Let’s pretend some guy came up to you and asked you “if you can purchase an LIRR ticket to Yankee Stadium”, what would your response to him be?
For many of you it would probably be no, however the answer is actually yes. If you were to wander up to an LIRR ticket vending machine, if you search “Y”, the option next to Yaphank would be Yankee Stadium.
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| Photo: The LIRR Today |
Now as you must know, the LIRR hasn’t and probably never will operate trains to and from Yankee Stadium, but they included that as a convenience to riders going to/from that station. Basically, from what I’ve seen, the LIRR does or at least did designate “The Train to The Game” route as taking the LIRR to 34 St-Penn Station, then walking to 6th Avenue, and taking a Bronx-bound (D) up Central Park West to 161 St- Yankee Stadium. The nice bonus is that this gives you a ticket, allowing you to skip using a crummy Metrocard Machine.
Since East Side Access, it’s even less useful since you can just take the LIRR to Grand Central and connect to Metro-North there, and now that they are unfortunately phasing out Metrocards to OMNY, I don’t know what will be of this little-known feature. I’m not even confident it exists anymore on the ticket machine to be totally honest.
I personally can’t tell you what it says on the ticket, since I’ve never purchased a ticket there and probably never will. I tried looking it up but their doesn’t seam to be any photos of the ticket online and I’m too lazy to go up to my local station and buy one.
In conclusion, it’s another useless little Easter egg that little know about due to it being hidden away with Yaphank (a station, again, few search for), but next time your going to take the LIRR and connect to the subway, try the Yankee Stadium option and see if it raises any eyebrows!