This week’s Interlocking Walkthrough will take a look at PORT interlocking. When you first think about it, you’d probably think it’s in Port Washington, however, it’s actually in Freeport.
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| Sorry the images are so blurry |
PORT interlocking is the interlocking for Freeport, which as you may know has a small yard that can store two electric trains during rush hours. This interlocking first went into service as “FY” tower in 1926, before being renamed to PORT in April 1937.
Switches
PORT Interlocking consists of an initial crossover from Montauk 2 (the eastbound track) to Montauk 1 (the westbound track), followed by the two-track Freeport Layup Yard splitting off track 1. These tracks continue on for maybe
The two layup tracks consist of enough track space to hold two twelve car trainsets. These layup tracks are used during rush hours to allow trains that begin/end at Freeport to get onto the pocket track and get out of the way of busy Babylon Branch rush hour traffic. After Freeport Yard tracks split off there’s another crossover from Montauk 1 back to Montauk 2.
At the eastern tip of Freeport Layup Yard, the northernmost of the two tracks merges into the other one, and here, unlike at many yards/layups, there’s a crossover from the southern layup track back to Montauk 1 then the track continues for a short while before ending. I assume this little pocket was designed to store a small protect engine m, yet these days it’s quite rare to see one hanging out here, but there’s space for it if and when it becomes necessary. Another oddity at PORT is that at the eastern end, there’s isn’t one last crossover once the layup track merges in, therefore, trains cannot easily get from the layup over to the eastbound Montauk track, and while they probably won’t need to, it is an inconvenience. Therefore, if a train does want to get east from Freeport Layup Yard, they would either have to back into the station before being able to continue east, or wrong-rail all the way to WANTAGH.
