 The branch had one manual block from "HC" to "VA" until "WM" block limit was installed in 1935.As the smallest LIRR commuter branch, the West Hempstead Branch was one of the last in the system to modernize.It was the last of the electrified LIRR branches to receive high level platforms, in the early 1970s, and the last of the electrified branches to be fitted with Automatic Train Control (known as Automatic Speed Control by the LIRR), which it received in October 2009 during a system overhaul and upgrade at Valley Interlocking.