Aqueduct – North Conduit Avenue (IND Rockaway Line)

Aqueduct – North Conduit Avenue is a station on the IND Rockaway Line of the New York City Subway, served at all times by the A train. The station has two side platforms, four tracks (only the two outer ones are in revenue service), one mezzanine, and a cross-under at street level. The mezzanine and stairs to the full time area are at the extreme south end of this station. There is an additional exit-only at north end of Rockaway-bound platform that leads to the Aqueduct Racetrack. It currently has a chain link fence. The platforms are extra long, about 800 feet in length, which is 200 feet more than a standard IND platform length.

[edit] History
The station was originally built by the New York, Woodhaven and Rockaway Railroad in 1883 as Aqueduct station along what would become the former Long Island Rail Road Rockaway Beach Branch in 1887, and was taken out of service on November 29, 1939 as part of a grade elimination project. A temporary center-island station was built west of the station between that date and the opening of the new high-level station on September 24, 1940. This station was located 26 feet south of the previous station. On October 3, 1955, and like most of the Rockaway Beach Branch was acquired by the New York City Transit Authority and reponed as a subway station along the IND Rockaway Line on June 28, 1956. Evidence of the stations previous incarnation can be found with Long Island Rail Road-type exit steps near the south end, and the aforementioned longer platforms.

On January 18, 2003, a conductor on a northbound A train was killed when she stuck her head out the window and accidentally struck a metal fence located four inches away from the edge of the platform while the train was departing the station. The fence separated the 200-foot long abandoned section of platform at the north end of the station from the rest of the Manhattan-bound platform.[4]