Interlocking Walkhrough: JS

JS Interlocking, located 38 miles away from Long Island City on the Mainline and just west of Deer Park station is a small but important interlocking along the busy Mainline.  At this interlocking, the Mainline goes from one track to two.  This is the first opportunity for trains to pass since the line was reduced to one track at FARM interlocking.  Here's a bird's eye view of the location.

JS Interlocking, first opened in September 1987.  During the planning phases, it was originally supposed to be called DEER interlocking, but it was instead called JS after retired LIRR Senior Vice President of Administration Jimmy Sullivan.  The naming appeared to be a sore spot for some for a couple years afterwards with some referring to it as DEER and some as JS.  On an LIRR interlocking diagram from March 1988 it was referred to as both JS and DEER.  Today, however, the interlocking goes by its official name, JS.

JS interlocking marks the start of double tracking on the mainline.  Track 2 splits off from track 1.  The line remains double tracked all the way to BRENT interlocking, which is just east of Brentwood station.

The station used to be home to small dwarf position light signals, but they have since been replaced with larger signals on gantries.

There is another switch just to the east of the interlocking limits for the Southern Container siding.  There is still an active customer that uses the siding, Roberts Plywood, which gets plywood delived to the siding by NYA&R.

Trains not stopping here can fly through the area at a nice 80 m.p.h., however trains diverging onto track 2 have to slow down a tad bit from that.

There is no tower at JS interlocking, the control of the lone switch has been remoted to DIVIDE since day one.

As mentioned above, the nearest interlocking to the west is FARM interlocking and the next one you'll reach going to the east is the equally uninteresting BRENT interlocking.

That just about wraps up this visit of JS interlocking.  There is another siding with a handful of freight spurs located a bit to the west of here by the old West Deer Park station, but that is a story for another day.