Montauk Branch - Babylon to Patchogue

The South Side Rail Road of Long Island (S.S.R.R.) was incorporated March 23, 1860.  
Work began May 28, 1866 and in September 1866 the Directors voted to extend the road to Patchogue.
Oct. 28, 1867 regular service began between Jamaica and Babylon.
May 20, 1868 South Side Railroad of Long Island opens between Babylon and Islip.
Dec. 11, 1868 South Side Railroad of Long Island opens between Islip and Sayville.
Apr. 10, 1869 South Side Railroad of Long Island opens between Sayville and Patchogue.
July 1874 the South Side Rail Road was sold in foreclosure and renamed: The Southern Railroad Company of Long Island.
December 1879, reorganized it as the "Brooklyn & Montauk RR," which was then leased to the Long Island RR.
March 1880, the Southern RR was referred to as the Montauk Division of the Long Island RR.
 

 1873 Colton map of the S.S.R.R. approximately MP38-48

 

Babylon Station to East Patchogue comprising MP36 to MP54+.

Sayville view W Photo: Fred Weber
Archive: Dave Morrison

Patchogue Station view NE  Photo/Archive: John Jett

 RDC Scoot at the Baggage House and mail-loading platform
1/1962 Archive: Dave Keller

The LIRR is upgrading signaling on a 17 mile stretch of the Montauk Branch between Babylon and Patchogue by installing Automatic Speed Control (ASC), the LIRR's version of cab signaling on this stretch.  ASC would replace the current system of Automatic Block Signals (ABS) between Babylon and Y Interlocking, just east of Sayville, and Controlled Manual Block (or CMB) in place between Y and Patchogue.  Coupled with ACSES II, the LIRR's implementation of Positive Train Control, the project will help provide for a fully compliant and operational PTC system.

Under the current Automatic Block Signal system that's in place between Babylon and Y Interlocking, train spacing is regulated by wayside signals along the right of way.  This means the status of the track ahead is conveyed to train crews using signal indications on the physical signals stationed next to the tracks at regular intervals, or "blocks".  While this type of block-based, wayside signaling is common on most metro systems and even a lot of mainline railroads, wayside block signaling has been on its way out at the LIRR for many years.

Much of the LIRR has been upgraded to ASC cab signaling in the decades since the 1950 Kew Gardens train crash, when 78 passengers wre killed on the day before Thanksgiving after one train rear-ended another when the crew mistakenly thought a signal ahead of a disabled train was meant for them.  Following that crash, the LIRR spent $6 million to install ASC on 52.6 miles of the busiest line segments.  The first segment was completed in May 1951, just six months after the crash, and ASC would later expand to the Main Line from HAROLD to Hillside, the Port Washington Branch, and from Jamaica to Babylon on the Montauk Branch by the summer of 1952 (the total cost of the development and first implementation of ASC came out to $1.1 million per mile, once adjusted for inflation effects).  Since then, ASC and cab signaling has expanded to most of the railroad.  Today, there are just three segments:where ABS remains in place:

• Babylon to Sayville on the Montauk Branch (normal direction only)
  Mineola to Locust Valley on the Oyster Bay Branch (normal direction only)
  Central Branch, entire length from Bethpage to Babylon (both directions)