Port Jeff sidings

I see they ripped out the old American Tissue switch but left the Premier Wines one. Can anyone explain or update the status? -Lee

I'd like to know more about this too. Anyone? Anyone? Where was American Tissue located, and was it ever served by NYA? Is the other spur referred to in the post the one in Syosset?

Well if American Tissue was in Pt Jeff I don't think it was ever serviced by the NYA. I know that area pretty well (Mom lives less than a mile from the east end of the railyard in Pt. Jeff) and don't remember any manufacturing facility east of Main St. And that would go back to the early 70s as I used the train quite a bit to get to friends in Smithtown/Kingspark and would walk east along the tracks to get home.

Bob Sandusky
Esperance, NY

American Tissue was a trailing point switch heading eastbound out of Huntington. The building was large in terms of capicity with either an eight or ten car spot inside the building. They received cars from both the LIRR and later NYAR. If I remember they got serviced a couple times a week by RS 30 usually bring 2 or 3 cars in a clip. This was the old Gaylord Paper switch.

This business dried up when the the company ran into legal troubles. If you remember it was in Newsday the CEO was embezzling funds and sucked the company dry. The case took place right here on LI. An ex-NYAR employee actually sat on the jury. It's ashame they yanked the switch with the building an its large capacity. It wouldn't be cost effective these days to reinstall it. Too bad NYAR couldn't find any company to receive cars at that location. They pay alot on switch fees and it probably was costing them too much sitting collecting rust. They had a big fire at their facility in Happauge that caught fire in the mid-nineties.

Thanks freightguy.

I haven't lived on LI since 1982 and find my memories of it as a kid are not jiving with the reality of it in 2000. When someone says to me Pt. Jeff, I literally think PJ not somewhere up the line. Heck when I was in HS in the mid-70s without a car and no buses to speak of the LIRR was the only way to get to far away places like Smithtown.

Bob Sandusky

The American Tissue Building is the first property on the list of rail-served sites available on the NYA website: http://www.anacostia.com/inddev/nyaid.html.

Caught the 9:36 am departure from Huntington this morning to Penn Station. Two tankcars spotted on the team track. Further west, just past Hicksville on the long spur that ends at the Hicksville Post Office, LIRR MP-15ac 163 was laying over on the spur by the end of Engel Street. That's pretty far down that spur. Why not spot the 163 in the Hicksville Yard itself? Was the 163 pre-positioned as a protect engine due to the weather? Also, why spot it so far down that spur?Speaking of the Hicksville Yard, the two spurs on the west side of the property were loaded with covered hoppers. Nothing was spotted on the eastern yard spur.

I saw 163 sitting in that siding in Hicksville while heading to Huntington last night during when the snow was coming down. My guess is that it was there as a protect engine and it hadn't been moved. As far as those tankcars in Huntington, those have been there for years, no idea what the purpose is though.

I see they haven't tore out the Premier Wines switch, which is kinda odd since they usually rip out the switch as soon as the business dries up. Is that building going to be serviced in the future?

Unless something has changed, I've heard it's just impractical at this point for NYA to make a run all the way to Port Jefferson with only one or two industries maximum to service out that far. By the time the train makes it all the way to Port Jefferson, the freight car(s) being transported don't even pay for themselves, let alone make a profit. It'd be nice to see freight east of Duke again, but I can't see it happening anytime soon.

Premier is in Syosset.

I was going to say - was pretty sure there wasn't anything other than the Nassau Suffolk switch out in Port Jefferson, my mistake.