Long Island Railroad Excursion Tickets

Railroads issued excursion tickets for many reasons; to get more traffic of course, but also to serve the public in enabling reasonable (cheap) fares to popular places and events (beaches, amusement parks, flower shows, etc.).  There almost always a round trip and have a limited life (one day, weekend, etc.).  Often, special trains were run in addition to regularly scheduled service.  Of course, the LIRR offered many excursions over the years, the more famous being race trains and fishermen's specials.  

The  Rockaway Beach to East New York excursion was obviously for city folk to get to the cool breezes and surf of the Rockaway's.  Of interest is that it's for a full 30 days which, perhaps, was geared to folks who rented bungalows for several weeks during the summer (as my Grandparents did in Arverne).

Issued in  7/19/1919. Via Short Line means you can't take the roundabout route through Jamaica and Valley Stream.
 

Most full fare tickets had stopover privileges (i.e., you could leave the train at an intermediate point in your journey and then continue on later without paying an extra fare), but discounted excursion tickets did not allow this.  Additionally, this ticket specifies "via short line" which means the most direct route to the destination must be taken.  It also goes further to specify that it's not good on Far Rockaway trains which really is a redundancy in this case as there were only two routes to Rockaway Beach, via Ozone Park or Jamaica/Valley Stream.  Thus, these restrictions prevented a passenger from taking the long route to Rockaway, perhaps to stopover in Jamaica for shopping or elsewhere en route to visit family or friends. Archive/Info: Brad Phillips
 

Half fare ticket "Good only during the Excursion Season" from Sheepshead Bay to  Brooklyn -Flatbush Ave. c.1890
 

 
Round trip LI City, Bay Shore, (via ferry) to Point of Woods, and return. c.<1898


Ticket Sheepshead Bay Race track
 to LI City

Point O' Woods is a hamlet that consists of a private vacation retreat on Fire Island, New York, in Suffolk County. Although it resembles a village or small town, with services such as a ferry port, a general store, church and fire department, it is open exclusively to members and their guests, who are the only persons allowed in through the hamlet's gate, or allowed to use the private ferry which runs to Point O' Woods from Bay Shore on Long Island.

It was originally organized in 1894 for religious retreats, some from the Chautauqua assemblies. In approximately 1898, the Chautauqua group went bankrupt, and ownership passed to the Point O' Woods Association, which administers it today.

Round trip Special Excursion - Greenlawn Cemetery Association ticket from New York City , via LI City, to Pinelawn Cemetery stop.

Ticket Huntington Village to 
Huntington Depot via stage

Ticket Locust Valley 
Mineola County Fair 09/1929

The vertical stripes were almost exclusively on older round trip tickets. The going portion (which did NOT have a contract and the signature of the General Passenger Agent) had one stripe and the return (contract portion) had two. On crowded trains, the conductor could easily recognize the difference.
Info: Richard Makse

Round trip excursion to Block Island 7/24/1910 

These excursion fares (and the tickets) were a promotion which lasted only a couple of years as I recall, probably mid-60's, as the signature is Throop so that gives a rough time-frame.  These tickets were only issued from western terminals to the Island.  Island to Penn or Flatbush were just the Ladies' Day and weekend excursions.  I think the idea was to give city residents the same excursion opportunity that the Island folks had. Info: Brad Phillips

Excursion fares (and the tickets) were a promotion which lasted only a couple of years, as I recall probably mid-1960's. These tickets were only issued from western terminals to the Island.  Long sland to Penn or Flatbush were just the Ladies' Day and weekend excursions.  I think the idea was to give city residents the same excursion opportunity that the Island folks had.  Brad Phillips

This is the return coupon of the weekend and holiday one-day excursions from outlying stations to terminal stations. 

I’m pretty sure that they were not sold east of Patchogue and Ronkonkoma as it wasn’t really possible to do a meaningful one-day return trip from those far east stations.
Brad Phillips

Stations with low ridership, or those with ticket offices open only a couple of hours a day, did not have printed tickets for all situations.  They would have “blank” or “open” stock such as this.  Open stock could be used for half fares if appropriately marked, as too few transactions to warrant even open half fare stock. It makes sense Copiague would not have printed excursions as the office was only open for a couple of hours in the am. 
Brad Phillips

LIRR #1611 E-6s 4-4-2 "Fish Train" westbound at Shinnecock Canal 1940

LIRR - Canoe Place Excursion 1946

Canoe Place was a low cinder platform station stop, in service: 1935 –1953 for the “FISHERMAN’S SPECIAL” trains, along the Montauk Branch on the southeast side of the Shinnecock Canal. While the station was located between Hampton Bays and Suffolk Downs, to be more specific, it was located a short hop, skip and jump east of the "K4 Bridge" over the Shinnecock Canal, south side of the tracks, east of the bridge.  Info: Dave Keller

The other interesting thing that they had over the years were the fishermen’s trains. This gained renown very early because of the idea of being able to go out all day on a fishing journey and this was particularly true for Southampton where you had a special fishermen’s train leaving New York and Jamaica very early in the morning—6:30 in the morning—and getting out here very quickly and, of course, you would change to the boat very quickly and spend the rest of the day fishing. It became very popular. It lasted until very, very recently. They would also take care of your catch by icing it for you and having all kinds of large containers to bring back your catch if you had been successful. So, the railroad over the years has tried to accommodate that type of service as far as possible. Research: Vincent Seyfried

I was selling Fisherman's Specials at Jamaica as late as 1973, but they went to Captree, via Babylon.  I don't recall the last time these specials went far east. Info: Brad Phillips

The excursion ticket from Amagansett to Montauk was most probably a 1898 fishing special. 
Archive: Brad Phillips

Although the branch was extended from Bridgehampton to Montauk in 1895, Amagansett was the terminal with very few trains running the full route to Montauk.  It wasn't until March 18, 1929 (34 years after opening the branch extension) that Amagansett was no officially longer considered a terminal and all trains went to Montauk.

The white flag special with wooden parlor cars headed into the old Montauk station, with partial platform for the fishing station stop visible at the far right.  This view is c. 1910.  The old one-story depot had an upstairs added in 1907. Info: Dave Keller

Fisherman's Special - New York to Babylon, Suffolk Bus Corp. to Captree and return. Form: SX 109

Fisherman's Special - New York to Babylon, Suffolk Bus Corp. to Captree and return. 
"Open Party Fishing Boat" Form: SX 109A

Fisherman's Special - New York to Babylon, Suffolk Bus Corp. to Captree and return. 
"Open Party Fishing Boat" including Tackle and Fried Chicken Box Lunch: Form: SX 109B

The "Bike-Hike" trips ran for several years sponsored by the American Youth Hostels.  On May 5th, 1963, LIRR RS3 #1556, #1552 hauled our train (3 or 4 baggage cars for bikes; plus bar car and coaches). These trips ran annually for quite a while.  I don't remember what the reason for stopping them was, but perhaps the end of baggage service on the LIRR. 

The most interesting thing to see were the bikers.  While biking is all the rage now, it was an unusual sight back in 1963 to see several hundred people packing bikes on a train.  The bikes were carried in baggage cars and what a zoo at unloading time!  Newsday usually carried a long article in the following Monday paper with photos. The trains ran to both Montauk and Greenport over the years.

The train would run express from Jamaica to Southampton, let off bikers, and proceed to Montauk.  The bikers would than bike to Montauk for a late afternoon departure back to Jamaica. 

Back in 1962,  I didn't have the $$ to ride a parlor car special.  The Bike Hike train was pretty cheap, as I recall, so made for a great fan trip (without the photo stops, though). Info: Brad Phillips
 

June, 1985 and an American Youth Hostels chartered train heads towards Greenport with their patrons & bicycles. No baggage cars for the bikes? no problem! Just borrow a few boxcars. MP15-ACs 155 & 152 do the honors going by WIN interlocking in Woodside. Photo: John Scala
Archive: James Scullin

Then again . . the bike hikes were special events . . .whereas carrying baggage was a regular daily event.  The bikes were probably loaded at major stations that still had agencies at the time.  Amityville and Patchogue would have been two such locations! You can't check baggage at a station that doesn't have a railroad representative OR a depot building and by 1963, most agents (1958-1960) and structures (1958-1963) were no longer around. Info: Dave Keller