Hunterspoint Avenue
Long Island City is more of a train yard that just so happens to allow passengers to board and detrain from trains there. It is though one of the historic terminuses of the Long Island Railroad (the other being Brooklyn) and where passengers transferred to ferries across the East River till the 1910 when Penn Station opened. The gantries of the former ferries remain and the East River Ferry's Long Island City Stop is located a block from the station along the water. The train yard itself has 14 tracks and is where diesel BiLevel trains are stored between their peak hour runs. Service to the station is just 6 AM, and 5 PM peak-direction only trains each weekday, since the Lower Montauk Branch was closed at the end of October 2012 (the last runs didn't run as scheduled in early November due to Superstorm Standy) all trains run north along the short line to Hunterspoint Avenue before stopping there and continuing up and via the main line to Jamaica (bypassing Woodside and the other intermediate stops). Before October 2012 some trains (just one AM arriving trip in the last years) ran via the Lower Montauk Line passing the four closed low-platform and one high-platform (Richmond Hill) 'stations' (closed only in 1998 just before the introduction of BiLevel Cars) along a grade with many level crossings over to Jamaica. It was the LIRR's most unique ride through industrial Queens.
The station itself has one primary entrance along Borden Avenue. There is a second driveway entrance along 2nd Street who's status as a passenger entrance is unknown. Automatic Gates are at both entrances that are closed shut during middays, evenings and weekends when no trains are departing or arriving in the station to allow vehicles to service the trains in the station, including refueling locomotives. For passengers there are just three, short 2 car island platforms with ramps down form the end of the bumper blocks to different tracks in the yard. These platforms only contain lampposts and signs. The 'main' platform is towards the northern end of the yard and has a small green Tickets Machine at the entrance from Borden Avenue that leads immediately to the ramp up to this platform. To reach the other two platforms passengers are directed to walk (your webmaster has twice gotten on trains at LIC, but both times though at the main platform) through the paved parking lot/driveway that runs through the train yard to the other platforms.
Photos 1-16: January 17, 2005; 17 & 18: August 14, 2008; 19-27: June 14, 2011; 28: June 18, 2011; 29-35: July 14, 2015;
