Pinelawn (LIRR station)

Pinelawn

Station house, facing west on Long Island Avenue
Location Wellwood Avenue (Suffolk CR 3) & Long Island Avenue
Melville, NY
Coordinates 40°44′43″N 73°23′58″W / 40.745339°N 73.399572°W / 40.745339; -73.399572Coordinates: 40°44′43″N 73°23′58″W / 40.745339°N 73.399572°W / 40.745339; -73.399572
Owned by MTA
Line(s)
  Main Line
(Ronkonkoma Branch)
Platforms 1 side platform
Tracks 1
Connections Suffolk County Transit: S31
Long Island Yellow Cab
Construction
Parking Yes; Free
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Fare zone 9
History
Opened 1895
Rebuilt 1915, 1925, 1979
Electrified 1987
750 V (DC) third rail
Previous names Melville (1895-1897)
Pinelawn (Melville) (1897-1899)
Traffic
Passengers (2006) 50[1]
Services
Preceding station   LIRR   Following station
Main Line
(Ronkonkoma Branch)
toward Greenport
Preceding station   LIRR   Following station
Republic station Ronkonkoma Branch
(current and former locations)		 Wyandanch station

Pinelawn Station is a small railroad station along the Main Line (Ronkonkoma Branch) of the Long Island Rail Road. It is on Long Island Avenue, east of the Suffolk County Road 3 (Wellwood Avenue) grade crossing, south of Melville, New York.

History

Pinelawn station originally had two different station houses with their own histories. Both were created to serve Pinelawn Cemetery, Wellwood Cemetery, and other cemeteries in the vicinity. The first station opened as a flag stop on the northeast corner of Wellwood Avenue in 1895 as Melville station, a name it maintained until 1897. From there it would be named Pinelawn (Melville) and finally Pinelawn in 1899.

The second station was built in 1915, and moved to the southeast side of Wellwood Avenue in 1925. It was remodeled again in June, 1979, but only as a shelter. Despite nearly being eliminated as part of the Long Island Rail Road's electrification of the main line towards Ronkonkoma, along with Wyandanch, and Brentwood, the station was saved as part of a bipartisan effort by Senator Owen Johnson (R-West Babylon) and Assemblyman Patrick Halpin (D-Lindenhurst), and given a high-level platform in 1986.

Platform and track configuration

1 ■ Ronkonkoma Branch toward New York (Farmingdale)
■ Ronkonkoma Branch toward Ronkonkoma (Wyandanch)

This station has one track and one two-car-long side platform south of the track, east of the station house, and is long enough to serve passengers in the first two cars of westbound trains. Eastbound trains serve only the last two cars.

Pinelawn Cemetery Station

Despite the presence of the shack-sized station, a much more elaborate station was built across Wellwood Avenue on August 30, 1904. The station had a tall clock tower, a cemetery office, a chapel, and a fancy ticket office in the main lobby, however it is widely believed never to have been used by the public. Pinelawn Cemetery Station remained in service for a business located within the cemetery, until it was destroyed by a fire in April 1928. The walls of the station were still standing in 1960, and the arched entrance to this station remained intact until 1985,[2] when the Long Island Rail Road was beginning its electrification of the main line, as mentioned above.

References

  1. ↑ Average weekday, 2006 LIRR Origin and Destination Study
  2. ↑ Pinelawn - Melville Station (Arrt's Arrchives)

External links

Platform with a Jamaica-bound M7 arriving at the station.
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