LIRR - Setauket

More Setauket

Setauket Station FM #1501 westbound 1955 (Higginbotham-Keller)

SETAUKET:  Port  Jefferson freight station built: 2/1877 and used as depot. Actual depot built: Jan-Feb/1883  Agency closed: ?  Razed: 10/3/60  
Discontinued as station stop: c. 1980 Research: Dave Keller

Setauket Station 1959 view NE
Photo: Art Huneke Archive: Dave Keller

Suffolk Materials Mining Corporation was your basic sand pit and abandoned as an open pit mine. The sidings were used to unload inbound salt in the late 70's/early 80's for the Town of Brookhaven highway department. The last traffic, perhaps, was bentonite* being unloaded in the late 80's that was used in the construction of new Town of Brookhaven landfills.

* When I cross check “bentonite” it is: Sodium bentonite expands when wet, absorbing as much as several times its dry mass in water. The property of swelling also makes sodium bentonite useful as a sealant, since it provides a self-sealing, low permeability barrier. It is used to line the base of landfills for example. 

Parlor Car: Setauket on Greenport turntable 4/1968 Archive: Dave Keller

Above:   It's August, 12, 1973 and on this dreary summer's day we're looking east at the run-down Setauket station.  The metal shelter shed replaced the old wooden depot when it was razed on October 3, 1960.  Starting in the early 1960s as depot buildings were demolished, these ubiquitous metal shelter sheds were erected at some of the Nassau County station stops and at many of the Suffolk County station stops of the LIRR.  Visible in front of the shelter shed is an also-run-down telephone booth.  Remember them?  Before cell phones, if you didn't have any change and had to make a call from a deserted station platform (like Setauket), you were sunk.  Start walking!  The platform and platform lamp posts are slowly being encroached upon by nature.  This station stop would last until it was discontinued per General Order #207, effective September 6, 1980.  Today you would be hard-pressed to even visualize a station stop ever being located there. (Dave Keller archive and data)

Seen at Suffolk Mining in Setauket, the RF-65, with the 154 and 152, has finished its switching. The crew is now waiting for permission on the main and a clear block to BK from the Operator at Port Jefferson.
10/1987  Photo/Archive:  Jay Bendersky