Fresh Pond Junction is a

freight yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

in the Ridgewood and Glendale neighborhoods of

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It is operated by the New York & Atlantic Railway, which serves

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

using tracks owned by the

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , or LIRR, is a Rail transport, railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County on Long Islan ...

(LIRR). The yard has operated since the early 20th century and is the primary rail freight yard on the island. Trains can travel from Fresh Pond Junction to the mainland in two directions: * North via the

Hell Gate Bridge The Hell Gate Bridge (originally the New York Connecting Railroad Bridge) is a railroad bridge in New York City. The bridge carries two tracks of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and one freight track between Astoria, Queens, and Port Morris, Bron ...

and the

Oak Point Yard The Oak Point Yard is a freight railroad rail yard, yard located in Hunts Point, Bronx, Hunts Point, The Bronx, New York City. The yard is owned by CSX Transportation, and is a base for CSX's local deliveries in the area, including to the Hunts ...

, providing interchanges with the

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

and Providence and Worcester railroads. * Southwest via the

Bay Ridge Branch The Bay Ridge Branch is a rail line in New York City, owned by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and operated by the New York and Atlantic Railway. It is the longest freight-only line of the LIRR, connecting the Montauk Branch and CSX Transporta ...

to the

New York New Jersey Rail New York New Jersey Rail, LLC is a switching and terminal railroad that operates the only car float operation across Upper New York Bay between Jersey City, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York. Since mid-November 2008, it has been owned by t ...

car float A railroad car float or rail barge is a specialised form of Lighter (barge), lighter with railway tracks mounted on its deck used to move rolling stock across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go. An unpowered barge, it i ...

operation. Barges bring cars to

Greenville Yard Greenville Yard is a freight rail yard in the Port of New York and New Jersey. It is located on Upper New York Bay in Jersey City, New Jersey, adjacent and north of Port Jersey. Originally developed in 1904 by the Pennsylvania Railroad, it was ...

in New Jersey, where interchange is available to CSX and

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

using

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

's North Jersey Shared Assets Area. The Fresh Pond Junction freight facility comprises two yards, west (5 tracks) and east (9 tracks), both of which parallel the NY&A

Montauk Branch The Montauk Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The line runs the length of Long Island, 115 miles (185 km) from Long Island City to Montauk. However, in LIRR maps and sche ...

. There is also a wye and interchange tracks with the

New York Connecting Railroad The New York Connecting Railroad or NYCR is a rail line in the borough (New York City), borough of Queens in New York City. It links New York City and Long Island by rail directly to the North American mainland. Amtrak, CSX, Canadian Pa ...

line (now CSX Fremont Secondary) which connects the Oak Point Yard to the Bay Ridge Branch as it passes over the yard. Nearby is Fresh Pond Yard, a separate and unconnected facility of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

Mafera Park Mafera Park (officially Joseph F. Mafera Park) is a park in Queens, New York City, United States. It is approximately in size, located adjacent to the New York City Subway's Fresh Pond Yard and close to the Fresh Pond Junction between the Long ...

, a small neighborhood park, is located at the southwestern corner of Fresh Pond Junction, bounded by the junction to the north and east and the Fresh Pond Yard to the west.

Operations

CSX runs daily local yard jobs from

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

to Fresh Pond, carrying manifest freight southbound and empty cars and trash loads northbound. The

Providence and Worcester Railroad The Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W; ) is a Class II railroad operating of tracks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, as well as New York (state), New York via trackage rights. The company was founded in 1844 to build ...

(P&W) brings stone and gravel southbound on their CHFP train from Cedar Hill Yard in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...

, on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings, and runs the cars back to Cedar Hill empty on their FPCH train on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. NY&A uses the yard as an interchange yard, taking the freight from the CSX and P&W trains and delivering it to destinations on

or down the Bay Ridge Branch and across the

Upper New York Bay New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay ...

via

References

{{coord, 40, 42, 26, N, 73, 53, 16, W, display=title Rail freight transportation in New York City Rail yards in New York (state) Ridgewood, Queens Providence and Worcester Railroad