MTA tests longer F trains

NYC Transit Wednesday added an 11th subway car to a regular 10-car train to test how it navigates the series of signals and stations along the F line.

Transit managers - who see a potential to increase the number of riders ferried during peak rush hours - were scheduled to launch the "Long Train" test before midnight Wednesday night at the Church Ave. station in Brooklyn.

The Long Train was scheduled to run the rails through Manhattan to eastern Queens and back until 5 a.m.

Whatever hopes officials have for the experiment, the financial woes of the agency, and its parent organization, the MTA, limit its capabilities.

"We obviously neither have the capital nor operating funding to implement anything like this in the foreseeable future," NYC Transit President Howard Roberts said.

"We are just looking at feasibility for planning purposes," Roberts added.

The test train wasn't going to pick up passengers - and for good reason. In some stations, the train wasn't expected to fit completely.

Eleven-car express trains ran along the E and F lines for approximately seven years in the 1950s.

Along one stretch in Brooklyn, the last car was closed off because the stations platforms were 600 feet long while the trains were 660 feet in length.

Given the current, antiquated signal system, transit officials have said they can't safely increase the frequency of trains during peak travel times.

The Long Train is one of several tactics that could provide much needed relief from overcrowding, Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said.

"Albany could make these things a quicker reality by providing decent funding for transit," Russianoff said.