The West Hempstead Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in the U.S. state of New York.
The branch separates from the Main Line just east of Jamaica Station, and runs southeastward to West Hempstead. The line has one track between Westwood station and Hempstead Gardens and two from there to the end of the line in West Hempstead, the southbound or east track being a siding.
Since Valley Stream only has platforms on the Atlantic Branch, which parallels the Montauk Branch to the south, most West Hempstead Branch trains that serve Valley Stream are shuttles that terminate there.
As the smallest LIRR commuter branch, West Hempstead was one of the last in the system to modernize. It was the last of the electrified LIRR branches to receive high level platforms, in the early 1970s, and the last of the electrified branches to be fitted with Automatic Train Control (known as Automatic Speed Control by the LIRR), which it received in October 2009 during a system overhaul and upgrade at Valley Interlocking. Nevertheless, the branch is one of the most vulnerable lines and has been threatened with abandonment in recent years. In September 2010, the line lost weekend service, except for St. Albans, which is served by trains on the Babylon Branch on weekends. (No trains stop at both St. Albans and Valley Stream.)
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