Westwood (LIRR station)

Westwood
View from the platform, facing north.
Location	Foster Avenue & Motley Street Malverne, NY
Coordinates	40°40′05.8″N 73°40′53.1″W / 40.668278°N 73.681417°W / 40.668278; -73.681417Coordinates: 40°40′05.8″N 73°40′53.1″W / 40.668278°N 73.681417°W / 40.668278; -73.681417
Owned by	MTA
Line(s)	West Hempstead Branch
Platforms	1 side platform
Tracks	1
Construction
Parking	Yes; Village of Malverne & Lynbrook permits required
Bicycle facilities	Yes; Bicycle Racks
Disabled access	Yes
Other information
Fare zone	4
History
Opened	September 1929
Rebuilt	1955
Electrified	October 19, 1926 750 V (DC) third rail
Traffic
Passengers (2006)	711
Services
Preceding station   LIRR   Following station Valley Stream toward New York terminals West Hempstead Branch Malverne toward West Hempstead

Westwood is a station on the Long Island Rail Road's West Hempstead Branch serving the villages of Malverne, Lynbrook, and Valley Stream, New York. The station platform is located on Foster Avenue in Malverne, New York, with parking facilities on both the Malverne (Foster Avenue at Motley Street) and Lynbrook (Whitehall Street at Whittier Street) sides of the tracks. It has no station building other than a pair of open shelters, the larger one on the Malverne side of the tracks. It also features a gated at-grade pedestrian crossing, one of only two such stations on the Long Island Rail Road to exclusively feature such crossings, the other being Stony Brook.

No buses connect to Westwood station, however local suburban taxi cabs do stop there. A basketball court can be found on the Malverne side of the station between the platform and parking lot.

Before the establishment of Westwood station, the station itself was the site of a junction of two freight sidings in Lynbrook that existed only in 1924 both of which were abandoned in September of that year. The line was electrified on October 19, 1926 and the station itself was established in September 1929. The small station house had a single platform on the Malverne side, as well as an un-gated pedestrian crossing, and a pedestrian bridge over the tracks which existed only until 1938. By 1955, the station house was gutted, leaving only the roof and the frame, thus transforming it into an open shelter. At some point, an identical open shelter was built on the Lynbrook side of the tracks, which had a separate color scheme from the Malvern shelter until the 21st century.

This station has one four-car-long side platform on the west side of the single track, which was converted into a high-level platform in the autumn of 1973.

A train bound for West Hempstead as seen from the Lynbrook side of the tracks.

Westwood Station's Malverne shelter. The Lynbrook shelter can be seen across the tracks.