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| The Calverton Siding in January 2012. (Photo credit: Glen Johnson/Trains Are Fun.com) |
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| Calverton station around 1895. (Photo credit: Dave Keller Archive/Trains Are Fun.com) |
The station was relocated a handful of times, and there is still a portion of the station structure standing to this day (see the photo included below).
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| What's left standing of the Calverton station, with the block limit signal visible at the end of the siding. |
The Calverton area itself used to be more built up in terms of freight spurs and freight customers (as many other different locations on Long Island were once as well). Presently, there are no freight customers receiving cars at this location, but the Enterprise Park spur, which is just west of here, has seen some resurgence in recent years. (The Enterprise Park spur will be the subject of a future post).
Going forward, the future of this location will be determined based on what the railroad actually intends on doing with the Ronkonkoma to Greenport segment of the Mainline. At the moment, they seem to have little interest in doing anything but the bare minimum on the North Fork. However, while future plans for electrification to Yaphank or possibly even Riverhead (electrifying to the latter of which would bring electric service through this particular location) are still off in the foggy distance, there is a chance that the railroad could be persuaded to re-open some of these former stations that line the Mainline. As the population in eastern Suffolk County has increased dramatically in recent years, it would not be far fetched to think that a couple new stations along this stretch wouldn't do half bad with some decent service. So if electrification is ever extended to Riverhead, or if it is extended to Yaphank with more frequent scoot (or, dare I say, DMU) service put in between Yaphank and Riverhead/Greenport, re-opening Calverton and possibly some other stations along the Mainline to fill in some of the large gaps between the present stations might be a pretty attractive idea, but for the moment, it will likely continue to stay much like it is now, the host to the occasional MoW train and the handful of Riverhead/Greenport scoots and little else.
Calverton was a station stop until the early 1980's. Since it was neither part of the Yaphank service, nor part of the weekend North Fork service, served only by the once daily Greenport Scoot, it was quietly abandoned.
ReplyDeleteHere's a photo of the type of cars that I remember seeing on the siding in Calverton during my Grumman Calverton days. There were quite a few of them at one time. This photo is from the Railroad Museum Long Island, Riverhead Site.
ReplyDeleteAnd, for a while in the late 1990s or early 2000s I recall seeing EMUs (M1s?) stored on the Calverton siding.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 1970s there was also an early morning westbound train made up of the type of cars seen in the photo. I would see it at a crossing in Manorville about 5:45 AM when on my way to the Grumman Calverton Plant for a 6 AM start. It wasn't a Scoot. It had quite a string of cars, maybe 8 or more. During the 1979 gasoline shortage some of my Grumman Bethpage colleagues who lived in the Westhampton area would take this train from Rivehead to Bethpage, where a Grumman van would meet them and take them to the Plant. I do not recall if this particular train came all the way from Greenport or whether it originated in Riverhead. It's also possible that it was the morning Yaphank train temporarily extended to start in Riverhead because of the gasoline crisis. There also was an equivalent early evening eastbound train.
ReplyDeleteI remember the M1s also -- a surprising sight east of Ronkonkoma! Did those cars end up going to RMLI, or was there some other purpose for their eastward sojourn?
ReplyDeleteI also remember the AH siding being occupied by long cuts of ore cars in the early 1990s.
Art Huneke's site has this great photo of LIRR 39 at AH on the famous June 5,1955 excursion to Greenport: http://arrts-arrchives.com/images3/39ahC.jpg
ReplyDeleteThere were quite a few cars on the Calverton siding, the exact number I can't say. Perhaps a few of those cars were destined for RMLI. I believe there are 2 or 3 there now, but I'll do an accurate count my next trip to Riverhead.
ReplyDeleteFor a moment, I thought this was a post about the possible strike. The subject line is definitely appropriate - 'BLAH'.
ReplyDeleteJust finished making a video of Train 2708 arrival in Westhampron. Only one word can describe the scene- UNBELIEVABLE. One picture will indeed be worth 1,000 words. I'll also be making a video of the arrival of today's Cannonball. Hope to have both videos available this evening. Stay tune.
ReplyDeleteYes, I saw that on the email alert. Amazing. Hope the railroad was able to get them coach buses and not school buses.
ReplyDeleteAnd, here is the July 3, 2014 Cannonball at Westhampton. It was announced that Train 2798 was running 17 minutes late, down 4 minutes from the original announcement of 21 minutes late, due to the extremely high numbers of passengers. As with 2708 earlier, Cannonball was Standing Room Only. Again, the sights and sounds say it all.
ReplyDeleteCannonball
After seeing today's action, I'm eating a portion of humble pie in thinking that last Friday's trains would be carrying more passengers than today's trains.
I note that the conductor was holding a stack of tickets, at least he collected fares.
ReplyDeleteThere were quite a few people who decided to run on the train without a ticket (some for a seat, some because they would miss the train if they bought one), even after I warned them about the $6 surcharge.
Temporary personnel lined the platform in Penn to conduct passenger counts. The final number isn't public, but I observed ~25-30 standees per car as it pulled out, and that turned out to be a gross underestimate.
During the 1-2pm hour, much to my surprise, the Hamptons Reserve table had the "Seats Available" sign up. It probably came down quite quickly.
That's amazing. I can't begin to picture what the Track 19 platform looked like at boarding time. It certainly was hectic appearing at Westhampton, and of course with four more stops this was only the tip of the iceberg. Note also the number of people waiting to board at Westhampton, which at first glance seems such a strange thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat time did the train actually depart Penn? And from your experience, what is your best guesstimate of how many were actually on the train when it departed, and how many were turned away? There must be some kind of limit to the number of passengers the railroad will allow to board before it becomes a safety issue. The 4:19 departure to connect to Train 2712 must have also been chaotic.
As an employee I have access to the result of the counters. It was between 2,500 and 2,600.
ReplyDeleteActual departure from Penn was on-time (maybe one or two minutes off)
I'm not sure how many were turned away, since 658 (the 4:19 departure) is positioned on Track 18 with doors open before they call the Cannonball. I observed it depart with the vestibules full, but I don't remember anyone standing in the aisles or refused. Not sure how much of that was early getaway Port Jeff/West Hempstead commuters though. Loading was pretty even on 2798 thanks to ushers making announcements to move back. There were very few standees in the first car of 658, since nobody gets turned away from reserve cars.
The crowd running for 2716's connection didn't seem much bigger than that on an average summer Friday. I don't have numbers though, nor did I go down to see its departure.
2708's NYP connection (1350) also had to turn away a handful of passengers. (10-15 would be my guess)
Did you observe 2706? A quick division of the counted # yields higher average passengers-per-car figures for that one than the Cannonball, ignoring the fact that there are no standees in the reserve cars.
Interesting take. Yea, the way the drawings currently are, they're a little different from what is shown here, but this is somewhat close. The yard lead track comes out of plaza on a lower level, right under B/C, with A on the north, and D on the south. The wesbound bypass is also a little longer than what is depicted here. See http://web.mta.info/capital/esa_docs/East%20Side%20Access-%20Quarterly%20Report%202014%20Q1.pdf (page 51 of the document, 54 of the pdf)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately no, I didn't have the opportunity to observe 2706 yesterday. However, what I have observed on past Fridays is a number of young people boarding 2706 at Mastic-Shirley, their destination, I'm told, being Montauk. So, from what you are saying, unless a good number of passengers got off at Bay Shore, Sayville and Patchogue for the Fire Island ferries, it's quite possible that yesterday 2706 wouldn't have had room to take on additional passengers before Westhampton.
ReplyDeleteIf you got the bucks to stay in the Hamptons, I don't think $6 surcharge phases them at all. They still saved bundle over Hampton Jitney.
ReplyDeleteWith the weather forecast so crappy for Friday, especially on the East End, I am surprised more people did not opt to simply go out Friday evening.
With train 2708's troublesome door, why not just let it go, and double stop the 9th car to let them out ? Might have saved some time. The conductor looked to have the the build of a lifeguard, which enabled him to crawl out that window.
LIRR somehow have to lease more equipment. With almost all the Sandy-rebuilt cars back on line at NJT, as well as the 8 former ACES cars converted to commuter coaches, it would be worth the effort to inquire with NJT to lease a 10 Comet II, IV, or V cars, a P40 (which would fit through Jamaica canopies), and MU with a work train or NY&A GP38 or MP15 to satisfy crew qualification and ASC issues. Wye them in Montauk for the return trip.
Even if people wanted to wait until later today, there's really no way to travel east this evening. For reasons only the LIRR hierarchy can explain they're running a Saturday schedule today. 3 Montauk trains run in the morning and one at midday - Train 8710, which leaves Jamaica at 12:10 PM. Then there's a 10&1/2 hour gap until Train 8712 leaves Jamaica at 10:40 PM. Doesn't really make much sense to me.
ReplyDeleteCorrection: Train 8712 leaves Jamaica at 9:41 PM.
ReplyDeleteThat gap has ranged between 8 and 10 hours for the last 42 years. I do not know why they think no one needs to go past Patchogue for the duration. (Only a summer Speonk train breaks the spell). That's why Hampton Jitney has been eating their lunch for much of those years.
ReplyDeleteWith Raritan Valley Line trains being mostly ALP45s nowadays, I imagine there must be an excess of diesel equipment on NJT. I know NJT just put up a bunch of GP40s for sale. Would these fit under the Jamaica canopies?
ReplyDeleteMost of the equipment NJT is sending to their retirement homes are very tired and worn out, and few are in decent working condition. The last thing we need is something even more unreliable than the current fleet, especially with all the single-tracking east of Sayville.
ReplyDeleteThe switch in the picture has a yellow handle...I know there is some significance to that but I don't remember what it is. I am reasonably certain that not all hand thrown switches have the big yellow handle. Least I have walked along the tracks(i know i know trespaassing, bad thing but i was young) from sayville station headed west and there are two switches there from montauk 1 to motntauk 2 and nto the siding/yard or whatever it is called just west of sayville station, and I don't remember seeing the same big yellow handles on them. Also there are two videos on youtube of a meet in hampton bays or maybe bridgehampton.one of which shows a conductor throwing the switch and it doesn't appear to have the yellow handle either.
ReplyDeleteOr am I just crazy and it doesn't mean anything.
RMLI Riverhead has two M1s.
ReplyDeleteRMLI M1s