On this main LIRR Page:

On the LI Rail Road Continuation Page 1a
    (formerly on LI railroads page; moved to LIRR Continuation page 1a on 10 Dec 01):

On the LI Rail Road Continuation Page 2:

On the LIRR Continuation Page 3:
    Nassau County Police 2nd Pct. Booth D.

On the LIRR Continuation Page 4:
    Blissville and Laurel Hill Sidings,

On the LIRR Continuation Page 5:
    Central RR of LI - moved 17 Dec 00.
    LIRR DE30AC and DM30AC Locomotives
    Victorian LIRR Stations (continued)

On the LIRR Continuation Page 6:
    Nassau County Police 2nd Pct. Booth D/Locust Tower (cont'd)
    Last Steam Runs (with car and loco numbers!)

On the LIRR Continuation Page 7:

On the LI Railroads Continuation Page:

On the LI Railroads Bibliography Page:

On separate pages:

    Long Island Rail Road Historical Society.

    Sunrise Trail Division
        (Northeastern Region)
        (National Model Railroad Association)

    Long Island Live Steamers.

    My/Dave Morrison's RAILROAD EAGLES page about the

Some LIRR Links:

(Because this page is overloading, I have moved the full links and details to the LIRR INDEX PAGE.)

Kudos to Bill Russell; Bill has a RR site that is unbelievable; I've never seen all of it, but there are zillions of pages about NY metropolitan area railroading and rail-marine operations (car floats, ferries, pocket terminals, BEDT, NYCH, LIRR and PRR, tugs) etc.  Take a look starting with his RAILINFO page.

One of his newsthreads was about the West Side Freight Line (the elevated trackage rotting away in southwestern Manhattan); it reminded me of a rather bizarre feature of LI railroading (another item, about the WSFL, is on my RR page):

Across Manhattan and the East River, in the old Degnon yard, there is a line into the back of one of the IDNY buildings (I forget which, but think it may have been American Chicle) in which there is (I doubt it's been dismantled, although certainly no longer usable) a freight car elevator that took cars up to the floors on where their cargo was needed or v.v.

NOTE:  There is now The New York Connecting Railroad Society, an all-volunteer organization started in 1993 and recently incorporated to preserve the history of the joint venture between the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New Haven (NYCRR and the Hell Gate Bridge); they publish a newsletter, "The Connecting".

* - Hoorah!  Authorization has been given for a $315 million revitalization of Penn Station by integrating it into the old James A. Farley Post Office Building, immediately to the west of Penn Plaza and spanning the platforms, over the next six years^#.  NEWSDAY (05 Mar 98) reports that the "collonaded, neo-classical" Farley building will have a "center hall atrium and grand skylight, an open space echo of the original Penn Station"; the old station was designed on a plan of the ancient Roman baths of Caracalla by McKim, Mead & White, built in 1910, and demolished in 1963 in what has been widely termed "a monumental act of vandalism".  Wonder if anyone will give up their PRR eagles to put them back where they belong?

# - The attacks on the World Trade Center on 11 Sep 01 destroyed the WTC P.O. and severely damaged other local P.O.s, so the USPS held the Farley Building for its own exclusive use for a while; the project is moving forward again.

Bob Andersen has put up a major "unofficial" LIRR page at http://www.lirrhistory.com/, with considerable detail.

See Tom Scannello's Old NYC site with his Virtual Tours of abandoned and little used railroad lines in NYC.

Art Huneke, LIRR historian and pictorialist (is there such a word?) extraordinaire has put up a fantastic site on LIRR history at ARRT's ARRchives.

Steve Lynch has a great LIRR site.

See also the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association and

The Long Island Rail Road is an agency of New York State's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  It was chartered on 24 April 1834 to run from the Long Island City ferries across from Manhattan to Orient Point, some 120 miles east on the North Fork of Long island where it would connect by ferry with the Old Colony railroad at Stonington, Connecticut, and so on to Boston.

This was a great idea until the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad bridged all the rivers and bays and inlets along the Connecticut coast ca. 1850 and provided direct rail service from New York City to Beantown.  The LIRR, having ignored all the towns along the Island and been built on the most barren (and inexpensive) land on the Island now had no "raison d'ętre" and had to scurry to build or buy branches to the population centers on Long Island.  The LIRR finally connected directly with Manhattan on the completion in September 1910 of the East River tunnels and Pennsylvania Station.  Eventually, it fell into the hands of the Pennsylvania Railroad (1928-1949), before becoming part of the MTA in 1965.

For information on the wonderful LIRR #322 (the first LIRR electric), #323 (Pennsy #10001, the second), and other early LIRR boxcab electrics, see the Odd Boxcabs page (which covers electric boxcabs).

Vincent F. Seyfried wrote a definitive 7-volume history of the LIRR which is mostly out of print and hard to find; however, the last two volumes are still available from Mr. Seyfried - see my LIRR BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Note further that Vince is also (actually, primarily) a historian of Queens and Garden City.

LIRR site "http://www.lirr.net/" is not available; Gary Gross passed away Oct 99.

No plans, and no really-good drawings, of Ariel or Post Boy exist, so it is appropriate to use a representative Baldwin product for display on Long Island.  Hicksville is a major hub on the LIRR and the actual John Bull, which passed to the Pennsylvania RR with the C&A and then to the Smithsonian Institution in 1884, where it is on permanent static (though operable) display, ran on Long Island during the World's Fair of 1939.  To spare the original, a replica was built by the PRR's Altoona shops in 1939 and ran on Long Island at the Fair in 1940 (it still runs on occasion at the RR Museum of Pennsylvania).

So, let us laud Jim Pavone for his vision and persistence.

Dave Morrison has posted photo documentation on this massive undertaking.

Anyone desirous of supporting this effort is asked to visit The Hicksville Train Campaign's website.

The Sunrise Trail Division of the Northeastern Region of the National Model Railroad Association now has its own listing on the NER Web page.

See also HOW TO BOOT A STEAM LOCOMOTIVE or
    How to hostle without really tiring -
    (Firing up a cold oil burner - 1:1 scale, that is).

OYSTER BAY RAILROAD MUSEUM

(formerly Friends of Locomotive #35, Inc. and
Locomotive 35 Restoration Committee before that)

FRIENDS OF LOCOMOTIVE #35, INC. BECOMES OYSTER BAY RAILROAD MUSEUM

Friends of Locomotive #35, Inc. is pleased to announce it is now operating as the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum, with a provisional charter under the New York State Department of Education section 223, which took effect July 26th, 2006.

[FRIENDS OF LOCOMOTIVE #35 INCORPORATED]

LIRR Engine #35 when on Display in Eisenhower Park
photo courtesy of Steam Loco #35 Restoration Committee

One of the two remaining Long Island Rail Road (Pennsy) Class G5 4-6-0 steam locomotives; being restored for operation.  It was purpose-built for the LIRR at the PRR Juniata Shops at a cost of $32,202 and delivered to the LIRR on 10 October 1928 for high-acceleration commuter service.  G5's had 68" drivers, 24" x 28" cylinders, and 55 square feet of grate area; weighing in at 235,000 pounds, they were rated at 41,330 pounds of tractive effort.  It was one of the last two steam locomotives in revenue service on the LIRR, was retired in the mid-50's to display at Salisbury (later Eisenhower) Park, just southeast of the intersection of Stewart and Merrick Avenues opposite the old Meadowbrook Club and Meadowbrook Station, then moved to Mitchel Field, and was the last LIRR steam engine to run, hauling a fan trip on 16 October 1955.  It pulled a huge Class 110-P-82a Kiesel tender with PRR standard Kiesel trucks (both standard on LI G5's), holding 33,800 pounds (16.9 tons) of coal and 12,730 gallons of water.  The only other surviving LIRR G5, #39, is also being restored (see below).  Another G5, PRR #5741, with a standard G5 Class 76-P-82a tender (they had an unusually low tank and unique Dolphin trucks), is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Strasburg, Pennsylvania. #5741 was leased to the LIRR at one time; thus all three surviving G5 engines ran on the Long Island Rail Road!

The locomotive is being rebuilt from the ground up by a group of dedicated volunteers and you are invited to come help.  Watch the #35 site for news of the next work schedule.  Right now, the disassembled engine and tender are up behind a security fence in Oyster Bay , near the turntable at the western end of the yard.  The old worksite at the western end of the hangar row at Mitchel Field, right next to the Cradle of Aviation Museum, in close proximity to the Nassau Coliseum and Nassau Community College, was supposed to have been bulldozed out of existence instantly after our move on 02 Aug 01 to make a new parking lot for the Cradle of Aviation Museum.   (18 Sep 06)

The locomotive and tender were moved, police escort and all, on 02 Aug 2001 to the village of Oyster Bay, where the old station will be converted into a railroad museum and the old turntable put back into service.  If you are on Long Island or in the area and have never seen with your own eyes a Pennsy engine with its boiler off its frame or a PRR Kiesel tender body separated from its frame, now is the time to visit #35, where just that happened preparatory to moving the engine and tender; of course, you could look at the engine's boiler also, with its cab on the ground, the smokebox front back on temporarily with a fake keystone (antitheft), and the tubes out.

Two restored LIRR hacks (cabeese?) and two coaches should follow when the yard is ready.

#35 also bought the ALCo FA cab and observation car end that were languishing at the old Camp Tanglewood on the northeast corner of Peninsula Boulevard and Ocean Avenue (Tanglewood Lane, more precisely), right on the Lynbrook/Rockville Center border.

Photo by SB,III - 13 May 99
(WOW! - It's a bad copy of a sharp photo - I have to redo it.)
[Thumbnail image - click on the picture for the full image.]

My two favorite monkeys clowning on the turntable on 13 May 99.

The #35 site has a good side view of the turntable.

BEDT Engine #16 - photo courtesy of Steam Loco #35 Restoration Committee

* - HURRAH!

Old Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal RR 1923 Porter 0-4-0T #16, that sat for so long vandalized outside in the Kent Avenue Yard, is now out at the RRMLI in Riverhead!.  See the BEDT page!

Now, lets keep the Expressway information car from the torch!  It's in awful shape, almost totally gone, but I'd hate to see it scrapped.

Steam Locomotive #39 Restoration

[Railroad Museum of Long Island]

#35 and #39 drew the very last LIRR revenue steam trains in regular service (on 08 Oct 55) and #39 drew the last LIRR steam excursion later that month (16 Oct 55).  This and more about last steam runs on LI and the LIRR has been moved to Last Steam Runs, lined and indexed, and amplified, including loco and car numbers!

* - That rotary is just languishing at Steamtown; let's get together and get it back here!  Thanks to Andy Toppan (who shows it on his List of Rotary Snowplows, here she is in all her tattered (and tilted) glory:

Photo Cropped from original courtesy of Andrew Toppan - by permission

On my Vest Pocket Railroads You Can Model section on MRR Continuation Page 2, after the Degnon Terminal Railroad, and Murrer's (3rd Street) Sidings and Kearney Sidings writeups, I refer to Blissville and Laurel Hill.  This is because they are not compact yards or terminals but rather separate sidings strung out along the Main on either side of Laurel Hill Boulevard (the former Penny Bridge Station) just east of Greenpoint Avenue in Long Island City.  Maspeth and LIRR Bibliography - with a special offer for readers of my RR pages).

At the Greenberg show at Stony Brook, Long Island (NY) on 15 Mar 98, who should I find talking to the John Scala noted in the LIRR bibliography and elsewhere on my site but John Scala!  Both 6' 4", not related, both named John Joseph Scala, both born the same year (only some 3 months or so apart), and both very active in railroading!  Author John is a Director of the Long Island-Sunrise Trail Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society (linked above) (and runs "The Weekend Chief Publishing Co." in Mineola) and the other John Scala is a Director of the Long Island Live Steamers, also linked above.  I belong to both organizations and never realized the John Scalas were different people (I'd never noticed Steamer John's nametag before)!