Inwood
Far Rockaway is the terminus of the LIRR Far Rockaway Line which is electrified. The station is located back in Queens on the beginning of the Rockaway Peninsula. The station is 3 blocks away from the Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue A Subway Station. The area around the station is surrounded by junkyards and warehouses and there is a housing project just north of the station. Since trains run via Nassau County the stop is the only one in Queens in the higher fare zone 4 (one of two fare zones in Nassau County). CityTickets are also not accepted from the station, making a one-way off peak ticket from Far Rockaway to Flatbush Avenue (the off-peak terminal of the hourly base Far Rockaway branch trains) or Penn Station cost $8 off-peak, $11 peak for the 53 minute (weekend timing with the transfer at Jamaica) . For comparison the A train is scheduled at 1 hour and 3 minutes for the same trip. After Superstorm Sandy destroyed the A train's connection from the Rockaways there was no attempt to offer reduced fares and increase LIRR service for Rockaways residents.
The station is located at ground level with two terminating tracks at has one long, narrow terminal island platform that can accommodate 10 cars. Just north of the station are switches and the tiny, 3 track Far Rockaway Yard. The platform is exposed to the elements except for a simple grey canopy that covers the two cars closest to the bumper blocks at the end of the platform. It is at these bumper blocks that a ramp and stairs lead down in front of a pink walled station house with a flat white roof. This station house sits with the end of the tracks on one side and Nameoke Avenue on the other. I assume the building was probably built in the 1950s under the project that cut the LIRR back to Far Rockaway when the City and subway took over the Rockaways Line. The building had a ticket office until it closed in 1996. It remained open as a waiting area for a few more years (I assume until 2:00pm) but I presume vandalism of the station and in the area caused the MTA to close to the unstaffed waiting room and today the station house the station is one of the only on the LIRR that exists and is never open. Mesh gates also surround the windows. All tickets must be purhased from two TVMs in a shelter on the south side of the station house that also provides all access around it to the platform. Here there is also the only entrance to a small, free paring lot that extends and is nestled parallel to the length of the train platform.
Photos 1-10 taken on 22 December, 2004, 11-33 on 24 April, 2013
