Chugging Right Along

Railway historian pens new book about Gold Coast train line

BY CHRISTY HINKO

The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) is the oldest railroad in the country still operating under its original name. It is the busiest railroad in North America, with 90 million annual riders on 735 trains covering 11 different branches.

Railway historian David D. Morrison recently penned his latest historical recount, Long Island Rail Road: Port Washington Branch, with Arcadia Publishing, renowned for its book series about local history and local interests.

“This history topic is important to Long Island because the Port Washington Branch is the third busiest branch on the LIRR, carrying 14 million riders annually,” Morrison says. “The Port Jefferson Branch carries 19 million and the Babylon Branch 18 million.”

Port Washington Branch trains converge with the main line just east of Woodside Station, in Queens.

“The Port Washington Branch is the only one of the 11 branches that does not go through Jamaica,” Morrison says.

The branch has been electrified since 1913 and is double-track to a point just east of

Great Neck Station.

The highest bridge on the Port Washington Branch is the Manhasset Viaduct, which goes over Manhasset Bay.

“Constructed in 1898, the viaduct allowed trains to run east of Great Neck, over the bay, on into the village of Port Washington,” Morrison says.

The branch has serviced the 1939 New York World’s Fair and the 1964 New York World’s Fair as well as the stadium of the New York Mets baseball team. The Whitestone Branch, which was abandoned in 1932, diverted from the Port Washington Branch at a point a bit east of the current Mets–Willets Point station.

“Part of the Cross Island Parkway is on land that used to be part of the Whitestone Branch,” Morrison notes.

Morrison is a retired branch line manager and railroad historian.

“I’ve written books on the main line out to Ronkonkoma/Greenport, and other branches including Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson, Babylon and Montauk,” Morrison says. “Thus, it was time to do a book on the Port Washington Branch.”

He says this book is especially significant this year because the 125th anniversary of LIRR service to Port Washington occurs on June 23, 2023.

“I developed a love of trains since I was a child when my family had a summer bungalow at Croton Point Park. The bungalow colony was on a high hill overlooking the New York Central Railroad shop facility at Harmon,” Morrison recalls. “As a child, I would sit on the sandbank and watch the steam locomotives being turned on the roundhouse turntable and the locomotive tenders being filled with coal at the huge coal dock. My interest in LIRR history began when I got a job in the Labor Relations Department in 1973. I’ve been researching and studying LIRR history since then.

Morrison is the author of nine other books in Arcadia’s Images of Rail series, he is a major contributor to the website Trains Are Fun (www. trainsarefun.com).

“There is always something to learn in doing historical research,” Morrison says. Arcadia’s mission is to connect people with their past, with their communities and with one another. Arcadia is the home of unique hyper-local histories of countless hometowns across all fifty states, as well as books on local food, beer and wine; and stories of famous hauntings, all one American city and town at a time. Arcadia has an extraordinary catalog of 17,000 local titles and publishes 500 new books each year. Arcadia counts among its imprints Pelican Publishing, a 100-year-old independent press based in New Orleans, and the critically acclaimed Wildsam Publishing, publisher of highly curated travel literature and guides. Long Island Rail Road: Port Washington Branch by Morrison, with a foreword from Hank Boerner, is available where Arcadia series books are sold and on Amazon ($23.99).