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User:ArcadiaRail/Downtown Lancaster

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The Lancaster Metro opened to the public on Wednesday, July 12, 1911, although private tours of the system and special admission services were conducted as early as mid-June. The initial system composed of two main four-track lines running beneath Central Avenue and Valencia Boulevard, as well as a four-track line under Lancaster Street. Each line carried local and express traffic, with numbers representing north-south service and letters representing east-west. 1 trains ran local on the Central Ave Line from Grand Central Station to downtown Lancaster, 2 trains ran express on Central Avenue and local on the line's Oakland branch, and 3 trains ran express alongside the 2 and local on the Alhambra line. 4 and 5 trains ran express under Valencia Blvd/Fourth Avenue, with the 4 servicing Coronado and the 5 running to Ashland. The 6 train ran local along the Fourth Avenue Line. The A ran local in Fremont and Avalon and the B ran local in Brighton and Valencia; both made express stops under 20th St. The CC was the 20th St Line's local counterpart to the 1 and the 6. No lines initially had elevated service, although this would soon change with the expansion of the network.

Construction was primarily cut-and-cover, with the crosstown 20th Street line routed beneath the Valencia Blvd and Central Ave lines at important interchanges such as Founders' Square and Ashland Park North. Roads were generally cleared in quarter-mile segments in four phases, with the first phase starting in March 1910 and the last phase beginning in August 1911. Digging the 25-foot deep tunnels (generally speaking, two feet of road surface with a 10-foot high mezzanine and 12-foot high platform) themselves generally took two months. Laying the concrete foundation and building the tunnel's walls and ceiling took three months, and resurfacing the road—often with additional improvements—could be completed in two weeks. Two months was necessary for station, mezzanine, and platform construction, and furnishing stations typically required a month of work. Laying rails could be accomplished fairly quickly once adjacent tunnels were excavated, but wiring and calibrating signals took three months of work. The rail network was tested starting June 5, finishing all safety checks by the 23rd. Private tours were conducted in the days leading up to the system's opening on July 12, 1911. Initial ridership exceeded projections substantially, and further extensions and branching served to increase both capacity and demand.


Although the original metro plan was fully realized by the late 1910s, initial service was truncated in the interest of connecting important areas within central Lancaster to ease congestion on surface level transportation. After the rapid construction of the downtown trunk lines proved difficult to manage, the decision was made to excavate longer tunnel segments and begin fewer projects concurrently. This allowed fewer construction workers on site at any given time, freeing up manpower for other projects. A new line through the manufacturing districts of Brighton was a main order of business made more prescient by its rapid expansion in the 1910s. The project, a spur off of the existing Crosstown Line with a bellmouth for future service to the south, was greenlit in late 1911 and construction began soon after in 1912 and the line opening in 1914. The Lancaster St branch of the Fourth Ave line was a high priority for the company due to the density of the surrounding neighborhoods and construction on the two-track line began, in some places, before the main network was open. The line was operational by the start of 1915.

In addition to the underground subway system, elevated rail lines were present on 4th Ave, 7th Ave, 5th St (south of Lancaster St) and South Street as early as 1911, as well as a streetcar system running the length of 2nd Ave, 6th Ave, Lancaster St, Arch St, 4th St, and Cypress St. These systems were decommissioned in the 1940s amid rapid subway expansion and declining expenditures on maintenance.

In 1915, the limitations of the subway network's original plan had been exposed as development outpaced 1910 projections. As part of the Arcadian government's first official five year plan, Lancaster's projected density was revised upwards and new metro lines were proposed. All lines outlined in the plan were intended to begin construction before the end of the decade. These projects included a new trunk line underneath Eighth Avenue with a direct connection to Grand Central Station, a four-track trunk line extending the Brighton/Broadmoor Line south, a new two-track Crosstown Line, and extensions of the Central Avenue, Fourth Avenue, and Lancaster Street lines. The high-priority Eighth Avenue Line began construction in 1915 and began operations in 1918. Both the Central Avenue Line extension and the Lancaster Street Line extension started in 1916 and opened in 1917. In 1917, work began on the deep-level Crosstown Line in the first test of the tunnel-boring machine. The line opened in 1921. Also in 1917, the Brighton Line began construction using the conventional cut-and-cover method, opening in 1920. The Fourth Ave Line extension began in 1918 and opened in 1920.

The 1920 five year plan was a massive undertaking centered around accurately anticipating Lancaster's unprecedented growth entering the new decade. Most notably, this required an extensive expansion of the metro system. The plan called for northward extensions of the Brighton, Alhambra, Ashland, and Oakland lines, with all but the first extending under the river and to the city's north bank, western extensions of the Avalon, Fremont, and Coronado lines, eastern extensions of the Crosstown and Fremont lines, and southward extensions of the Central Ave, Fourth Ave, Eighth Ave, and Broadmoor lines. Importantly, these extensions were undertaken with other transit complementing the lines to increase ridership. For the first time, the city's all-important radial boulevards were planned with respect to subway construction. The central projects of the plan were a new four-track trunk line under East Second Ave to connect the city's manufacturing districts and offer a one-seat ride from eastern downtown Lancaster to Brighton, along with a new crosstown line: Crosstown South. Crosstown South was intended to branch off the Fourth Avenue Line and a new two-track crosstown subway which could be extended westward as demand for housing grew.

All Major Metro Projects, 1911–
Date Opened Project Stations Track (mi) Lines Construction Start Priority
1911-07-12 Central Ave Line 31 5.5 1
1911-07-12 Valencia Blvd Line 11 1.5 2
1911-07-12 20th St Line 20 4 3
1914-06-XX Brighton Line
1915-02-XX Lancaster St Line
1921 Crosstown Line 1917 2
1917-09-XX Lancaster St Line Extension 1916 5
1918 Eighth Ave Line 1915 1
1920 Brighton Line 1917 4
1917-01-XX Central Ave Line Extension 1916 3
1920 Fourth Ave Line Extension 1918 3
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