Island Park
Long Beach is the terminus of the Long Island Rail Road’s Long Beach Branch and serves the main city on this barrier island. The station and branch’s base service is hourly to Penn Station. During Rush Hours additional service operates to Atlantic Terminal-Brooklyn along with more frequent service into Penn Station. During summer the Long Island Rail Road sells beach getaway packages to Long Beach that include round-trip rail tickets and admission to the municipal beach, (as of 2021 $15.00 per day for non-residents). In addition, there is an extra round-trip on Summer Weekdays that operates non-stop or with one stop at Jamaica express between Long Beach and Penn Station. This is the only express service on the branch all other trains (including those during rush hours) make at least 5 stops (all four of the intermediate stops on the Long Beach Branch plus Lynbrook).
The station is well suited to be a terminal. Trains arrive on the Long Beach Barrier Island via the single track movable bridge over Reynolds Channel and the tracks fan out at switches into a total of 10 tracks forming the Long Beach Yard, including the four tracks with two island platforms where trains platform. The tracks that platform are tracks 3 and 4 with a 10 car long platform, and tracks 5 and 6 with an 8 car long platform. The tracks are numbered east to west, meaning there are two yard tracks (1 and 2) east of the platforming tracks, and four west (7 through 10) of the platforming tracks. These high-level platforms end by surrounding the bumper blocks of tracks 4 and 5 at a high-level with staircases directly down and ramps down (the ramps aren’t fully covered as they loop around) on each side to a covered low-level entrance area. This area leads immediately to the station’s historic 1909 station house. A plaque outside states the building was restored in 1986. The station is the Mission Style with large arched windows and leads back to the north side of Park Avenue, the main east-west street through the city of Long Beach. There are number of plantings and hedges giving the entrance to the station a garden feel. Inside a very bland 1980’s waiting room with florescent lights, ceiling tiles, and faux-travertine tiled walls. A ticket office is still open for one weekday morning shift. There are also some benches for waiting passengers.
The platforms are fully canopied for their southern-most 4 cars. The platforms have an additional entrance via a staircase at about the 3rd car from the bumper block of each platform that leads up to a fully enclosed overpass. This overpass leads west across yard tracks 6 through 10, arriving at the top level of the two-story long beach parking deck. This parking facility was completed in 2004. At street level along what would be the first level of the southern half of the parking deck is the station’s bus loop. This bus loop (with a single level of parking above) contains about 9 bus bays (only 6 are in regular use) with benches for waiting passengers that are parallel to each other and serve as the hub of the 2 route (named East Loop and West Loop) City of Long Beach Transit system along with a rush hour only longer and more expensive route to Point Lookout. There are also Shopper Special buses that run a few days of the week and half their own bay in the bus loop/transit center. City of Long Beach Transit does not accept MetroCard; although a Monthly LIRR/City of Long Beach Transit UniTicket is available with a $30 upcharge. There are also two Nice Bus routes off the Long Beach Barrier Island (that run closed door service within the City of Long Beach, meaning you can’t use them for travel within the City of Long Beach) west to Far Rockaway or north to Garden City.
Photos 1-6: 9 June, 2006, 7-73 on 24 July, 2013
