Interlocking Walkthrough: ENY

For today’s interlocking walkthrough,we’ll be taking a look at the ENY interlocking in the enclave of East New York in Brooklyn. If you didn’t get the exaggerated sarcasm, then, let me tell you that East New York is not an enclave! In fact, it’s known to be one of the worst areas in New York, facing numerous crime and poverty issues. If I were you, unless your trying to explore and don’t have expensive things on you, then I’d avoid the area completely. Nonetheless, the point is if you go there (especially at night!) don’t dress like you want to be mugged.

East New York is a weird-looking station as it looks underground, but it’s actually at ground-level! It’s actually sandwiched between the BMT Canarsie Line and a highway. ENY Interocking is a very simple interlocking,and is also rarely used, only really during service disruptions. But, for the most part, Atlantic Branch operations are pretty simple and straightforward and don’t involve crossover moves at midpoints.

Switches

So ENY interlocking is a very simple interlocking, only consisting of a switch, when going east, from Atlantic 2 to Atlantic 1 (the westbound track), followed by another switch back to Atlantic 2. Just two crossovers, that’s it.

Towers

There used to be an ENY tower, which actually lied right on the station platform, however, that was closed back in the 90s and only reopened whenever there was a service disruption which required the interlocking but this caused trouble because whenever there was some sort of incident that took one of the two tracks out of service without notice, then the affected train would have to wait until someone came to throw the switch. Eventually, in September 2001, the towers operations were moved to the nearby BROOK interlocking.

Neighbors

To the west lies BROOK interlocking, in Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn, and the eastern neighbor is DUNTON interlocking, the third and least-used of the three Jamaica interlockings.

To my regular readers, You should notice that we should be getting back into the hang of things after the 2 week hiatus and expect slightly more regular posts. However, for the rest of the summer, due expect slightly less as I’m preoccupied with other things and coupled with vacations I don’t have the time to push out as much content.

Photos: Mineola (7/2025)

Interlocking Walkthrough: KO

Our next interlocking to be featured in this series is the well-known KO interlocking. Located at Ronkonkoma station, this is actually the easternmost interlocking on the Main Line located an ever-impressive 49 miles from Long Island City. KO is split into two separate interlockings, KO 1 and KO 2 with KO 1 west of the station and KO 2 east of the station.

Switches

KO interlocking begins just east of the Pond Road crossing. Just after the crossing, the certified north siding splits off Mainline 1. That siding doesn’t get all that much use, I’ve seen it be used to house tiny equipment trains, and that’s about it.

The certified north siding then merges back a bit later, then there’s one last crossover from Mainline 1 back to Mainline 2 before Mainline 2 diverges from Mainline 1 to enter Ronkonkoma’s 3 station platforms.

Almost right after Ronkonkoma’s station platforms is the start of KO 2.  Mainline 1 and 2 come much closer to each other, as a third track spurs off Mainline 2 called the WASH track. This track is essential as it houses the trianwash which is what they use to clean the trains. They have few of these left, only here, Babylon, and Richmond Hill. Following the end of the car wash, there’s a pair of two switches, first from Mainline 1 to Mainline 2, then from Mainline 2 back to Mainline 1. These switches allow trains on either tracks to go to the hard, or to continue on Mainline 1 east of Ronkonkoma.

We now reach Ronkonkoma Yard, also referred to as Mid-Suffolk Electric Yard.

I also forgot to mention that a 20 mph restriction is in place thru  KO 2 is restricted to 20 mph.

Ronkonkoma Yard has 23 tracks, broken into two clusters, in which 11 of them were added to support additional train service after East Side Access. It goes as follows:

Ronkonkoma Yard is fully electrified, and during the nighttime, for the most part is pretty much full of almost everything you can see, plenty of full 8, 10, and 12, and even some 6 car consists make an appearance being stored here for the morning rush.

I feel like it's easier to show a diagram of the yard, rather then to explain every little switch in the yard, so here's a diagram of it I found on Trains are Fun:

 

The eastern limit of KO 2 is right before Lincoln Avenue, and at that point, KO interlocking officially ends and the 20 mph speed restriction is dropped for a slightly better 45 mph speed limit all the way to Riverhead.

Well that concludes KO interlocking!

Tri-State Rail NOW's First Anniversary!

Today marks the anniversary since the first post was published on Tri-State Rail NOW! The first post was published on Saturday, July 13, 2024. Since then, over 145 posts have been published on a variety of topics, ranging from the NJTransit strikes to the LIRR's scheduling and service patterns.

Of the 146 posts that have been published, The Ronkonkoma Problem has remained the most popular one, talking about the popularity of the LIRR's second busiest station, Ronkonkoma. 

Over the past year, It's been a very fun journey and I cannot wait to continue it. I've had so much fun writing these posts, and there's so much more coming soon. 

I've included in this post a small survey that if you can complete would really help to improve our site to include more of what you guys, the readers, would like to see.

As always, I thank each and everyone of you who takes the time to read this site, no matter if your a regular reader or someone who stops by time to time. One thing I'd like to see more of is commenting. This site hasn't gotten enough comments! 

I will be taking a two week hiatus from making posts due to unforeseen circumstances, but when I'm back, I'll have a huge load of new posts scheduled to come out. 

Photos: Sayville (7/2025)