Here is a some interesting tidbits of history from a very old Long Island Timetable (public in this case). My notes and information are from the system public timetable dated October 10, 1922, corrected to February 23, 1923. During this period they did not use two words for Rail Road, it was the Long Island Railroad. On the front cover it states: “Avoid waste keep this timetable”, it has been around for a long time. Unlike some timetables from this period the paper is in pretty good shape as well and it is fully intact. They did not use the PRR Keystone at that time either. They had a full column of four paragraphs asking for suggestions and criticisms, can you imagine something like that today? Most stations handled checked baggage and many of the ones that did not are no longer in operation today. They had four city ticket offices in Manhattan and one more in Brooklyn. There were five weekday trains to Greenport three of which ran via the Montauk Division. They ran a couple of trains between Greenport and Amagansett via Manorville and Eastport. They were called “scoots”. There were five eastbound trains to Amagansett of which two ran to Montauk. There was a third train available according to note “v” which stated “On application to conductor before reaching Easthampton, and on single payment of $12.00 in addition to surrender of regular transportation to Montauk, for each person carried, train No. 20 will be extended from Amagansett to Montauk”.
There were two weekday trains east of Port Jefferson to Wading River with stops at Millers Place, Rocky Point and Shoreham. Wading River was 11.2 miles east of Port Jefferson. There was eleven trains each way between Mineola and Valley Stream via West Hempstead. Finally note z on the reference marks page: “Stops only on notice to conductor to receive passengers for New York, Brooklyn and Jamaica”. I ask how do you ask a conductor to get picked up at a “f” stop, you ask the ticket agent, operator or display intention to the engineer that you wish to board the train.
The next public timetable from the Long Island in my collection dates from October 17, 1928 and by then they were using two words ie Rail Road and the front displays the PRR Keystone with the LIRR initials inside it.
By September 18, 1938 Wading River still had a couple of trains left, the Sag Harbor Branch had four round trips stopping at Sag Harbor, Noyack Road and Bridgehampton.
On the Montauk Branch all four round trips ran through to Montauk, the scoot was gone and nothing terminated or originated at Amagansett. Mineola – Valley Stream was also gone.
If you are really interested in this stuff, I can’t urge you enough to find some old LIRR timetables, public or employee, they are different but all are very interesting to read and learn about the history of the railroad. I have spent hour re-reading my old timetables and every time I do it I learn something new that I wasn’t aware of before.
Noel Weaver