Glen Cove
Locust Valley, not to be confused with Locust Manor on the Atlantic Branch in Queens, your webmaster almost bought a ticket there by mistake when traveling to the station until he realized the price was too low. The stop is the second to last on the Oyster Bay branch and just beyond the station the branch becomes a single track for the 4 mile stretch into Oyster Bay. The rest of the branch is double tracked. The stop has two modern high-level side platforms that can platform the four car trains generally run on the branch that were built in 1998 to 2000. Each has the standard green fencing and a single green and cream shelter for waiting passengers. These high-level platforms in use for both tracks are located just beyond the original low-level platforms that have remained basically intact but fenced off from the tracks that used to use them. The only place to change directions and platforms is at the grade crossing at the other end of the low-level platforms at Birch Hill Road. There is a small station parking lot along the former low-level platform that still has a line of tall older lampposts and an old wooden shelter with shingled roof. The shelter has nothing inside it except a mind the gap sign and a few payphones to one side of it. The shelter is right before a single staircase and ramp lead up to the high-level platform that extends south, beyond the end of the parking lot.
The New York-bound side is more complicated, starting at the corner of the grade crossing is the historic Locust Tower that used to serve the switch just beyond Birch Hill Road where the line becomes single tracked. Today it is used as a Nassau County Police Depart booth and has a large Locust Pennsylvania Railroad era sign on it. Beyond the tower cars are parked alongside the tracks for a good while before the historic 1906 depot is reached. This depot's most distinctive feature is a collonade of white columns holding up a red clay gabled roof. Canopied areas, one of which has the station's TVMs beneath it, and an old Locust Valley sign with a black line above instead of blue hanging from it extends along the former low-level platform with older era lampposts. Tucked in the middle is the waiting room itself. It is a fairly large room with lots of windows. The walls are painted a distinctive green color with a grey trim and built in seating along most of the walls. There is a restroom, payphone, and a community bookshelf beneath the now sealed up ticket window. The station was staffed with a ticket agent until April 3, 1996 (Sandra Saslovsky, 'In Oyster Bay: LIRR Riders Await the Machine Age' Newsday March 24, 1996. E.09 Archive Link), it has been open and closed remotely between 6am and 2:00pm ever since. There is also a panel displaying historic photographs of the station. Beyond the depot, quite far away from the grade crossing the high-level platform finally begins for New York-bound trains a bit offset from the low-level one.
All photos taken on 2 December, 2011
