42nd Street Subway Shuttle

I believe the original shuttle route between Grand Central and Times Square was a streetcar...

Typical of New York City, if you cannot get there one way  on the subway, there is an alternate route-- in this case the Number 7 train way downstairs...(entrance back over at the Main Grand Central Subway Station). To get there you with a wheelchair you have to use this ultra-spooky elevator...

For a while I think they were proposing another streetcar kind of thing for 42nd Street, but that got nowhere...

Just out of curiosity, let me see if there is anything more on the internet...such as statistics ( the shuttle trains carry a hell of a lot of people back and forth every day). 

Well, I'll be damned...no easy access to number of people who use the shuttle every day..I know it is in the thousands...typical of the MTA not to make information like this easily available.

Before anything else, however, here is an interesting video of the shuttle in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_MMtujrP8g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_MMtujrP8g 

Now... 

The 42nd Street Shuttle is a New York City Subway shuttle train service that operates in Manhattan. It is sometimes referred to as the Grand Central / Times Square Shuttle, since these are the only two stations served by the shuttle. It runs at all times except late nights, connecting Times Square to Grand Central under 42nd Street. It is the shortest regular service in the system, running 0.8 miles (1.3 km) in officially one minute. The 42nd Street Shuttle is part of the A Division of New York City Transit, and the tracks that it uses opened in 1904 as part of the first subway in the city. In order to distinguish it from the other shuttles in the system, NYCT Rapid Transit Operations internally refers to it as the 0. It has no above-ground stations, making it the only IRT service to remain completely underground during its entire run. It is colored light slate gray on route signs, station signs, rolling stock, and the official subway map.

History

The subway through which the shuttle runs was opened on October 27, 1904, the first day of subway service in Manhattan. It served as part of the IRT's main line until August 1, 1918, when the Dual Contracts' "H system" was put into service, with through trains over the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line, and only shuttle trains under 42nd Street.^[1]
The southbound express track on the four-track line was closed and new platforms were built, as the old station at Times Square had been local-only. However, the new arrangement turned out to be inadequate, and the shuttle was closed on midnight between August 3–4 for expansion of the platforms.^[2] The shuttle reopened on September 28, 1918, with improved passageways and platforms. On the walls of the stations, black bands (at Times Square) and green bands (at Grand Central) were painted to guide passengers to the shuttle platforms.^[3] As part of a demonstration for automation, the shuttle was briefly automated from 1959 to 1964 on Track 4. A severe fire at the Grand Central station destroyed the demonstration train and manual operation had been restored since.^[4]
The shuttle ran at all times until September 10, 1995.^[5] Since then, it has run at all times except late nights, when the 7 train provides replacement service. When the shuttle is closed, the area is sometimes used for movie and TV filming. The French Connection and King of New York, among many other titles, were filmed on the 42nd Street shuttle.