History
The line from Hicksville to Syosset opened in 1854. The LIRR later planned to extend to Cold Spring Harbor, but Oliver Charlick, the LIRR's president, disagreed over the station's location, so Charlick abandoned the grade and relocated the extension south of Cold Spring, refusing to add a station stop near Cold Spring for years. Another argument at Huntington led to the line bypassing the town two miles (3 km) to the south, though a station was built. The line was extended from Syosset past Huntington to Northport in 1868, and in 1873 the Smithtown and Port Jefferson Railroad opened from a mile south of Northport to Port Jefferson, turning the old line into Northport into the Northport Branch, the result of another argument between Charlick and Northport.
The Port Jefferson Branch formerly extended to Wading River in 1895, and was once slated to continue eastward and rejoin the Main Line at either Riverhead or Calverton. From 1905 to 1928, Wading River was also the site of an LIRR Demonstration farm. The other one was east of Medford station on the Main Line. The line east of Port Jefferson was abandoned in 1938. The right-of-way is now owned by the Long Island Power Authority and used for power lines but there are plans to create a rail trail for bicycling, running, and walking. The Port Jefferson Branch was electrified to Huntington Station in 1970. The former Northport Branch was abandoned in 1985, and the Kings Park Psychiatric Center spur was abandoned in 1988.
On a small note, electrification reached from Mineola to Hicksville & Huntington in 1970. For 15 years from Amott Interlocking east of Syosset Station to west of Huntington it was single-tracked. In 1985, they constructed a second electrified track in that area to avoid the single track bottle neck, this included Cold Spring Harbor adding a second platform.
Read more about this topic: Port Jefferson Branch
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“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)