LIRR's new Yaphank-BNL station opens Saturday as MTA studies East End service improvements
SHIRLEY, New York (WABC) -- The newest Long Island Rail Road station is set to open Saturday.
It's call the Yaphank-BNL station because it's close to the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Full service starts Saturday, but the ceremonial first train rolled in late Friday morning.
This is the first station to be built on the island since 2021 and is fully accessible.
There is a new 50 car parking lot at the station which is in close proximity to the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
The new location is the second new LIRR station to be built in half a century.
The ribbon cutting Friday morning formally decommissioned the original Yaphank station which has been in its original location for 142 years and only had 15 regular riders. It was the least used in the entire LIRR system. Some feel its location was not ideal and describe it as being located in the middle of nowhere.
MTA Chair and CEO Jano Lieber announced that they have launched a study of potential infrastructure improvements.
"What we're going to be looking into is the possibility of upgrades, such as adding a second track east of Ronkonkoma toward Riverhead, which would allow us to run more trains in both directions," Leiber said. "That's similar to what we did between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma, and you can see the explosion of service that part of the railroad has undergone. Electrifying part of the branch is also going to be on the table, which would, in a different way, mean faster trains, more frequent service and an additional level of convenience."
The first official trains on Saturday from the Yaphank-BNL station will begin with a 5:36 a.m. eastbound to Greenport and westbound to Ronkonkoma at 8:02 a.m.
For the full train schedule and more information visit: https://www.mta.info/
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