How bad is the W?

The W, the weekday specialist

The W is the yellow local that runs from Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard in Queens, through Manhattan's Broadway corridor, into Brooklyn — but only on weekdays. Its defining trait is that it's a weekday-only train: on evenings and weekends its Brooklyn end doesn't run, and the W itself disappears from parts of the map until the next dawn.

The W is the Astoria line with a split personality. On weekdays it's the local that runs from Astoria all the way to Whitehall Street in Manhattan, sharing its Queens tracks with the N and its Broadway tracks with the R. It's the chew-and-go line of Astoria's waterfront and the daily ride for anyone along the Broadway local corridor.

Rider well-knowns: you can't set your watch by the W because you can't always set your train by it — weekend service on its full Brooklyn end is absent, which trips up riders who assume it runs like its sisters. In Manhattan it's a perfectly good local, stopping everywhere the N skips, and its Whitehall terminal dumps you right at the Staten Island Ferry, one of the better end-rides in the system.

The W is a solid, if limited, line — awarded points for breaking Brooklyn's reach and for its clean weekday run, deducted for the whole disappears-on-weekends business. It's the line you wish ran all the time, because when it does run, it's genuinely pleasant.