Sunnyside Yard

About

Sunnyside Yard is a large coach yard in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, New York City. Owned by Amtrak and also used by New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), the yard was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and completed in 1910 with an as-built footprint of 192 acres (0.78 km2) and 25.7 miles (41.4 km) of track. The yard served as the principal storage and servicing facility for PRR trains using Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, to which it is connected by the East River Tunnels.

The yard incorporates Harold Interlocking, described as of 2012 as one of the busiest rail junctions in the United States, where Amtrak's Northeast Corridor crosses the LIRR Main Line and the Hell Gate Line. A balloon track at the yard's eastern end is used to turn Amtrak and NJ Transit trains terminating at Penn Station. Following the Penn Central merger of 1968 and that company's bankruptcy, the yard passed to Conrail and then to Amtrak in 1976; Amtrak continues to own and operate the facility.