Nation: The 8:02 to History

Apart from its archaic title, the 343-mile Long Island Rail Road had never earned much claim to distinction. It will have next month. Then, after a score of years of financial troubles, the creeping, creaking L.I.R.R. will become the first major commuter line in the U.S. to come under state ownership.

The Long Island's owner, the Pennsylvania Railroad, last week happily accepted $10 million as a down payment for the $65 million sale to New York State's six-month-old Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority. Since emerging from post-bankruptcy reorganization in 1954, the 132-year-old L.I.R.R. had paid no dividends, raised fares seven times, won tax relief and other concessions under a state-legislated rehabilitation program that is to expire next summer. After that, there would have been no more money available for much needed modernization.

Governor Nelson Rockefeller's Commuter Transportation Authority, which is authorized to float a $200 million bond issue for capital improvements, plans to equip the L.I.R.R. with highspeed engines, new cars, rehabilitated stations, a link with the city's subway system, and possibly a new terminal on Manhattan's East Side. All of which should do more for the morale of its 260,000 daily passengers than the line's advertising campaign to establish itself as "the route of the dashing commuter." If the state can make the railroad carry commuters quickly and comfortably at fares that will not make them flee to the highways, the L.I.R.R. may well set a Great Society precedent for the rescue of moribund lines in other metropolitan areas throughout the U.S.