 Eighth Avenue station opened on May 30, 1931, and was the last station to open on the Canarsie Line, built as an extension from the mainline that opened seven years earlier westward from Sixth Avenue, the previous terminal.Eighth Avenue uses a single island platform with two tracks which are designated officially as Q1 and Q2.Originally, they were named QW1 and QW2 since Eighth Avenue was a western extension of the Canarsie Line, but the line has been re-chained as Q. Eighth Avenue is the zero-point of the Canarsie Line's chaining, that is, it is the starting point of all distances on the line.