Three services in the New York Subway are designated as S (shuttle). These are short services that serve mainly to connect passengers to longer services.

• 42nd Street Shuttle (also called Times Square-Grand Central Shuttle)
• Rockaway Park Shuttle
• Franklin Avenue Shuttle

The following services run as shuttles during off hours, but are not designated S:

• early Sunday morning (Lenox Shuttle), originally SS
• late nights (Dyre Avenue Shuttle), originally SS
• late nights (Lefferts Boulevard Shuttle), sometimes uses a yellow S[1]
• evenings, weekends and late nights (Myrtle Avenue Shuttle), originally SS
• late nights (Bay Ridge Shuttle)

Former uses

Other lines have in the past been designated S; the label has also been used for temporary shuttles due to construction. Before 1986, all shuttles had the label SS, and S was reserved for 'special' services, including IND trains to Aqueduct Racetrack . The SS label was first applied in 1967, when all services were labeled due to the completion of the Chrystie Street Connection.

See HH for the old Court Street Shuttle and the later Rockaway Shuttle. See for the old Third Avenue Shuttle in the Bronx (shown as SHUTTLE on rollsigns).[2]

Former uses of the S or SS designation are as follows:

• Bowling Green-South Ferry Shuttle (1909-1977)
• Culver Shuttle (1954-1975)
• 63rd Street Shuttle (1998-1999)
• Sixth Avenue Shuttle (2001)
• Grand Street Shuttle (?-2001)

Lenox Terminal Shuttle (1905?-ca. 1970)

The Lenox Terminal Shuttle (also Lenox Shuttle and Lenox Avenue Shuttle) ran between Harlem-148th Street (formerly known as Lenox Terminal) and 135th Street when the 3 didn't run. Prior to May 13, 1968 it was the 145th Street Shuttle, running only to 145th Street , and only from 21:00 to 01:00. It was in place by 1918, and may have been started in 1905, when the IRT White Plains Road Line opened to the IRT Lenox Avenue Line.

When the extension to 148th Street opened, the hours were extended to run all the time that the 3 didn't run (late evenings and late nights). Then between 1969 and 1972 it was folded into the 3, but continued to run as simply a shuttle at those times. Late night service last ran on the morning of September 10, 1995.

The 3 now runs at all times but late nights, but the shuttle survives Sunday mornings from 06:00 to 08:30, when the 3 only runs north of 135th Street .

East 180th Street-Dyre Avenue Shuttle

Main article: IRT Dyre Avenue Line

The East 180th Street-Dyre Avenue Shuttle (also Dyre Avenue Shuttle) was established as a new subway service and full-time shuttle in 1941 between the former East 180th Street station of the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway and Dyre Avenue , which was the last station of the NYW&B within New York City. Passengers had to make a walking transfer between the Dyre Avenue Line and the IRT White Plains Road Line at East 180th Street as the two lines did not share a common station and there was no track connection between the lines.

In 1957 a flyover connection opened between the East 180th Street station of the White Plains Road Line and the Dyre Avenue Line, enabling through service by trains of the from Manhattan to Dyre Avenue. At the same time, the former NYW&B station was closed and off-hours Dyre Avenue Shuttles rerouted to the White Plains Road Line station. These shuttles were initially labeled 2 like the full-time service but were later signed , a number now used for IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line skip-stop service.

The off-hours Dyre Avenue shuttle still operates, but trains on the line are signed 5, the same as the through service that now serves the line.

Myrtle Avenue Shuttle (1969-ca. 1972)

This was only around for a few years from 1969, picking up the slack from , before it was merged into the M.

Nassau Street Shuttle

This ran only during Williamsburg Bridge rehabilitation, providing Manhattan service for the , M and .

References

• NYCsubway.org - Historical Maps
• NYCsubway.org - FAQ: The Letter, Number and Color Codes of the New York Subways
• Line By Line History
• Subway Bullets
• One Dies in Wreck of Subway Train, New York Times December 9, 1918 page 13
• Coming Transit Reductions: What They Mean for You, New York Times August 20, 1995 page CY10
• A Subway Station is Shuttered, the First in 33 Years, New York Times September 11, 1995 [the article is about Dean Street on the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, and the headline refers to the 1962 closing of Worth Street; several old-style elevated railways were closed since then, as well as the Culver Shuttle which hosted both elevated and subway service at one time]