Toot, scoot & boogie: The Franklin Avenue shuttle survives thanks to its fans
Brooklyn's little train that could is getting a well-deserved party.
Four stops, two car trains, and nearly 150 years of Brooklyn history: the Franklin Avenue Shuttle has never been defined by its size. What it lacks in length it makes up for in devoted riders.
Sometimes affectionately referred to as the “Toot Scoot”, the tiny transfer train connects riders to eight other lines, and was once crowned the most punctual train in the system. Tragically, the shuttle was also the site of the deadliest crash in subway history and later fell into such disrepair that it earned the nicknames “Ghost Train” and “The Doomsday Express.” Over its long and fraught lifespan, the shuttle has developed a cult following as a train that weaves through the neighborhood.
“The subway is usually out of sight, out of mind. It runs underground, right? And even where it goes above ground, I don't think it is intimately in people's backyards and sidewalks as the shuttle is,” said Matt Choi of Shuttle Friends, a local volunteer group. “This really is a unique line in that it’s really in the neighborhood, in a way that a lot of other trains aren't.”
That devotion will be on display this Sunday (Oct. 18), at Shuttle Friends’ free block party celebrating the train. For Choi, the party is also a chance to show transit officials how important the train is to the neighborhood.
“We just want the fact that people care about this place to be obvious to the people in power,” he said.
The Franklin Avenue Shuttle’s fans see the train as a sign of resilience and dedication: it survived MTA neglect and several attempts to shut it down, mostly thanks to decades of local organizing by a wide coalition of riders. Their tactics included a guerilla garden above a subway station (later ripped up by cops), the involvement of Shirley Chisholm, and students carrying mock tombstones into MTA meetings.
