and again on 17 Feb 02 to a separate CRRof LI page.
Brief History of the Central RR of LI.
On the Central RR of LI Continuation Page 1:
Central RR Bridge.
Meadowbrook/Salisbury Plains Station.
Bethpage Branch.
On LI Railroads Continuation Page:
Long Island Railroads [with a link to the NYCRR (Hell Gate)]
On separate pages:
Long Island Live Steamers
The New York & Atlantic Railway, lessor of LIRR freight operations.
Railroad Eagles - Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, etc.
Note: There is also a Long Island Rail Road Historical Society.
Locust (Interlocking) Tower
(currently Nassau County Police 2nd Pct. Booth D)
(moved from Nassau County Police 2nd Pct. Booth D on LIRR page 3)
[This is the old material from LIRR page 3:]
Didja know? - The Nassau County Police Department's Second Precinct Booth D at the Locust Valley station, in an old two-story frame structure for the past few years, is actually the LIRR's old Locust (Interlocking) Tower.
Here she is on 16 Feb 99 (note the Pennsy position light signal to the right - there is also a three-light dwarf ground signal hidden behind all that orange safety netting) looking southeast and east and northwest:
and a detail of the booth sign:
(Thumbnail images; click on the pictures for larger images.
Photos and © 1999 by S. Berliner, III)
[This is the new material from 17 Sep 01, on:]
Having documented both East Williston station for an out-of-town former resident and neighboring Sea Cliff station (barely more than three blocks from my house) just because, I decided a few weeks before to document the old Locust (Interlocking) Tower, still standing as Nassau County Police 2nd Precinct Booth D; I guess "just because" is as good a reason as any. So, on 09 Sep 01, I took the trusty digital and a 25' Lufkin 1" tape over to Locust Valley (all of some 2½ miles away) and here are the results. Unfortunately, on LIRR page 3 {now above}, I found that I never did take decent 90° shots, only quarter views, so I went back and took them on 15 Sep 01.
Note that the vertical walls are clapboard construction (lapstrake - overlapping horizontal boards with about 5" showing) and the 29½" high skirt between floors is shingled with ancient wood shingles, both painted off-white. The roof is shingled with modern, brownish, asphalt shingles, and the bottom-most wall boards are painted green, as are the "bands" below the skirt and the roof (cornices/fascia) and at the junction of the skirt and the second-floor walls (a 17/8" thick piece also acting as a sill under the windows).
So, here are the new views of the west, north, east, and south walls (W, N, E, S):
[This page has been especially hard hit by missing
images;
please bear with me.]
Conventions - W, N, E, S = West, North, East, South. I call the small, "white"-shingled overhang between floors a "skirt"; it could also be termed a "frieze board" (except that it is shingled, not boards). The horizontal underhang of the skirt and the roof is the "soffit". The lateral boards directly under the roof and the skirt are called the "cornice" (or "fascia") and the vertical boards at each corner flanking the quarter-round moldings are just that, "Corner Boards. No attempt was made to convert actual measurements to modern, cut lumber sizes.
While I was at it, because I could not get a shot of the E wall in the clear, I took a new ¾-view of the NE corner, a view to the S railing of the second-floor stair landing, and also took a S side view of the odd box on the E wall (it appears to hold the electrical service entry but is quite old and may have had a different purpose originally):
To supplement the end views I assumed I already had taken, I took a number of detailed views which follow; first here (left) is the reason for the tower in the first place; the turnout just east of the Piping Rock Road crossing (just S of Forest Avenue/Buckram Road) on the NW corner of which the tower stands. The tower used to control the interlocking for the reduction from dual track (from Mineola Junction to this location) to the single track line (E from here to Oyster Bay). Then, here is the vertical corner detail, showing the 1¼" quarter-round bead (1¼" radius) running the height of the corners of each story, plus the 11/8" x 11/8" cove molding under the eaves of the skirt; the vertical boards on either side of the corner beading measure 1¾" x35/8":
Another critical detail that I completely overlooked photographing was the under-roof molding, so back I went the evening of 16 Sep 01 (good thing it's nearby) to take a flash photo of the corner under the roof overhang above the landing at the SW corner; it wouldn't come up under the overhang by daylight and didn't come up all too well by flash, either):
(16 Sep 01 photos by and ©: 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Because the photo is so poor, I overlaid text to define exactly what is shown.
The rather-tattered aluminum or wood Booth D signs have been replaced on the W and N walls by painted aluminum signs; here are the new main and upper door signs (the main sign shown is the one on the W wall, above the stairs - the one on the E wall is the old aluminum one and there is no sign on the S wall):
[Thumbnail image on right; click on picture for larger image.]
(09 Sep 01 photos by and ©: 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Detailing - in addition to the overall picture of a rectangular building, some 11' x 13' (not quite square), with many modern appendages, appurtenances, protruberances, fitments, fooferaw, and doodads (most of which I am documenting), the most significant historical item is the bracing from the original second floor landing, holding an inexplicable partition alongside the first floor door. I discovered this ancient (and probably original) bit of framing, no longer load-bearing (there is a 2¼" gap above the timbers and under the current landing); this is a vertical post and an angled bracket set into it. The lower end of the post is hidden by other framing (L) and the bracket is braced by two more modern 2¼" x 3" posts to which a multi-layered plywood partition has been fastened:
(09 Sep 01 photos by and ©: 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
KEY to
PICTURE SUBJECT DIRECTION
09 West Wall E
10 North Wall S
11 East Wall W
12 South Wall N
DIMENSIONS (all are from sharp board edge to sharp board edge
except where specifically noted otherwise):
Dimensions to follow!
It should be understood that there is no good common vertical reference base, the ground is uneven, the floors not quite level, and the stories not quite square. For convenience, I have dimensioned up and down from underside of the upper roof fascia and the skirt overhang fascia (except where the dimensions are from the concrete pad under the stairs).
There are two green lapstrake boards between the ground and the white boards at the right (W) side of the N wall (below the concrete pad), three boards (termite eaten) along the E wall (~15" high overall) and at the right (E) end of the S wall, and one at the left (W) end of the S wall.
In addition to the tower (and the station), there are two other antiquities of interest here, a position light signal and a dwarf ground signal, both relics of the Pennsy era and both still in service.
(16 Sep 01 photos by and ©: 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
(09 Sep 01 photos by and ©: 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
You can't see it but the position light signal was set for an opposing movement; both signals are still in use.
Last Steam Runs
(Moved from main LIRR page 19 Oct 01, linked and indexed, and amplified)
#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).
However, there was another steam train on the LIRR and it ties in to me, personally!
On 26 November 1967, the Black River & Western 2-8-0 Consolidation #60 came over
and ran the Sag Harbor and Scuttle Hole Steam Special from Jamaica (I believe) out
along the Main Line to Montauk and back along the Southern branch. I
interacted with it twice; first in the morning when I had forgotten all about it and
overslept and was awoken in my Mineola house by the unmistakeable wail of an
eastbound wet steam whistle far off at the Herricks Road crossing. I leapt from
my sickbed and into clothes and drove madly down to the station in time to see the
Special whiz past. Later, I piled the kids in my convertible and took them down
to a crossing on the South Shore line, Baldwin as I recall, to wait for the steamer to
pass; it didn't! This was late afternoon and it must have been a relatively
warm day because we had the top down; eventually (19:30 or so) we heard #60
whistling up one of the crossings further east and the kids (2 years and 6 years)
started getting really excited. Next, the headlight hove into view far down the
tracks to the east and approached more and more slowly, with my girls jumping up
and down wildly in the back seat. FOOOSH! #60 died right
across the crossing directly in front of our car! The girls went absolutely
bonkers! The crew'd run her out of steam (too heavy a hand on the whistle!)
and had a deuce of a time bringing her alive again, working frantically by the glare of
my high beams.
BR&W #60 with the Sag Harbor and Scuttle Hole Steam Special
on the outbound trip on 26 Nov 67, eastbound at Tuckahoe Road, Southampton.
Photo by the late Norman E. Kohl
These two G5s, #35 and #39, ran mostly on the Oyster Bay branch. When they
brought the last steam trains together in Hicksville on a rainy 08 October 1955, two
new ALCo RS-3 diesels took the cars the rest of the way to New York and Montauk;
amazingly, one of them, #1556@, has also been saved (via the
Naporano scrappers, the Gettysburg Rwy., and the Maryland Midland Rwy.) and is
preserved and displayed alongside #39. #1556 was horribly vandalized last
year or so; some maniac poured concrete down her stack and it ran into the
turbocharger and set! Painstaking work will get #1556 back into running
condition.
@ - per Art Huneke, the Nov 1955 Long Island Railroader shows #1555
as the other. Art Huneke advised 18 Oct 01 that he found this data: "in
October 1955 Bill Slade recorded the engine and CAR NUMBERS that were used in the
Hicksville ceremony - 39 brought car 2924 and 35 car 2923. The 1555 replaced
the 35 and 1556 the 39."
G5 #50, long gone, ran the last scheduled steam passenger run on Sunday, 09
October 1955, from Oyster Bay to Long Island City (and then deadheaded back to
Morris Park to die) and #35 ran once more on a fan trip on the next Sunday, 16
October 1955 (uh-oh! - the #39 group claims it was #39, but Ron Ziel wrote back in
1965 that it was #35, and Art
Huneke's Last Trip page, "Long Island Railroader", Nov 55, clearly shows it was
#35), and that was it for LIRR steam (so far)!
The End of East Williston
(continued from LIRR Cont. Page 3)
(12 Dec 04)
In spite of all the arguments against such wanton destruction, the LIRR/MTA
demolished the 120-year old East Williston station early on the morning of
Saturday, 11 Dec 2004 (after allowing it to deteriorate such that it had to be
condemned - the MTA management is the one that should have been
condemned!). Word circulated on 09 Dec 2004 that the station was
going to be demolished; far too late to save it. Shades of Penn Station!
Our short-sightedness is only matched by our stupidity! Here's Dave
Morrison's shot of the station as it stood on 10 Dec 1996:
[Photograph courtesy of D. Morrison - all rights reserved]
Next, Dave's photo of the last train to pass the extant station, the westbound
7:38am train approaching from the north:
(Photograph courtesy of D. Morrison - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail image - click on the picture for larger image.]
Dave was there (he was almost alone) at 07:30 on Saturday morning to find
everything all set to go; the backhoe barely touched the SE canopy post and
the whole works came tumbling down at once (a set-up?):
[Thumbnail image - click on the picture for larger image.]
(Photographs courtesy of D. Morrison - all rights reserved)
I couldn't be there but I did stop by later, at 14:30 that afternoon, and found
this depressing scene; used concrete forms had been set up around the site
and a temporary trailer-cum-waiting room (with no steps) had been emplaced
directly south of the station site:
(12 Dec 2004 photographs by and © 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Sic prosper tyrannis Saturday!
Oh, look closely at Dave's pictures of the last train and just as the backhoe was about
to smack the post and you'll see that the magnificent roof brackets are all missing!
One might hope that they were rescued for a museum or some such but, being a
suspicious cuss, I can't help but wonder if someone didn't scoff them for private gain.
Note also that the chimney is gone and so is the beautiful second-story window on the
south wall. Hmmm. Makes one wonder, eh?
Shame on suspicious l'il ol' me and hurrah for the Village of East Williston!
I am advised that the Village saved the brackets, canopy posts, and some
other details (no windows or doors, though) for possible reconstruction and
that is exactly what they are trying to arrange (as of the end of Oct 2005).
Any old photos, plans, or other assistance will be greatly appreciated.
(31 Oct 05)
[this page was separated out from my RAILROAD,
LI Rail Road, and LI Railroads
pages;
you might wish to see them also.]
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
of this series of LIRR pages.
To tour the Long Island railroads pages in sequence, the arrows take you from the previous page to the LIRR index, to the first LIRR page, to pages 2 and up, then to the other LI railroads page, and lastly to the LIRR Historical Society page.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
2001, 2002, 2004,
2005
- All rights reserved.
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