Fresh Pond | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Location | Fresh Pond, Queens, New York U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 40°42′43.8″N73°53′56.1″W / 40.712167°N 73.898917°W | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Owned by | Long Island Rail Road | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Line(s) | Montauk Branch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Platforms | 1 side platform, 1 island platform | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tracks | 3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
History | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Opened | June 1869 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Closed | March 16, 1998 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rebuilt | April 1895 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Electrified | August 29, 1905 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Previous names | Bushwick Junction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Former services | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Fresh Pond (formerly known as Bushwick Junction) was a Long Island Rail Road station along the Lower Montauk Branch, located on an open cut near Fresh Pond Road and Metropolitan Avenue in Fresh Pond, Queens, on the border between the neighborhoods of Maspeth and Ridgewood.
The station opened around June 1869, however in either 1882 or 1883, it was renamed Bushwick Junction for the connection to the Bushwick Branch. The station was rebuilt in April 1895 and closed again in 1915 as part of a grade elimination project. Though the third station was opened the same year with platforms and pedestrian bridges, the former station house still remained intact well into 1923. For the next four years, both the original name and new name would be on the LIRR timetables until it went back to strictly being named Fresh Pond in 1919. [1] [2]
Fresh Pond station closed on March 16, 1998, along with the four remaining stations on the Lower Montauk branch due to low ridership, which did not make it cost-effective to build high-level platforms needed to support the then-new C3 bi-level cars that replaced the remainder of the rolling stock on the LIRR that were able to board at low-level platforms. [3]
This station had one low-level island platform between the two southernmost tracks (for eastbound trains) and one low-level side platform serving the northernmost track (for Long Island City-bound trains). However, the platforms were actually a wide area of dirt and gravel. The island platform had a small tin shelter. The only way to reach the station was via a narrow walkway that began at the intersection of Metropolitan Avenue and Fresh Pond Road and went behind a car rental parking lot. It led to an overpass that had staircases going down to each platform.[ clarification needed ]
The Long Island Rail Road, or LIRR, is a railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. The railroad currently operates a public commuter rail service, with its freight operations contracted to the New York and Atlantic Railway. With an average weekday ridership of 354,800 passengers in 2016, it is the busiest commuter railroad in North America. It is also one of the world's few commuter systems that runs 24/7 year-round. It is publicly owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which refers to it as MTA Long Island Rail Road. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 75,186,900, or about 276,800 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
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The Montauk Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The line runs the length of Long Island, 115 miles (185 km) from Long Island City to Montauk. However, in LIRR maps and schedules for public use, the term Montauk Branch refers to the line east of Babylon; service from Jamaica to Babylon is covered by separate Babylon Branch schedules, while the line west of Jamaica is currently unused for passenger service. A select number of Montauk Branch trains operate via the Main Line and Central Branch during peak hours.
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The Babylon station is a station on the Long Island Rail Road in the village of Babylon, New York at Railroad Avenue west of Deer Park Avenue. It is on the Montauk Branch and is the eastern terminus of the Babylon Branch service. To the west is the junction with the Central Branch, which heads northwest to join the Main Line at Bethpage Interlocking southeast of the Bethpage station. Babylon station is elevated with two island platforms and is wheelchair accessible through elevator access. The electrified portion of the Montauk Branch ends east of the station.
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The Long Island Rail Road is a railroad owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the U.S. state of New York. It is the oldest United States railroad still operating under its original name and charter. It consolidated several other companies in the late 19th century. The Pennsylvania Railroad owned the Long Island Rail Road for the majority of the 20th century and sold it to the State in 1966.
The Queens Village station is a commuter rail station on the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line, located between 218th Street and Springfield Boulevard, in the Queens Village neighborhood of Queens, New York City. It has two side platforms along the four-track line, and is served primarily by Hempstead Branch trains.
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Fresh Pond was a small middle class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, separated from Juniper Valley by the Lutheran and Mount Olivet cemeteries. In present day, it is now considered part of the surrounding neighborhoods of Maspeth, Middle Village, Glendale, and Ridgewood and is no longer referred to by the name "Fresh Pond." The area was originally named for two freshwater ponds that, in the early 1900s, were filled in. Other ponds were lower, and brackish due to Newtown Creek being estuarine.
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The Bushwick Branch, also called the Bushwick Lead Track, is a freight railroad branch in New York City. It runs from the East Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn to Fresh Pond Junction in the Glendale neighborhood of Queens, where it connects with the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. It is owned by the LIRR but operated under lease by the New York and Atlantic Railway, which took over LIRR freight operations in May 1997.
Media related to Fresh Pond (LIRR station) at Wikimedia Commons