Sunnyside Yard is a large

coach 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 u ...

, a railroad yard for passenger cars, in

Sunnyside, Queens Sunnyside is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It shares borders with Hunters Point and Long Island City to the west, Astoria to the north, Woodside to the east and Maspeth to the south. It contains th ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

Description

The yard is owned by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

and is also used by

New Jersey Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bus, ...

. The shared tracks of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Main Line and Amtrak's

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, ...

pass along the southern edge of the yard. Northeast of the yard a balloon track (or reverse loop) is used for "U-turning" Amtrak and NJ Transit trains which terminate at Penn Station. Leading eastward near the south side of the yard, this balloon track switches off and turns left under the LIRR/Amtrak tracks, turns left once again, and merges with the Sunnyside yard track to turn the train west toward Penn Station.

History

The

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

(PRR) completed construction of the yard in 1910. At that time Sunnyside was the largest coach yard in the world, occupying 192 acres (0.78 km²) and containing 25.7 mi (41.4 km) of track. The yard served as the main

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often k ...

storage and service point for PRR trains serving New York City. It is connected to Pennsylvania Station in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

by the East River Tunnels. The Sunnyside North Yard initially had 45 tracks with a capacity of 526 cars. The South Yard had 45 tracks with a 552 car capacity.

Plans

East Side Access project

Plans for the East Side Access project to

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern termi ...

call for some LIRR trains to diverge from the main line and travel through a tunnel under the yard. The project would also create a new station at Queens Boulevard, named Sunnyside.

Harold Interlocking

In May 2011, a $294.7 million federal grant was awarded to address congestion at Harold Interlocking, the United States' busiest rail junction, which is part of the yard. The work will allow for dedicated tracks to the Hell Gate Line

right of way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

for Amtrak trains arriving from or bound for

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...

, thus avoiding NJT and LIRR traffic.

Housing development

In 2017 it was announced that the city would begin a feasibility study into the construction of 21,000 to 31,000 units of housing on top of the rail yard. The project, which would be similar to the Hudson Yards development over

West Side Yard The West Side Yard (officially the John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard) is a rail yard of 30 tracks owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. Used to store commuter rail trains operated by th ...

, has stoked public controversy over the affordability of units, pedestrian and road connections, open space, and a nearby

Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the Environmental Protection Agen ...

site. In early 2020, Amtrak and the city government published a master plan. The plan called for building a deck over Sunnyside Yard and constructing 12,000 housing units, all of which would be

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on af ...

, as well as of parks and public plazas.

References

External links

PLAZA Interlocking (The LIRR Today)

- Trainsarefun.com

* ttp://www.discoverpotsdam.com/connolly/sunnyside-yard/ Photosof Sunnyside Yard circa 1925. {{Authority control Pennsylvania Railroad Amtrak facilities Long Island Rail Road NJ Transit Rail Operations Rail yards in New York (state) 1910 establishments in New York City New York Tunnel Extension Sunnyside, Queens