What happens when one of your even more ridiculously ambitious goals is to photograph every commuter railroad station in addition to every subway station and you find the price of railroad tickets too high and no single day unlimited passes offered? You do a lot of walking! Perhaps when I’m in New York in summer and craving to finish the website I’ll phony up the $25.00 for a within Nassau County Weekly Pass (adding Jamaica makes it 59.75, I’d take the bus out to Nassau County each PM rush hour save the money) to finish off that portion of the website. I know a bicycle will be the solution to certain branches where bus service is even more abysmal where than the center of the county where I was today. I love bike riding but it I find gets in the way of taking pictures since to do a photo essay I have to find a bike rack and lock up before I start shooting when the stations are quite close together I find this constant on and off my bike cumbersome and prefer walking Not today though. The original plan was to only take one train ride to begin the day and no more I did take another but still can’t believe that $5 is now the price of train ticket between Jamaica and the inner portions of Nassau County (Zone 4). Here’s a map of my route beyond Jamaica and the subway (I used my unlimited and took the E train out and back to get there):
View Walking the Hempstead Branches (4 January, 2011 Adventures) in a larger map
I left my parents house at 181 Street at 9:10 went down to 181 Street and took the A Express to 59 Street where I decided to hop on an E train across the platform to 7 Avenue to avoid dealing with the long walk to switch directions and get on a uptown Queens-bound E.
I got to Jamaica at 10:18 and working quickly did a quick photo essay of the subway station’s entrances at street level. Then I finally did one of the LIRR station including the main indoor ticket lobby that isn’t directly connected to any of the platforms (passengers from it probably are to use the street stairs along Sutphin Blvd). I then got on my Long Beach-bound train due at 10:32 but finally left at 10:38. The train ran non-stop to Valley Stream through the houses of Queens just before the station we slow down and I realize were about to wrong-rail and switching over north track usually used by New York-bound trains, across the platform from us is a six car unnecessarily long (the branches stations only have four car platforms) West Hempstead Branch Shuttle train.
We arrive at 10:48, four minutes late but still under the threshold to be counted as on time. I walk across to my West Hempstead Branch Train, we sit for a minute letting the Long Beach Train leave the station ahead of us (we must cross over its path), then we leave Valley Stream and begin a very slow and jerkey ride over four pairs of switches and cross all four tracks of the southern Babylon/Montauk Line. We shortly thereafter reach the single track of the West Hempstead Branch and soon leave the viaduct that this line is on and descend to grade level, I get off at its first stop Westwood.
There I do a photo essay and walk up the ROW of way to Malverne. There I do another photo essay of the station in the center of town and the only station house still in existence on the West Hempstead Branch. I also notice that the parking lots surrounding the station for the town are labeled as fields and not lots. I wait maybe three minutes and the half-hourly I just learned N32 pulls up I take that to a nearby street and walk over to Lakeview a station who’s four car platform is nestled snugly between two grade crossings. I was planning to walk up to the next stop but the N15 came immediately and I took that to Hempstead Gardens, did a photo essay and photographed the shuttle train on another bihourly run down to Valley Stream. I Walk up to Hempstead and do a photo essay of that stop before stopping at a White Castle for a quick light lunch and taking the N6 to the Rosa Parks-Hempstead Transit Center. An awful transit center mostly because they have no timetables which I needed for the afternoon.
After lunch it is time to photograph the Hempstead Branch, first I did a real full photo essay of the Hempstead Terminus. Then I started walking (buses could only be a help up to Country Life Press but I wasn’t in the mood for a bus at this time). Walked up to Country Life Press did a photo essay of the odd one track station. Then saw the remaining ROW of the former West Hempstead Branch when it looped up to Mineola. (It’s the power lines that make it obvious) I continued walking to Garden City and then Nassau Boulevard (my longest walk, a bus here would have been appreciated). Then cut north to the Main Line and Merrilon Avenue (another photo essay). At this point it was about 3:15 and I knew that darkness would come sooner than I would like I also only vaguely knew that my next bus to get to Floral Park the Long Island Bus is terrible about posting schedules none of its bus stops have guide-a-rides, it annoys me greatly since I never know if I should wait for the bus or not unless I have brought a schedule with me. Anyway not knowing the schedule of the N24 but remembering it’s half hourly I decided to treat myself to the train back to Jamaica.
I was also surprised to notice another train only a half hour after mine. I got on and we arrived at New Hyde Park a stop my ticket unpunched. I stop I wasn’t planning to visit since I had before. I decided I might as well hop off for another round and thought about walking down to Stewart Manor but there wasn’t a train due there until after the next one at New Hyde Park so I took a half-hour photo stop and realized I’m board with LIRR’s equipment they only run three kinds of rolling stock. The M3s, M7s, and diesel bi-levels. Don’t need to do a photo stop for trains again although I do like getting them in my photos and am happy I photographed a train passing at all three of my Hempstead Branch photo stops.
At 4:06 I took the train to Jamaica, it also ran non-stop and got off took some more pictures and went down to the E train station. On my way home I made two photo stops, first at Jamaica-Van Wyck, on my previous trip the stop was a mess due to twenty year old escalator refurbishment. Then I wanted to get off at Woodhaven Blvd which is currently lacking a description. I did that the stops crowded mess due to the LIE and other large boulevards and highways running across intersections. (switched onto the M at 71 Street-Forest Hills, back to the E from the R at Roosevelt Avenune).
After getting back to 181 Street I had to more subway rides up to Dyckman St-200 St to visit on friend. On my way home around 11pm I watched as I wanted for my train at three MTA revenue guards take the cash from the station, it took them quite awhile emptying the MVMs everything going into little silver boxes, no cash is at all visible. Too bad the money train is gone, that would have done the job five years ago. I saw it once at Jay Street.
Total Swipes: 6 Subway and 3 bus (probably at least one as a transfer) I’ll call it 8 in my tally for this trip home. Plus me being $10 poorer due to LIRR’s ridiculous Jamaica-Nassau County fares. No wonder so many people take the bus.
2 replies on “Station to Stations of both Hempstead branches – 7 miles total of walking, 11 stations photo essayed”
There are rumors that Long Island Bus is shutting down later in the year. The weekly LIRR pass is the way to go.
. I’d consider a weekly LIRR pass but it just doesn’t justify itself when I’d also need to buy a subway MetroCard as well since when I’m in New York I’m not staying anywhere near the LIRR. I might buy one to complete the website farther out on the island. The LI Bus and walking served me fine and was free. If it was discontinued or not included in my unlimited I wouldn’t have used it.
Rumers are rumors. I really can’t see that bus system just shutting down its just too large. The politics would never work themselves out I’m writing from experience living in Colorado Springs right now, the largest city in the Nation to lack weekend bus service. They were all set to also shut down FREX, the express bus up to Denver, but the state got involved, sold half of its bus fleet and continued it with half the service and it just got funded through 2011 again. LI Bus will survive in some form or another.