"Farewell to the LIRR Crossing Watchman"
On the afternoon of Friday March 31st, 2023, Long Island Rail Road's last Crossing Watchman shares a friendly wave with the engineer of Patchogue-bound train 80 as it slowly traverses over 11th Street and Borden Avenue grade crossings in Long Island City, New York. This would be one of the last trains the watchman would protect, as this position was removed the following weekday on April 3rd, 2023, ending a tradition that has survived over a century.
The watchman's responsibility was to manually activate and deactivate the crossing protection for trains passing over both streets using two knife switches located at the watchman's shack. This system was replaced with modern automatic wheel sensors.
