak, and multiple current commuter rail systems provide regional intercity services such as New York-New Haven, and Stockton-San Jose. In Alaska, intercity service is provided by Alaska Railroad instead of Amtrak.