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| Matawok Question (Re: LIRR Westbridge Station) (955753) | |||
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Matawok Question (Re: LIRR Westbridge Station) |
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Posted by Mitch45 on Mon Jul 12 18:28:01 2010, in response to Re: LIRR Westbridge Station, posted by ntrainride on Sun Feb 28 15:58:56 2010. I note the footbridge over the Matawok station. Is that the same footbridge that today starts at the dead end at 67th Avenue, spans the main line and connects Burns and Austin Streets in Forest Hills? Or if it isn't the same bridge, was the Matawok footbridge located in the same place and the bridge now there is a replacement?If so, it would answer a childhood question that I've carried with me to the present day. I went to elementary school in Forest Hills and the old LIRR Rockaway Beach line practically ran right behind the school. The line had been out of service for 8 years when I started school (1970) and I have some great memories of climbing and playing on the tracks. The school is gone now but the tracks remain. I think my interest in rails started back then. Once in a while, my mother, who didn't drive, would pick me up from school early and take me to the doctor for shots (I had childhood asthma and suffer from it to this day). We would walk from the school over that footbridge at 67th Avenue and then turn right at Austin Street to take the QB local at 67th Avenue to Union Turnpike, my home stop. When we used to walk over the footbridge, sometimes there would be eastbound main line expresses roaring down toward Jamaica passing underneath. It was always a thrill to stop and watch the trains pass at high speed (this was the early '70s so the fast trains were probably M1's or M3's). But I always used to wonder about that footbridge. Who had built it and why there? And if someone went to the trouble of building a footbridge, why not also build an overpass for cars so that 67th Avenue wouldn't be a dead end at two ends? If the footbridge was, and still is, a remnant of Matawok station, then it makes sense. |
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