The Morris Park Facility is a maintenance facility of the

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. With an average week ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It includes two employee-only

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platfo ...

s on the

Atlantic Branch The Atlantic Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. It is the only LIRR line with revenue passenger service in the borough of Brooklyn. The line consists of two sectio ...

named Boland's Landing. Two wooden platforms each 2 cars long exist on the two-track line, with a flashlight for workers to signal trains to stop. The facility opened on November 1, 1889. Though used for train storage for over a century, it is mainly used for maintaining and refueling

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

s and

diesel electric locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels ...

s since the 1990s. The locomotive roundhouse was renovated in 2018, with construction being completed in late 2020.

Description

The Morris Park Facility covers about , and contains a locomotive shed and sidings for

s and

s. Originally it included a 23-stall brick locomotive roundhouse, an electric

turntable A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

, maintenance offices, and locomotive watering facilities. A smaller roundhouse and turntable, as well as a separate four-track shed, now exist on the site. The facility also includes storage and receiving yards; maintenance shops; and a train-car wash. The Morris Park Facility contains the Morris Park Locomotive Shop, a

locomotive shed The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine she ...

that is used to store the

EMD DE30AC The EMD DE30AC and DM30AC are a class of 46 locomotives built between 1997–1999 by Electro-Motive Division in the Super Steel Plant in Schenectady, New York, for the Long Island Rail Road of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in ...

and

EMD DM30AC The EMD DE30AC and DM30AC are a class of 46 locomotives built between 1997–1999 by Electro-Motive Division in the Super Steel Plant in Schenectady, New York, for the Long Island Rail Road of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in ...

locomotives used on the LIRR. The shop contains one of four remaining turntables left on the LIRR. Oyster Bay and Greenport yards have the others, and Riverhead has one on the grounds of the

Railroad Museum of Long Island The Railroad Museum of Long Island is a railway museum based on the North Fork, of Long Island, New York, in the United States. It has two locations, the main location in Riverhead, and a satellite location in Greenport, west of the North ...

. The Morris Park turntable is the only one of the turntables still functioning; those in Oyster Bay, Riverhead, and Greenport exist purely for historical purposes.

History

The original Morris Park station was an 1886-built pedestrian depot located on 120th Street that served as a replacement for 1878-built Morris Grove station on 124th Street. It was torn down in 1939 as part of a grade elimination project for the Atlantic Branch. The yard's locomotive yard office and engine shops, divided into the front shops and back shops, were built in 1889, at the junction of the Atlantic and

Lower Montauk Branch The Montauk Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch runs the length of Long Island, 115 miles (185 km) from Long Island City on the west to Montauk on the east. Howeve ...

es approximately on the opposite side of the former "R" Tower at the latter day Richmond Hill Storage Yard. The yard also featured a

for spinning engines. The yard was used for train storage until the 1990s; now, it is primarily used to maintain and refuel diesel locomotives. In 2009, part of the back shops (the engine shops not located directly off the turntable) were demolished as part of a reconstruction project, however, the front shops and yard office from 1889 still exist.

Morris Grove station

Morris Grove station was originally a

South Side Railroad of Long Island The South Side Railroad of Long Island was a railroad company in the U.S. state of New York. Chartered in 1860 and first opened in 1867 as a competitor to the Long Island Rail Road, it was reorganized in 1874 as the Southern Railroad of Long Isl ...

station house located at Berlin Station that was moved to 124th Street in 1878 and renamed "Morris Grove." The station was later renamed "Morris Park," for a park that was located behind the depot, and closed in 1886 to be replaced by the "new" Morris Park station on Atlantic Avenue between

Lefferts Boulevard Lefferts Boulevard is a major north–south thoroughfare in Queens, New York City, running through the communities of Kew Gardens, Richmond Hill, and South Ozone Park. Its northern end is at Kew Gardens Road, in Kew Gardens, and its southern end i ...

and 120th Street. The Morris Park station was in service until 1939, when it was closed as part of the grade elimination project that replaced the surface railway with a tunnel beneath Atlantic Avenue. Efforts by local residents and elected officials to allow for an underground Morris Park station were rejected by construction coordinator

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...

Shops station

Shops station was a sheltered shed on the

built approximately in 1900 for LIRR employees of the Morris Park facility when the lower Montauk Branch was still an at-grade line. The station was located approximately opposite of the former site of the "R" Tower where the Richmond Hill Storage Yard was located. No evidence of the existence of the station can be found beyond May 1913.

Locomotive shop reconstruction

Prior to reconstruction in 2018–2020, many of the Morris Park Locomotive Shop's structures had been originally built along with the rest of the facility in 1889. In May 2018, a contract to rebuild the shop was awarded to a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

of Railroad Construction Company Inc. and AMCC Corp. The project was completed in November 2020 at a cost of nearly $102 million. The original completion date was January 2020, but the completion was delayed because a new turntable contractor had been hired.

References

External links

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LIRR Morris Park (TrainsAreFun.com)
{{LIRR stations navbox Transportation buildings and structures in Queens, New York Long Island Rail Road stations in New York City Rail yards in New York (state) Railway workshops in the United States Richmond Hill, Queens Railway stations in the United States opened in 1886