St. James
Stony Brook is a station on the infrequent (service is only every 90 to 120 minutes off peak) diesel portion of the Port Jefferson Branch. The station is located on a short passing siding meaning the stop has two tracks and two side platforms. Most trains (except a couple of early AM morning trains that have meets in the station) leave from Platform B, away from the station house but closest the walkway into the SUNY Stony Brook campus and the station’s bus stop which has connections to Suffolk Transit and two routes on the SBU Shuttle system. The station’s two 12 car long (built in the 1970s in preparation for an electrification project that has never arrived) platforms begin with ramps up from a pedestrian-grade-crossing and run east. A second simple pedestrian overpass with chain linked fencing and only staircases up to it runs across the middle of the platform. The platforms only amenities for waiting passengers are a few silver 1970s platform shelters, a new black shelter was built at some point between 2003 and 2014 to provide a more modern shelter on the primarily used platform right outside the station's bus stop.
Along the north platform, is the station’s 1917 station house. This simple single-story building has cream colored walls a tall gabled roof and green trim, inside is an unstaffed waiting room with the ticket office closing in 1996. The depot is along North Country Road (NYS-25A) with a driveway between it and the platforms, near the pedestrian grade-crossing end of the station, where the original low-level platforms once were. This area contains the ADA parking spaces by the pedestrian grade-crossing and ramps up to each of the platforms, and a small parking lot.
The south platform has a slightly larger parking lot with just two rows of parallel parked cars on each side of a central driveway. This parking lot stretches a good distance beyond both ends of the platforms. A bus stop is inside this parking lot (with a simple white domed, black canopy structure). This parking lot is along Circle Road that provides all access to this parking lot. Driving between the station’s two parking lots requires heading north to Nicolls Road that has an underpass beneath the train line; over a mile detour.
Photos 1-6: February 8, 2003; 7-9: October 8, 2014, taken out the window of a stopping train
