The Long Island Railroad

The Long Island Rail Road or LIRR is a railroad that serves the length of Long Island, New York. It is the busiest commuter railroad in the United States, and the oldest railroad still operating under its original name.

The LIRR's has its roots back to 1832 as the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad, which built a ten mile stretch of track between Brooklyn and Jamaica. The Long Island Rail Road itself was founded in 1834, leasing the track laid down by the B&J and building its own.

The original plan was not as a local service to serve Long Island, but rather a quicker route from Boston to New York. Trains would run from Boston to Stonington, Connecticut, where the passengers would cross by ferry to Long Island. They would then ride on the LIRR to Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and finally cross by ferry to New York. The reason for this rather complicated plan was the impossibility, at the time, of building a railroad through southern Connecticut.

The LIRR thus built its original tracks running straight down the middle of the island (the pink-purple line on the map), which was largely uninhabited at the time, rather than serving the existing Long Island communities. This route was chosen as the most direct way to travel to New York.

The Island-long route was completed in 1844 and at first was highly successful. However, in 1849, just 5 years later, the New York and New Haven Railroad opened through the 'impassable' country of southern Connecticut, and a direct overland route from New York to Boston now existed. The LIRR's reason for existence was gone.

The only remaining business was to serve Long Island itself, something the railroad was not built to do. Efforts were made to build branches to the small Long Island communities. In 1850 only one such branch existed, but more were built, as well as a number of other railroad companies' branches which were later absorbed into the LIRR.

In 1901 the Pennsylvania Railroad acquired the Long Island Rail Road and went about a program of improvements. The PRR had long desired a station on Manhattan Island itself, instead of in Jersey City, so they built the Pennsylvania Station, with tracks oriented east-west, and dug two sets of tunnels, one under the Hudson River to connect the new station with the Pennsylvania Railroad network, and another set under the East River to connect with the Long Island Rail Road.

Pennsylvania Station is under the famous Madison Square Garden building. This station is now used by Amtrak with its Acela, speeding its way from Boston to Washington DC, as well as by the LIRR commuters AND New Jersey Transit commuters.


After the Second World War, the LIRR subsidiary became a financial burden on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and eventually became bankrupt. It was purchased by the State of New York and now run by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

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