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Last week, MTA Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) officials marked the opening of a new $25.5 million train-washing facility east of the Babylon Station.

Financed with federal stimulus dollars, the new facility is expected to clean the exterior of more than 320 rail cars daily, LIRR officials said in a prepared statement. Until now, the LIRR's 1,000-car fleet was cleaned at the railroad's only other train wash facility at the entrance to its Ronkonkoma Train Yard.

The fully automated train wash is activated when a train approaches. It will operate using solar power and waste-water recycling.

The facility consists of two buildings: a masonry equipment building that houses the controls, wash room, pumps, reclaim/recycle, was water, waste water treatment system and storage tanks for the train wash; and a second facility that includes the train wash bay — a steel-corrugated siding structure consisting of pre-cast track slab sections, concrete foundations, a water collection system and the train wash equipment.