Take note of where the interlocking boundaries for this one are. They're marked "INT JEFF" with an arrow and a dashed line. Here's a bird's eye view of the switch in question. Scroll to the right to see more of the tracks around Port Jefferson.
I can end this post at that and just call it a day, but since I'm here, I might as well explain some of the other stuff going on here.
Port Jefferson is one big yard with a station platform in the middle of it. There are two yards at Port Jefferson, one the LIRR uses and one they do not.
The first yard is the Port Jefferson West Yard. As you might've guessed, it's west of the other yard, the Port Jefferson East Yard.
The Port Jefferson West yard consists of 5 tracks, three through tracks and two stub tracks. The three through tracks (2W, 3W, and 4W) are longer and merge back into each other at the east end of the West Yard. The two stub tracks (5W and 6W) stop just short of the main grade crossing near the station.
The LIRR rarely uses the West Yard tracks these days. To store a proper length train on one of the West Yard tracks would usually end up fouling the grade crossing smack in the middle of the yard. Back in the day when equipment was easier to split up and rules were far less strict you would be able to squeeze a train in there and break it up to allow the cars to get through, but these days the LIRR just uses the East Yard.
The Port Jefferson East Yard is located about a mile east of the station. While most yards are right around where the station is, the tracks here extend quite a distance past the station platform.
The East Yard, which is made up of two longer tracks for dual modes and a bunch of shorter tracks for everything else, is usually quite full (especially overnight) with the decent amount of diesel sets used for Port Jefferson service.
In between the East and West Yards there are some interesting track structures. There is a wye (labeled "Wye" on the diagram) which is one of the few remaining wye's on the railroad. The wye, which is a vestige from previous stages in LIRR history when engines had to be run around trains at terminals and cab cars hadn't been imagined yet isn't used in any sort of revenue service anymore, but it still sees the occasional train, be it a NYAR crew making a special run out here to service the normally dormant American Lumber spur or a work train looking to get its engines pointed the right way again. But for the most part, unless there's a bad cab car or something, the LIRR doesn't turn any of its passenger equipment along the wye these days.
The Port Jefferson complex at large is victim to a bunch of inconveniently placed grade crossings. They can barely use any of the West Yard tracks without fouling the NY-112 grade crossing just east of the station. Heck, even trains that are waiting in the station trip that grade crossing. If there's a train that wants to idle there in the station for any amount of time they have to key the crossing so traffic doesn't back up.
When a conductor or engineer "keys" a crossing they insert a special key into a box on the platform and that disables the crossing. By default, crossings on mainline stretches of railroad will deactivate after a set period of time so congestion doesn't back up. So if a train trips a crossing but then doesn't cross it after a certain period of time, the crossing arms will go back up so cars aren't sitting there for all that long.
For example, there are two grade crossings immediately to the east of Bethpage station. There's one directly next to the station platforms, then there's another one a couple hundred feet down. Lots of times, trains heading east will trip both crossings before platforming. However, if a train is stopping at Bethpage, lots of times (especially in the evening rush) the farther crossing from the station will time out and raise its gates. Once the train starts moving again the crossing will reactivate and the gates will lower again, but that usually forces the train to break hard to avoid getting to the crossing too soon.
However, in most applications, the crossing that is directly next to a station will not go up automatically unless it is keyed. If the crossing is keyed the arms will go up and the cab signal indication in the leading engine or cab car will drop down to restricting.
So at Port Jefferson the normal procedure is for a train to arrive into the station and the conductor or engineer hops off and keys the crossing up. The train is then free to wait there in the station until its next departure without backing up traffic for miles. Just before the train gets ready to depart again the conductor keys the crossing back down, hops onto the train, then heads off on their merry way to their final destination.
Have a happy Fourth of July!
Regarding your first map; Port Jefferson Station is actually on NY 25A. NY 112 ends south of the station, despite the fact that the LIRR gives the address as being Route 112. I still think they name it that way because back in the post-war era NYSDOT wanted to realign NY 25A onto the formerly proposed Setauket-Port Jefferson Bypass(which should've been called the Three Village Bypass), and NYSDOT wanted to extend NY 112 to the Port Jeff Ferry.
ReplyDeleteI live in Port Jefferson village so JEFF interlocking is near and dear to my heart. Thank you for posting this piece -- even though I'm finding it more than a month after it went up, apparently.
ReplyDeleteThe West Yard is the original Port Jefferson yard, dating back to the old Smithtown & Port Jefferson RR of 1873, and the original Port Jefferson station was located on the west side of the Main Street/Patchogue Road grade crossing (which as the commenter above correctly notes, is actually NY-25A at this location, *NOT* NY-112). There is supposed to have been a turntable at the southwest corner of the West Yard which was removed in the 1920s. (Why the turntable was replaced with the wye I don't know, but that was the era when the old D-class 4-4-0s were being retired in favor of the new G-class 4-6-0s, so maybe the old turntable was just too short for the new, larger motive power.) It was only in the 1890s that the tracks were extended east of this point as part of the short-lived Wading River Extension, with the current Port Jefferson station on the east side of the grade crossing being built in 1903 (if I recall correctly). When the Wading River line was abandoned in 1938, the Port Jefferson Branch was cut back to MP 58, which I believe still corresponds roughly to the end of the current East Yard -- though I seriously doubt the original milepost is still in place.
Regarding mileposts, your map shows MP 57 as being located at the Baylis Avenue grade crossing, but this is incorrect. It's actually several hundred yards west of there -- indeed, west of the JEFF signal cabin itself -- at the grade crossing for the old Lawrence Aviation plant.
The West Yard has been a sleepy place in recent years (I haven't seen a NYAR freight here since maybe 2007), but with this summer's track work it was a hive of activity during June and July, filled not just with mechanical tracklaying equipment but also long cuts of ballast hoppers, gondolas filled with old rail, and multiple MP15s. I wish I'd gotten more pictures!