Ghost Train

The K train is not a brand. It’s not a business venture. It’s not even a train.

There is no such thing as a K train and, for all practical purposes, there never really was. Apparently, it existed for all of half a minute between 1985 and 1988 as the Eighth Avenue local after the AA was discontinued and before the C took its place—but only within Manhattan and never during rush hour. That means that even among New Yorkers who were riding the rails 30 years ago, who grew up riding the rails, few of us ever took a K train even by mistake.

The K in the photograph is a phantom that I came across on my way home late one night in 2017 as the work trains were snaking through the tunnels. It might have been making its way from some forgotten corner of one trainyard  to another or it might have been an actual ghost. (Note that it was traveling the wrong way—back in time—on the downtown track—the local track, the one it would have been most familiar with.) And as in so many ghost stories, I was the only one there to witness it.