On the LIRR Continuation Page 2:

    Odd Incident at Wreck Lead (on the LIRR)
    LIRR and LI Railroad Miscellany
    Dashing Dan

On the (preceding) LIRR Continuation Page 3:

    Victorian Stations Still Standing on the LIRR

On this LIRR Continuation Page 4:

    Blissville and Laurel Hill Sidings,

On the LIRR Continuation Page 5:

    LIRR DE30AC and DM30AC Locomotives
    Victorian LIRR Stations (continued)

On the Central RR of LI Page:
    Central RR of LI - moved to LIRR Cont. Page 5 on 17 Dec 00,

On the Central RR of LI Continuation Page 1:
    Central RR Bridge.
    Meadowbrook/Salisbury Plains Station.
    Bethpage Branch.

On the LIRR Continuation Page 6:

    Nassau County Police 2nd Pct. Booth D/Locust Tower (cont'd)

On the LI Railroads Continuation Page:
    Long Island Railroads
        [with a link to the NYCRR (Hell Gate)]

Also see:

NOTE - All DE30AC and DM30AC locomotive information moved 05 Jul 00 to Continuation Page 5.

On the Vest Pocket railroads You Can Model segment of the Model RR Continuation page, I give details of the Degnon Terminal RR, and the LIRR/NY&AR Murrers (3rd. Street) and Kearney sidings.  Similar interesting facilities exist at the Blissville and Laurel Hill sidings and at the Maspeth and Fresh Pond yards.  Unlike Degnon Terminal and Murrers and Kearney sidings, where I used to drive around, these other facilities have no personal interest for me.  Long Island is simply loaded with interesting places to model but I can not possibly pretend to be expert or even vitally concerned with them; I give scans of the latter group only because they are jam-packed with industries and are adjacent to the former ones (so is L. I. City and Sunnyside, but they are covered by other sites).

Here, then, are those latter track maps from "LIRR Track Plans - 1966".

Blissville and Laurel Hill Sidings

Here's an 1897 map from Bernie Ente, supposedly of the Blissville area; the lower right corner is the beginning of Kearney sidings and the yard itself is immediately south of the west end of what later became Degnon Terminal, so I don't know what it is, but it sure isn't the site of the present day Blissville.

[Thumbnail image; click on picture for large image.]

Bernie comments: "The piers jutting out into Newtown Creek were known as the 'Manure Dock' {and we think Newtown Creek smells bad, now! - SB,III}.  The road bridge taking Borden Avenue over Dutch Kills is a swing bridge predating the present (1908) retractile bridge.  Look at Dutch Kills before it was cut back.  It actually wanders all the way up into what was to become Sunnyside Yard!"

Neziah Bliss, visionary, inventor, shipbuilder, industrialist, gave Green Point its wakeup call.  In 1810, Bliss met Robert Fulton and became a successful manufacturer of steam engines and steamboats.  In 1811, Bliss organized a company in Philadelphia and built a steamboat.  Bliss returned to New York in 1827 and he capitalized on his vast knowledge and skills by establishing the Novelty Iron Works at the foot of East 12th Street in Manhattan.  His company became famous for its maritime engines.  Most of the vessels built in the New York area had Novelty engines.

In 1832 Bliss purchased 30 acres of riverfront land from John Meserole and continued to consolidate his Green Point land holdings.  He also purchased land across Newtown Creek in what is present-day Long Island City.  In 1834, Bliss's plan finally took a more formal shape {and what is now Greenpoint developed as a planned community}.  He built a home in Green Point for himself and his family, and became known as Neziah Bliss of Green Point.  Since his foundry was across the river, as were many other suppliers and tradesmen needed to build Green Point, he set up a ferry service across the East River ca. 1850, first to East 10th Street and then to East 23rd Street.

Apparently not content with building Greenpoint, Bliss acquired land across Newtown Creek and formed the town of Blissville.  He also built the first version of what was to be known for many years as the Blissville Bridge {today's Greenpoint Avenue Bridge}.  Blissville, now part of Long Island City, was on what is now the Queens side of the Greenpoint Avenue bridge.

[This is as good a place as any to note that the USS Monitor was constructed in 1861-1862 at the Continental Ship Yard in Greenpoint.]

Here's the 1966 track plan of the area:

Blissville and Laurel Hill Sidings Track Plans
(image from LIRR Track Plans - 1966).

Maspeth Yard

Maspeth Yard Track Plan (image from LIRR Track Plans - 1966).

Fresh Pond Yard and the NY&AR/NYCRR Interchange

Fresh Pond Yard and NY&AR/NYCRR Interchange Track Plans (image from LIRR Track Plans - 1966).

Well, the destruction of our LIRR heritage continues apace! p; Bernie Ente advises (27 Jul 00) that Fremont Tower, which used to control Fresh Pond Junction, has been torn down and the site on the north side of Otto Road has been regraded.

Please don't blame the NYA for this; the vandals did their thing long before the NYA got involved. - SB,III

LIRR MISCELLANY - continued

[Thumbnail image - click on the picture for the full (120Kb) image.
Photo (24 Sep 99) by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III]

This aberration was perpetrated by Engine #35,
ably assisted by the Berlinerwerke Art Dept.
[Actually, what you are looking at is the FA cab and observation car deck (neither of the original units of which ever actually served on the LIRR) from the LIRR exhibit at the '63-64 "World's" Fair, via Camp Tanglewood, to #35's Mitchel Field site (somewhat altered by the Art Dept.)]

Also speaking of those ALCo FA-1 and FA-2 Power Cab Control Units/Power Packs, and the lone EMD F-9A (the prototype Power Pack) and three F-7As, that's all, folks!  They are either gone or about to be, being traded to EMD on the DE/DM30ACs or shipped off elsewhere; Bernie Ente's 30 Sep 99 photo shows a dead line at the New York & Atlantic's (ex-LIRR) Fresh Pond Yard (that lead ALCo looks almost as good as a PA!).

Then there was the trip I took from Cedarhurst station in to Manhattan's Penn Station ca. 1945 in the dead of a bitterly cold winter in an old baseboard-heated MU car; I was wearing a brand-new pair of shoes with the then-new NEOLITE ("Step On It!") soles and rested my right foot on the heater to stay vaguely warm.  When we finally arrived at Penn, I waited until everyone was off (I NEVER stand in the crowd jamming the aisle and vestibules to get off!) and leisurely went to get up.  HA!  My right foot was stuck fast to the heater; the NEOLITE plastic had melted into the patterned grill above the heating element!  A conductor pulled with all his might and freed the shoe, minus it's sole!  I had to hobble in sub-freezing cold up to my Dad's office at 52nd and Lex with only the inner sole between me and some very cold concrete!

Central RR Bridge - somewhere, I could have sworn I had mentioned the old Meadowbrook spur, a remnant of the original Central RR of LI, running due east from Garden City and the Hempstead junction, past the old station that is now the firehouse at Clinton Street and James Street (one block south of Stewart Avenue), past the NY&AR/LIRR Garden City Freight Terminal, through Mitchel Field and Nassau Community College, behind Endo Labs, and terminating just short of the Meadowbrook Parkway.  Well, I had put it here but it now has been moved to the new Central RR page.

Ditto coverage of the Meadowbrook Club and Meadowbrook (Salisbury Plains) Station.

GP38-2 Status

"A few weeks ago, five more GP38-2's were removed from the LIRR roster.  These were shipped out to EMD in Illinois.  As time passes, the remaining old relics, including the GP38-2s, are quickly being removed from service.  We have recently received reports that LLPX has acquired twenty-four former Long Island Rail Road GP38-2's from parent company EMD.  Thirteen of the units are currently at Norfolk Southern's {aaaaaugh!} Juniata Locomotive Shops in Altoona, Pennsylvania;. the locomotives include former LIRR 251, 252, 254, 255, 256, 257, 262, 263, 265, 269, 273, 275, and 277.  The locos will be hauled from Altoona to Buffalo, New York, for interchange to Canadian National.  They are ultimately destined for CN's Transcona Shops in Winnipeg.  The units are tentatively slated to be rebuilt and renumbered into the LLPX GP38-2 series beginning with the LLPX 2228.  Norfolk Southern will then lease these units from LLPX.  Eleven GP38-2's still remain on the LIRR, while four others remain on the New York & Atlantic Railway's roster."

Speaking of the status of old LIRR power (or lack thereof), Bernie Ente shot these Polaroids of ex-LIRR ALCo head-end Power Packs #615 (FA-1) and #614 (FA-2) bracketing #607 (FA-1) at the New York & Atlantic's Fresh Pond Yard on 12 Mar 00, a rainy Sunday:

 
[Photos 12 Mar 00 by B. Ente - all rights reserved]

Here's two more shots by Bernie on that rainy Sunday, both FA-2 units, #607 and #614:

 
[Photos 12 Mar 00 by B. Ente - all rights reserved]

[photo from SPLIA Biennial Report 2001-2002]

Steam stopped in commercial service on the LIRR on 08 October 1955 when G5s #35 and #39 pulled trains to Hicksville from opposite ends of the Island and turned them over to two RS-3 diesels in an official "end of steam" ceremony, coupled up nose to nose, and ran light back to Morris Park.  #39 was the last steam engine to travel to Greenport in June 1955 and #35 was retired after one last excursion on 16 October 1955.  As noted elsewhere on these pages, both GSs survive and one of those RS-3s, #1556, is preserved along with #39.  1955 P-72 coach #2935 is preserved along with #35 (and 1956 P-72 #2956) and I believe it is one of the original coaches from the ceremony.

Artist and fellow NRHS/Long Island Sunrise Trail Chapter member George L. Wybenga is so taken with cabooses (cabeese? - hacks, crummys, cabin cars, etc.) that he specializes in limning them and has a Website, cabooseart.com where you can see his vast array of cabooses from many varied roads, among them the LIRR.  Here, by his specific permission, is his painting of LIRR hack #14, just as an example of his work:   (23 Jan 05)

[painting by and © G. L. Wybenga, by permission - all rights reserved]

LIRR HELP

Here is where I'll post any reasonable question that catches my personal fancy (any posting is at my sole discretion).

Fellow LIST/NRHS member Al Oslapas wrote from Michigan (06 Sep 99) that he spotted an LIRR heavyweight passenger car in a farmer's field south of Austin Rd, about 5 miles east of the hamlet of Napoleon in southeast Michigan (Napoleon is somewhere in the Lansing/Flint area).

Jay Eichler out at the Twin Forks Chapter of the NRHS wanted to find out where the ex-LIRR coach which was converted into a lounge car is kept.  The car is called the "Good Vibrations" and it ran on many of the 614 trips over the last few years.  It used to be owned (and may still be) by a group called Railfan Tours.  Jay saw it once at the Whippany RR museum, but it wasn't there the last time he went.  No sooner said than done!  Mike Delvecchio immediately responded that "the car is owned by K.C. Smith, a trainmaster for the Susquehanna Railroad, today's DOCP Acquisition Corporation.  K.C. is also active with several museum groups, including the United Railway Historical Society of New Jersey.  As such, his car can reside either on the Morristown & Erie or on the Susquehanna.  On the former, it would be at Whippany, and on the latter it's normally kept at Rochelle Park station.  Right now I think it's on the Suzie.  But it's always on the URHS trips wherever they may lead, including to Port Jervis behind 614."    [How's THAT for quick service?]

A little philosophizing here - Bernie Ente and others have decried the technical aspect of wreck reportage, the lack of the human element, and the total disregard for the engineer's/motorperson's feelings afterward.  I also object to press coverage in which an LIRR train "strikes" someone, as though the train could jump out and do so.  Well, here's another side to the coin; one Louis A. Hazard ( lahazard@bellsouth.net) e-mailed me about a song he wrote regarding the wreck of the "Babylon Express" on 22 Nov 1950.  It is available at " www.mp3.com/LAHazard.  The song is "The Babylon Express and Lou was born 8 days after his father died in that LIRR wreck; Lou would "love to make contact with others who lost a loved one or in some manner had their lives changed as a result of that wreck".

Does anyone have an image of the Dashing Bug?  See Dashing Dan on my LIRR page 2.

Here's an odd one for you - the Syosset Scrapbook sent me this scan of an LIRR pin which also has a Lions Club emblem on it; it belonged to former Syosset Postmaster Robert Boslet, a Past President of the Syosset Lions Club:   (22 Feb 04)

[Photo courtesy of Syosset Scrapbook - all rights reserved]