Welcome back to our next Interlocking Walkthrough, with this one being WANTAGH interlocking. WANTAGH, which is located just east of WANTAGH station on the Babylon Branch is a small, simple little interlocking on the Montauk branch that mainly only serves a duty during the peak hours. This interlocking, along with ROCKY, PORT, and AMITYVILLE, really help to give the Babylon Branch its world-renowned “flexibility”.
Here’s a quick look at the interlocking:
Like ROCKY, PORT, and AMITYVILLE, really all there is to see is a really simple pair of crossover tracks. Going from west to east there is a crossover from Montauk 2 (the eastbound track) to Montauk 1 (the westbound track), and then a couple hundred feet later, another crossover from Montauk 1 to Montauk 2.
This interlocking is definitely not used very often. Back before East Side Access, they’d sometimes throat on the Babylon Branch, for example, they’d run a Babylon-New York express on track 1, then on track 2, they’d deadhead a Wantagh-NY train to WANTAGH, where’d it would switch back to the westbound track in order to begin its westbound run. However, nowadays, that’s not an issue, and all trains (even westbound and eastbound deadheads to/from Massapequa Pocket Track and Babylon Yard) just run on their respective track.
WANTAGH interlocking used to sport a classy PENSY-position light style signal, however, the LIRR updated all the signals at WANTAGH and AMITYVILLE to Tri-color light signals.
As far as control goes, when it was first put into service, it was controlled by either BABYLON or PORT interlockins, but when PORT tower was demolished, VALLEY became its master controller.
Anyways, that should wrap up this interlocking. Next time, we’ll take a look at the largest interlocking in New York, HAROLD interlocking!