The LIRR (reporting mark LI) is a commuter rail line that runs from Manhattan to the eastern edge of Suffolk County on Long Island in the United States. It is the busiest commuter railroad in North America, with an average weekday ridership of 354,800 passengers in 2016. It is also one of the world’s few commuter systems that operate 24/7 year-round.
The LIRR logo, which appears on the sides of trains, combines the circular MTA emblem with the text Long Island Rail Road. The LIRR is one of the MTA’s two commuter rail lines, the other being the Metro-North Railroad in the New York area’s northern suburbs. It is the oldest railroad in the United States still operating under its original name and charter, having been founded in 1834 and running continuously since then.
On its two lines to the two forks of the island and eight major branches, the LIRR has 124 stations and more than 700 miles (1,100 km) of the track, with a passenger railroad system comprising 319 miles (513 km) of the route.
The Long Island Rail Road Company was founded in 1834 with the goal of providing daily service between New York and Boston via a ferry connection between its Greenport, New York, and Stonington, Connecticut terminals on Long Island’s North Fork. In 1849, the land route through Connecticut, which later became part of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, supplanted this service. In competition with other railroads on the island, the LIRR refocused its efforts on serving Long Island. Conrad Poppenhusen and his successor, Austin Corbin, purchased all of the railroads in the 1870s and merged them into the LIRR.
For much of its existence, the LIRR was a loss-making venture. As part of its plan for direct access to Manhattan, which commenced on September 8, 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) purchased a controlling position in the company in 1900. During the first half of the twentieth century, the affluent PRR funded the LIRR, allowing it to expand and modernize. Electricity was first used in 1905.
The PRR stopped funding the LIRR after WWII due to the railroad industry’s slump and diminishing profitability, and the LIRR went into receivership in 1949. In the 1950s and 1960s, the state of New York began to subsidize the railroad, realizing how crucial it was to Long Island’s future. The state agreed to purchase the LIRR from the PRR for $65 million in June 1965.
A new Metropolitan Commuter Transit Authority was established to oversee the LIRR. When the MCTA merged with several other New York City-area transit agencies in 1968, it was renamed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The LIRR has further improved thanks to MTA funds, and it remains the busiest commuter railroad in the United States.
Over the years, the railroad has eliminated a number of branches due to low patronage. The IND Rockaway Line of the New York City Subway took over part of the Rockaway Beach Branch, while others were reduced to freight branches or abandoned entirely. Until 1917, the Long Island Rail Road also ran trains on parts of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (BRT) elevated and subterranean lines.
Also learn about the A History of Suffolk County Long Island
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