Long Island Rail Road

Route Description
Experience America’s busiest commuter railroad and all the bustle and challenges of railroading in New York City in Train Sim World: Long Island Rail Road. The famed “LIRR” operates 24/7 and carries more than 350,000 commuters each weekday, and you’ll take the controls of the railroad’s modern LIRR M7 EMUs to keep the trains moving in and out of New York City and through America’s busiest rail junction at Jamaica, New York. The Long Island Rail Road route features all three of LIRR’s key New York-area stations – Penn Station, Atlantic Terminal, and Long Island City – extends east to Hicksville, New York, and includes the captivating Hempstead Branch.

Route History
The Long Island Rail Road Company was chartered in 1834 to provide a daily service between New York and Boston via a ferry connection between its Greenport, New York, terminal on Long Island's North Fork and Stonington, Connecticut. This service was superseded in 1849 by the land route through Connecticut that became part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The LIRR refocused its attentions towards serving Long Island, in competition with other railroads on the island. In the 1870s, railroad president Conrad Poppenhusen and his successor Austin Corbin acquired all the railroads and consolidated them into the LIRR.[10]

The LIRR was unprofitable for much of its history. In 1900, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) bought a controlling interest as part of its plan for direct access to Manhattan which began on September 8, 1910. The wealthy PRR subsidized the LIRR during the first half of the new century, allowing expansion and modernization.[6] Electric operation began in 1905.[11]

After the Second World War, the railroad industry's downturn and dwindling profits caused the PRR to stop subsidizing the LIRR, and the LIRR went into receivership in 1949. The State of New York, realizing how important the railroad was to Long Island's future, began to subsidize the railroad in the 1950s and 1960s. In June 1965, the state finalized an agreement to buy the LIRR from the PRR for $65 million.[12] The LIRR was placed under the control of a new Metropolitan Commuter Transit Authority.[13] The MCTA was rebranded the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1968 when it incorporated several other New York City-area transit agencies. With MTA subsidies the LIRR modernized further, continuing to be the busiest commuter railroad in the United States.

The LIRR is one of the few railroads that has survived as an intact company from its original charter to the present.