"Outbound" ticket offices

[R36 Combine Coach]

I noticed some stations had their ticket offices on the outbound platform, which is an anomaly given most commuter railroads have ticket offices on the inbound side (to serve daily commuters in the AM). The elevated Nostrand Avenue station had its ticket office on the eastbound platform. Was it primarily intended for reverse traffic?

Flushing Main Street had the ticket office on street level on the eastbound side (the 1958 station that was recently demolished). However other stations in the City Zone (Forest Hills, Kew Gardens) as well as the Northeastern Queens stations on the Port Washington Branch have or had their ticket offices on the inbound (west) platform. Little Neck was also an exception.

[Head-end View]

I'm thinking Nostrand Ave. was probably intended for Brooklynites traveling out to Long Island so it made sense to have it on the eastbound side.

[MACTRAXX]

R36:

Yes - most LIRR ticket offices are on the westbound side but as noticed some have been or now
have been added on the LI or "Eastbound" side...

I agree with what H-E View mentions about Nostrand Avenue is that it was primarily for eastbound
riders. I will add Forest Hills in that a TVM was added to the eastbound side platform so riders have
opportunity to purchase tickets without high penalty charges and the inconvenience of having to go
up to the westbound platform to get a ticket to go eastbound at FH...

Farmingdale is a older station with the building on the eastbound side - and a underpass to the
westbound side conveniently located right there for easy access to westbound trains. Even with
that there are peak weekday trains that use the "other" track at Farmingdale and Bethpage...

An interesting situation is developing in Central Islip with the Ronkonkoma Branch Second Track
Project - CI is the one station that has the waiting room and TVMs on the south side which was
built in 1987 during the Hicksville-Ronkonkoma Electrification - will these be moved over to a new
facility on the north side or remain as they are? Will westbound trains continue to use the south
track or the new north track? I can see future problems if westbound trains use the new track to
force passengers to constantly use the overhead bridge or walk to the Lowell Avenue crossing on
the east end to cross over after purchasing tickets...

MACTRAXX

[Head-end View]

Interesting issue at Central Islip. Do I correctly assume that most trains now use the south track at the station so it's not an issue at present? We can assume that westbound trains will use the north track in the double track scenario. So maybe they'll add ticket machines on the north platform? No room for a station-building on the north side because of the street parallel to the tracks on that side.

[MACTRAXX]

H-E View:

The current north track at Central Islip is the "siding" that will end up being part of the new added
second track. This second platform only sees limited use and is used for "meets" when necessary...

There IS room for a waiting room or TVM facility on the north side at CI which would need to be
located between the end of the staircase of the overhead bridge to across from where the current
facility now is because of access lanes west of the bridge from Suffolk Avenue to the station and
the T intersection with Hawthorne Avenue at the east end of those lanes. This is most of the east
half of the north platform that has sufficient room provided it is similar in size and width to the
current CI station facility. Another thought is to add TVMs in a shelter someplace on the north
side - the overhead bridge is substantially down the platform from the current facility...

I am quite familiar with the CI station geography - I live just one mile away and have used the
current station literally since it was built back in 1987...

MACTRAXX

[fender52]

There was a ticket office on the westbound side at the old Nostrand Ave station. There was even an small waiting room. It was located on the west end of the station. I went in to look at when I worked there back in the early 70s.

The old ticket office on the eastbound was just about in the same location as the new one is (now closed). It was the only place where I worked that had an umbrella that you could put over the you and the ticket case so you wouldn't get rained on. It also had one of those wonderful electric toilets.

At Woodside, the old ticket office was on the eastbound side also. There was a small office on the middle platform where the Agent sold in the AM rush.

Some of the other older stations that were on the eastbound that I can think of:
Oakdale, Great River

[workextra]

Keep in mind that some some of the stations such as farmingdale were built for a single track railroad with low platforms and a rule providing for the main to be flagged and passengers to board a train in the siding if there was one at the station. Therefore It was a nonissue that the station facility was on what is today's outbound/LI side.
As many facilities were taken down in the 1960 and or during the grade elimination projects new facilities were added on the inbound/WB Side or directly under the right of way servicing a bidirectional island platform.

Many Montauk branch stations are on the south side And in single track this is a non issue. Once again it became a hot topic eapically in patchogue because it requires all these switching moves since the main cannot be flagged to premit boarding off the siding. Same issues requires millions spent on crossovers and useless interlocking to protect them in ND and SN as this becomes signaled in a few weeks.

Then platforms being on the outbound/LI date to a bygone era. And to when much of the railroad was single track. Can't blame the MTA for that one. Are there exceptions, insure there's probably reasons for it.

[Cannon Ball]

Going back to the REAL old days, around the turn of the last century (1900) when rural LI was being developed into suburbia as an oasis from the city, many stations on the Montauk Branch were built on the south (eastbound) side so that arriving prospects seeking to buy real estate and establish a home in the new, developing villages would have an impressive structure to step into as they disembarked from the train and were met by the real estate agents drooling over prospective sales! Massapequa (the old brick station razed around 1953), Amityville, and Shinnecock Hills (yes, I know it's single track there) come to mind as examples of structures influenced by the real estate barons and built to wow the arriving multitudes. The tower on the Shinnecock Hills station building is said to have been built specifically so real estate prospects could go up and look out the open windows at the available parcels to select just where they'd like to buy. Other stations, like Oakdale, were built on the south (eastbound) side to accommodate and impress arriving guests of the nabobs; in Oakdale's case, it was the Vanderbilts.

[workextra]

Yes, Cannon Ball I did leave that aspect out. The train station was for some of these towns the center of business, post office, REA, and western union telegraph. And what ever local freight was not handled at the station it self was handled slightly down the track at the towns team track.

Oakdale was built by Vanderbilt for his daughters wedding at a time when that section was single track as as previously stated provided a place to get off the train and arrive/depart in style.
LIRR is not a modern railroad by any means. Yes. We run electrics we got modern era equipment, and have or will be modernizing parts of the company in many ways, however the road is limited in its period state in many cases.

look at the oyster bat branch? Do you plow it all over elevate it and build high islands? I don't so. Nor would the residents want the Berlin Wall through their neighborhoods.
As functional as it is for rail and road traffic today. The "middle Montauk" looks like total crap! Took the charm out of the villages and the nice historic stations replaced with the concrete curtain. At least with a little more creative engineering we got a flood barrier almost halfway built.