The Greenport Scoot
By Jim Herron
There is actually or was a train that ran from Long Island City , from Greenpoint to Greenport in the 1950’s and 60’s. It was operated by the Long Island Rail Road, which at the time was owned by the Pennsylvania R.R.
The “Greenport Scoot” was a Push-Pull Diesel Series with an M-15 Engine in front and a dummy Alco FA at the rear, which carried a generator for the lights and air-conditioning to the passenger and parlor cars. It also had dummy controls too which the engineers did not like!
These Coach and Parlor cars were very popular with the Manhattanites who traveled to their respective summer homes and rentals on Long Island beaches and the North Fork and Shelter Island. Greenport was the last stop on this North Shore Line. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours and you had to remember the Long Island Expressway (the world’s longest parking lot) was just in the planning stages at this time, so this was the most efficient way to travel out East.
There were many varieties of passenger cars on this run; I remember a double-decker train car, one of which is parked out in the Riverhead train museum in its natural state of disrepair.
There were parlor, bar and coach cars but one unique type of car was the Montauk Parlor Car. It had seats that were movable and were positioned differently for weekend and weekday travel. Weekdays the seats would be set with backs to the windows that were like a club car setting on the modern trains now. On the weekend, more seats were added to accommodate the increased passenger traffic. All the seats faced forward with a row of two seats on one side and a row of single seats on the other, same as the seating on a Boeing MD-80 Jet -Liner.
There were no seat reservations, unlike the European Rail Road systems, and it was first come–first serve. Ah! This was a true commuter railroad.
Jim shows us the K-Line version of the Greenport Scoot in his train room
