Question on how to announce defunct subway lines

[Next Train Announcer]

Hey there, everyone! I have to make a recording (not for the MTA) that involves some defunct subway lines; the RR and LL. Since these lines predate my current subway recordings I want to make sure I say them correctly. It is "double L" and "double R" or L-L and R-R. I'm sure I mentioned these lines in long ago traffic reports but I don't remember how I said them. 

Thanks for your help and please stand away from the platform edge!

Bernie Wagenblast  

[Lex]

58 minutes ago, Next Train Announcer said:

Hey there, everyone! I have to make a recording (not for the MTA) that involves some defunct subway lines; the RR and LL. Since these lines predate my current subway recordings I want to make sure I say them correctly. It is "double L" and "double R" or L-L and R-R. I'm sure I mentioned these lines in long ago traffic reports but I don't remember how I said them. 

Thanks for your help and please stand away from the platform edge!

Bernie Wagenblast  

Personally, I'd recommend just saying the letter twice. It would be more consistent with routes like the , a notable case of having two different letters.

[Lawrence St]

1 minute ago, Lex said:

Personally, I'd recommend just saying the letter twice. It would be more consistent with routes like the , a notable case of having two different letters.

I second this motion.

[Church Ave]

But in this NY Transit Museum video from 1981, at 8:25, when announcing transfers at 59 St-Columbus Circle, the conductor refers to the "Double A" local when stating the transfers. Of course it's not clear whether this was the norm or if both styles were used, but just something to keep in mind. 

Looking forward to hearing the recordings when published! Please make sure to provide an update when that happens. 

[Kamen Rider]

My family has long called Ridgewood home and especially my mother, rode the LL. 
 

And sometimes, from asking them (I wasn’t born until three years after they went to single letters) it seems to have been a personal preference deal. but more often than not mom would refer to it as the “EL EL”…

[Lex]

2 hours ago, Church Ave said:

But in this NY Transit Museum video from 1981, at 8:25, when announcing transfers at 59 St-Columbus Circle, the conductor refers to the "Double A" local when stating the transfers. Of course it's not clear whether this was the norm or if both styles were used, but just something to keep in mind. 

Chances are, both were used, but it's worth noting that we had routes like the  and .

I was born about a full decade after the move to single letters and I seriously doubt anyone in my family even remembers some routes had two letters, so all I can do is speculate.

[B35 via Church]

On 6/14/2024 at 2:49 PM, Next Train Announcer said:

Hey there, everyone! I have to make a recording (not for the MTA) that involves some defunct subway lines; the RR and LL. Since these lines predate my current subway recordings I want to make sure I say them correctly. It is "double L" and "double R" or L-L and R-R. I'm sure I mentioned these lines in long ago traffic reports but I don't remember how I said them. 

Thanks for your help and please stand away from the platform edge!

Bernie Wagenblast  

FWIW, as a kid (along w/ my mother, of course), going to visit my father in Park Slope during the 80's, I never heard any c/r say "arr arr".... It was always "double R".

The days when c/r's would smile when they were in close proximity to hearing a kid mimic their announcements

 

[darkstar8983]

I know my grandmother (and my mother) used to always refer to the  as the  (calling it the G-G), my mother only recently switching to calling it the G, and my grandmothers sister always was puzzled as to why she couldn’t take the   to Astoria-Ditmars Blvd, and would look at me oddly when I told her she had to take the  there (even though she lived in Astoria until 2007 (and physically taking the ) and now lives on Staten Island to this day).

[CenSin]

On 6/14/2024 at 2:49 PM, Next Train Announcer said:

It is "double L" and "double R" or L-L and R-R.

And is it “el ‘el” with clearly separated syllables or “eh ‘lel” as the French do when enchaînementing?

[Kamen Rider]

Two separately pronounced letters if being said in that fashion. 
 

I asked mom this morning as she said it was rather inconsistent with the exception of everyone calling the G the “Gee gee”. 
 

My family can basically be described as “Brooklyn Dodger Stock”, where old habits die hard. Until the end of the Myrtle El south of Broadway, it wasn’t “M” or “MJ” or even their BMT numbers, it was “Steels or Wooden”. 
 

so in the case of the L… more often than not, it was still “the Canarsie Line”

 

I do try to work the line names in sometimes myself.

[Trainmaster5]

3 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

Two separately pronounced letters if being said in that fashion. 
 

I asked mom this morning as she said it was rather inconsistent with the exception of everyone calling the G the “Gee gee”. 
 

My family can basically be described as “Brooklyn Dodger Stock”, where old habits die hard. Until the end of the Myrtle El south of Broadway, it wasn’t “M” or “MJ” or even their BMT numbers, it was “Steels or Wooden”. 
 

so in the case of the L… more often than not, it was still “the Canarsie Line”

 

I do try to work the line names in sometimes myself.

Brooklyn Dodger stock 😁. I love it. I’m old enough to remember the Broadway -Brooklyn/ Jamaica line by the numbers. Ditto the Canarsie line. The Brighton line by number before it became a lettered line. The older generation in my family called today’s  train the Eighth Avenue line because the old Fulton Street line was the El that travelled outside. You bring back memories. Carry on.

[zacster]

It was always the TeeTee, the ARE ARE, the QB, QT, the EL EL, and all the IND double letters were pronounced as two letters.  I don't remember anybody calling it the Double R or Double B, except out of towners.

[CenSin]

8 hours ago, zacster said:

TeeTee, the ARE ARE, the QB, QT, the EL EL, and all the IND double letters were pronounced as two letters.

Might have survived if it weren’t for the inconvenient encoding overhead. Information theory says shorter lengths (i.e., one syllable) should be assigned to the most frequently spoken sequences (a.k.a, the trains which make the most stops and thus have the most announcements).

I don’t know what we would use them for, but we clearly have more route variants than we have letters and numbers combined, which we are currently overloading.