Service Commission proposed lengthening platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts, made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to $1.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ) spent on platform lengthening, $500,000 () was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent. At the Grand Central station, the northbound platform was extended west, while the southbound platform was extended west. Small portions of the walls and roof were also reconstructed, and a new signal tower was constructed at the west end of the station. Six-car local trains began operating in October 1910. On January 23, 1911, ten-car express trains began running on the Lenox Avenue Line, and the following day, ten-car express trains were inaugurated on the West Side Line. Early expansion On May 17, 1910, the New York State Public Service Commission received a letter from the New York Central Railroad announcing plans to create a concourse to connect the under-construction Grand Central Terminal with new subway lines planned at 42nd Street. The plan called for the construction of a passageway under 42nd Street from the Vanderbilt Avenue end of the existing subway station to an elevator shaft at Lexington Avenue, connecting the planned Steinway Tunnel and Broadway–Lexington Avenue subway lines with street level. An elevator shaft would have connected the Steinway Tunnel, a platform with the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (H&M, now PATH), and the new concourse, and would have led out to street level adjacent to a stairway leading to an extension of the IRT Third Avenue Line. As part of this proposal, the new station on the Broadway–Lexington Avenue Line would have been located at 42nd Street instead of 43rd Street to provide an adequate connection with Grand Central Terminal. The New York Central also recommended revising the planned location of the station on the Steinway tunnel line. The original plan for what became the Lexington Avenue Line north of 42nd Street was to continue it south through Irving Place and into what is now the BMT Broadway Line at Ninth Street and Broadway. Contracts awarded on July 21, 1911, included Section 6 between 26th Street and 40th Street; at the time, the IRT had withdrawn from the talks,