Hello There, we are flying into Islip from Los Angeles this March (Free tickets, what can I say) I know that the best route is the Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station. The questions I can't find responses to on their website are: Where is the airport in location to the Railway station in Islip, and do we need a cab to get between the two, and can someone confirm for me that the trains run after 10 PM.

Could you possibly afford to hire a car and driver?

This is a long long trip (3 hours maybe??) which would put you at Penn Station trying to find another taxi at a bad time.

Even under the best of circumstances, this would put a damper on my trip.

Plenty of ways to get to the train station at Islip -- don't worry about that. And the LIRR trains, as well as NYC subways & buses, run 24/7.

Here's the timetable and the page has a link to a map:

http://mta.info/lirr/html/ttn/ronkonko.htm

Getting in to Islip at that time isn't great, but LIRR runs about every hour that time of night. It's about 1 1/2 hour trip to Penn Station.

I travel LA-Islip all the time, but usually only using family transportation (i.e. my parents' picking me up!), but try www.macarthurairport.com. Click on the transport button, and it will give you all the options for getting into the city, including private cars and also buses to Ronkonkoma (where you can take the LIRR to Penn.) One note - if you do take the LIRR, make sure to check the schedule carefully. Trains do run 24 hours, but depending on the departing station, they're often limited during the evening hours and you don't want to be stuck waiting an hour at if you don't have to. It only takes me about 1 hr to go from Macarthur to East Meadow to Hicksville (where I typically board the LIRR for Penn), so Islip-Ronkonkoma will take significantly less time.