Fixing The LIRR’s Intra-City Problem

A question I always asked myself back years ago was why are there so many LIRR stations in Queens? Why just why are there so many when few get close to enough ridership to warrant their existence? Well, at that point I was on the mindset that the sole and only purpose of the LIRR is to bring LIRR commuters to and from Manhattan and Brooklyn, and that intra-island and reverse-peak customers didn’t matter. I didn’t understand enough about how the LIRR works to really understand, but it’s a good question. Anyways, obviously the LIRR prioritizes getting people between their home on Long Island and Manhattan, and Intra-island, intra-city, reverse-peak, off-peak riders, you get the idea, get the backseat over the Manhattan commuters. 

And while that makes sense to a decent extent, since this isn’t the New York City Subway system, this means that intra-island, intra-city, reverse-peak, off-peak riders, whatever, all take a back seat to the Manhattan commuters. And, that isn’t fair to them.

Many countries in other parts of the world (specifically Europe) have successfully managed to integrate their suburban commuter systems into their urban transit systems. While I don’t expect the LIRR to run trains via the subway tracks as hilarious as that is, it would be nice to see them do something to treat the inter-city riders, possibly even introducing a new fare system. There are many people in the city who would love to have to have a direct rail link locally, specifically something the subway couldn’t do. 

A good example of this is the many Queens communities that live past the final terminal of the Subways and many of them would love to have “some sort of connection” to the Subway that didn’t involve a long subway ride or a even more grueling bus ride. Many of them could take the LIRR from places such as Bayside, Douglaston, Queens Village, Hollis, or Locust Manor, but they chose not to because the price versus service provided isn’t worth it. Currently, if you live in Queens Village, for example, to get to Midtown you can hop on the LIRR, 

The common response to discussion about possible intra-city travel in the LIRR is that passengers coming in from Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and I quote from The LIRR Today, who mentioned a very valid point, don’t want to be overrun by the cities “riff-raff” who would like on and take up all their seats once they cross the city line. And while this is a valid point to some degree, I mean imagine an entire (F) trains load worth of people trying to cram onto the already standee-filled #1056 to Ronkonkoma at Jamaica. It would be complete chaos. You can’t exactly charge $2.59 for travel on the LIRR since if you did, all hell would brake loose, and really since the LIRR is a capacity-restricted system with limits. I personally don’t have to worry about this nonsense as I take the Montauk Branch, a branch that rarely makes city stops, however, if I took the Ronkonkoma Branch for example more often, I’m sure I’d notice quite a crowd piling on At Queens Village, especially during the reverse-peak.

I think the LIRR should come up with a way to encourage and incentivize intra-city travel, without going to the expense of longer-distance travelers.

In an attempt to find that workable solution, I have worked on looking after intra-city riders in my sample reworked timetables project I’ve been working on. 

First, to address the issue of service levels not meeting ideal conditions, I have worked to provide more service to stations within the city limits by having more trains terminate/originate at Great Neck and Valley Stream for example. While not directly in city limits themselves, both of them are close to the border and are convenient places to turn trains. I’ve been able to establish manageable headways by providing additional trains from these locations during both the peak and reverse-peak periods, along with expanded service during busier travel times on weekends. Additional service will also be provided to Queens Village and Hollis, which will be handed over to the brand new Belmont Park Branch which will specifically target these riders, and I’ll talk more about this in future posts! 

These trains, while not running with 12-car consists, will run as a manageable alternative to the subway, providing decent headways all day long.

On the topic of fares, while I’m not an expert on railroad fares, and don’t think I have a workable solution worth talking too much about, I’d propose an advanced version of the City Ticket, except it would be valid during all off-peak times. When I end up throwing together the final book and finalize things in this project, I may talk more about a proposed City Fare, however, for now, know that intra-city riders are well taken care of!

Interlocking Walkthrough: GARDEN

This week’s interlocking walkthrough takes us through Garden City- located deep into the heart of Nassau County. GARDEN interlocking, which is located 18.7 miles away from Long Island City, hosts both the Hempstead Branch and the Garden City- Mitchell Field Secondary, which the ladder merges off of. Here’s a bird eye view of the location:

GARDEN interlocking is just east of Garden City station, so basically, once the train leaves the station, it soon after encounters GARDEN interlocking, before entering single-track territory the rest of the way east to Hempstead.

Switches

After leaving the station on its way east, track 2 of the Hempstead Branch merges into Hempstead branch track 1.

A couple hundred feet later, there is another switch that splits the Hempstead Branch from the Central Branch, allowing it to head east towards Country Life Press and Hempstead. 

Going off to the right, the interlocking ends right before entering Country Life Press. Note that there’s a grade crossing just east of the switch, while going onto the secondary, the interlocking ends just before the third rail does. I plan to make a post on the Garden City-Mitchell Field secondary in the future, outlining its current role in the thick of LIRR operations along with my proposed role for it, so stay tuned for that but for today, I’ll tell you that the secondary goes back to two tracks shortly after Washington Avenue.

Also located in the general area is no other than the former Hempstead crossing, the former Hempstead branch crossing. While there’s no tracks anymore, many years back, the West Hempstead Branch used to continue north from its current terminal in West Hempstead, up the relatively short distance through Garden City into Mineola, where it would rejoin the mainline basically forming a loop. If you take a look on Google Earth, you can see where the tracks used to be.

Signals

GARDEN Interlocking has the standard old Pensy style position-light signals.

Neighbors

GARDEN is neighbored by QUEENS interlocking to the west, and is the easternmost interlocking on the Hempstead Branch.

As for the speed limit, it’s 70 mph west of here, however it’s restricted to 30 mph east of here before the 15 mph restriction on the curve at Country Life Press and the even lower 10 mph restriction coming into Hempstead.

What The Hempstead Branch Could Look Like

From the West Hempstead Branch's eastern terminal of West Hempstead, we must hop a couple of blocks down Fulton Street to the east and north a little bit to get to the eastern terminal of another (much more favored) branch, the Hempstead Branch. The branch's eastern terminal of Hempstead is right across the street from Hempstead Transit Center, which is one of NICE's main bus terminals. Quite a few people, upon arrival into Hempstead Transit Center will not cross the street and hop on the LIRR but instead will change to another bus to Jamaica and hop on the subway!

Those lucky enough to make the choice to hop on the train, will take a trip up through Garden City, and stop at no less than 3 stations in Garden City, before pulling through Stewart Manor before meeting the LIRR's Mainline at Floral Park.

From Garden City through Floral Park, the Hempstead Branch runs pretty darn closer to the Mainline. Crazy enough, Nassau Blvd is only a mile south of Merllion Avenue and New Hyde Park is even closer only being a half a mile south of Stewart Manor. In both cases, the Hempstead Branch stations are not even 2 minutes apart on New Hyde Park Road. The tracks that branch off going perfectly eastbound at Garden City are actually the remnants of the old Central Railroad of Long Island and this could become the route many Ronkonkoma Branch trains could take if the LIRR were to reactivate this portion. 

The LIRR could work to use the relatively close spacing of stations to their advantage. Both New Hyde Park and Merllion Avenue lie on the busy Mainline, and due to this, they both have capacity constraints. A lot of people who would use the Hempstead Branch stations actually just end p driving to stations along the Mainline due to crowding or because service can get very lazy on this branch at times. A family friend of mine who use to commute into New York who lives very close to both Nassau Blvd and Merllion Avenue stations (slightly closer to the latter) would just go to Merllion Avenue since he said the station was quieter.  

My hope is by increasing service on the Hempstead Branch, along with the Far Rockaway and Long Beach branches, service will begin to even a tad bit out more. I personally think the Hempstead Branch definitely has some growing to do, and the LIRR just needs to help it grow.

To get onto the actual timetable, the linked .pdf file includes the full set of weekday and weekend Hempstead Branch timetables. Peak, off-peak, reverse-peak, and special-event trains trains have all been included within the timetables.

The timetables only show revenue trains, not deadhead or equipment moves, which will be planned out using AI to align with crew and equipment moves and will be written down on paper. They’ll be included on a separate page in the attached PDF. I tried to mostly minimize deadheading as it’s essentially wasted time, crew, and equipment hours but in some cases it’s unavoidable to make the most out of the resources available.

Like was said on the Introduction Page, before we can begin talking about the actual schedule “Key Assumptions” and “Service Guidelines” needs to be taken care of and mentioned before this project can become totally feasible since I’ve built the timetables off of it. I’ve tried my best to make these schedules able to be done with these projects completed or not, but in some cases that isn’t possible.

Just like the other timetable posts, here are some "Key Assumptions" and "Service Guidelines" which I built the timetables on: 

Key Assumptions

• The current infrastructure on the branch will remain the same or similar to what it is now. 

Service Guidelines

• During peak hours, service is provided on 20 minutes headways as a minimum throughout the course of the rush hour. Train service is provided to Penn Station, Grand Central, and Atlantic Terminal hourly. 
• I’ve decided to cut-back a bit on service to Queens Village and Hollis stations during rush and reverse-peak hours however they will continue to get off-peak service. The Belmont Park trains will now be the main flag carriers for the branch, and they will now get 30-minute headways during off-peak hours. 
• During off-peak hours, service is provided hourly on the branch and these trains continue to operate to/from Grand Central w/ a couple of exceptions during late-nights. 
• During the weekday reverse-peak period, additional trains are run in the reverse-peak direction from Penn Station to help provide 30-minute headways. My hope is that by providing additional reverse-peak service, especially earlier in the rush hour, this will continue my effort of minimizing deadheading/empty equipment moves.  These trains are targeted at people holding jobs in western Nassau County, and others may take the train to Hempstead to connect with NICE bus. 

Link to Hempstead Branch Timetable

Knowing that service at Main Line stations such as Merllion Avenue and New Hyde Park would be unfortunately sporadic, I wanted the Hempstead Branch to be a fast, frequent, and viable alternative. I tried to space service on this branch evenly, so it's a good alternative to catching the train at Merllion Avenue and New Hyde Park. 

During the morning peak period, service is set up to run from Hempstead roughly every 20 minutes, and there's a direct train to/from every terminal pretty much every hour. There are multiple flyers that run over the course of the rush hour. 

During the evening peak period, service is set up a bit more sporadic, however, generally you can get a direct train from any one of the 3 main city terminals out to Hempstead every hour. 

During off-peak periods, trains continue to run from Grand Central, which I believe is fitting for the branch. 

I am personally a big advocate for improved transit in eastern Queens, therefore, I've reinstated the Belmont Park Branch to run as a full-time branch for the first time. As a result, some peak Hempstead trains that used to stop at Queens Village and Hollis will now skip the station along with Elmont-UBS Arena, which is overserved. However, most off-peak trains will continue to stop at these stations, providing bi-hourly service to Queens Village and Hollis. While it may seam a bit over, I strongly believe this branch, while very small, could succeed if done properly.

During weekend "peak" periods, I was able to provide three additional westbound trains from Hempstead towards Atlantic Terminal during the busiest times of the morning, along with four additional eastbound trains towards Hempstead. 

I thank everyone who has taken the time to read my timetables project so far, it's been a very fun project and I've learned a lot about the railroad through it. I look forward to continuing to work on it. Today's my birthday and I realized that I haven't gotten a single comment yet, it would be a nice surprise to see someone comment giving any thoughts, suggestions, corrections, etc. You can leave suggestions, thoughts, comments, etc by leaving a comment on the comment form below, or you could e-mail me at gavin.s.wilcox@gmail.com

The LIRR’s Big Bet on Midtown

The LIRR’s service plan that was put into place on February 27, 2023 obviously placed much of its emphasis on Midtown Manhattan. The service plan essentially had all trains that had ran to either Atlantic Terminal or Hunterspoint Av to be reverted to Grand Central, and while the new terminal in the Lower East Side is huge for many, it was detrimental to those that relied on those alternate terminals- those which were growing rapidly. 

Under the new service plan, the railroad has essentially sent 90% of its capacity to either Penn Station or Grand Central, with only the small 10 percent of trains for riders looking for a one-seat ride to somewhere else. The worse part is, of those trains, most of them run during very inconvenient times- the only one seat rides on the Port Jefferson and Ronkonkoma Branches leave at 4:54am and 5:30am respectively. Trains on some of the smaller branches run during better times, and, it’s great to see one-seat rides to Brooklyn during the earlier part of the rush hour, however, the most room for growth is during the center of the rush hour, and I don’t think it could hurt if the LIRR added a train or two to Atlantic Terminal or Hunterspoint Avenue on the larger branches during the center of the rush hour. It would also be great to see the LIRR extend some of the shuttle sets during the reverse-peak periods further out to Long Island. I’m not fully aware, but I’m sure many people would you use a reverse-peak from Atlantic Terminal to/from let’s say Long Beach.  

By putting all the emphasis on the two Manhattan terminals, your actually limiting growth to the entire city, since, the most growth right now is to trips other then from Manhattan to Long Island. Hunterspoint Avenue continues to be treated as pretty much a complete afterthought, as it’s used only when the LIRR has absolutely no other choice in order to not clog up Jamaica. While some people actually didn’t expect Hunterspoint Avenue to survive into the new service plan, it did and the LIRR still hasn’t done anything to improve it. Service to Hunterspoint Avenue had been cut by 9%, and they didn’t even go as far as converting the empty equipment runs over to revenue trains, something that could be easily done for zero cost, and would be a huge step in improving service out there. 

Then, there’s of course, Brooklyn. Brooklyn is personal to me, as many of my first train trips had me taking the train there opposed to Penn Station to see family there. When East Side Access opened, virtually all thru-service to Brooklyn was cut and riders ended up with a clumsy, very sloppily scheduled, and aggravating shuttle service which required customers to go up and over to a completely separate shuttle platform. Initially, as crazy as this is, the railroad actually slashed peak service between Jamaica and Atlantic Terminal by 20% over pre-pandemic service levels, but soon completely reversed that decision soon afterwards after they were proven wrong. 

The origins of East Side Access

The Long Island Rail Road first began its journey down the East Side Access route in the mid to late 1990s when both the MTA and New York State set their sights on reviving proposals to build a brand new LIRR terminal in Manhattan’s East Side. Proposals to build a new rail link had been proposed since decades before, however, those efforts had been abandoned due to the city’s financial problems. In 1995, when it was originally proposed, the city was a completely different place. New York had still been recovering from people moving out to the suburbs, and crime was still a huge problem, and it was still coming off of the worst decade in New York history. 

By this time, the city finally began turning around and employment was growing substantially. Attention to housing, urban decay, and crime (something Detroit really needs!) really helped the city improve and expand. Business began to return to the city, and this brought in new commuters and fueled population growth. At that time, much of New York’s major commercial office activity was centered in Lower Manhattan, which was in tough shape after decades of decline and the stock market crash. While proposals were being floated for a huge megaproject, other projects were also being worked on (such as the Second Avenue Subway). Commercial activity in other parts of Manhattan (along with the outer boroughs) was limited, and while, Midtown (the area between 42nd and 59th Streets offered the most growth, little was done about it. When the MTA decided it wanted to spend billions of dollars on the Second Avenue Subway, obviously they had to give the Suburbs something in return, and the idea of building a rail link to one of the fastest growing commercial neighborhoods in the city seamed like a good idea.

Both the MTA and the LIRR doubled down on their efforts for Midtown Direct in the months following the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. In the wake of all the catastrophic and tremendous damage done to the World Trade Center site, which was the largest concentration of jobs in the entire Financial District), many people thought that Lower Manhattan was done for good. When the MTA reconcentrated its efforts for East Side Access, everyone thought that the Lower East Side was the next big thing, and as we know that ended up being the case. Grand Central Madison was specifically designed to make it easy to get from the platforms to all the office buildings along Madison and Park Avenues.  

Hunterspoint Avenue and LIC

Since the completion of East Side Access, Hunterspoint Avenue and Long Island City have continued the infamous tradition of being a complete afterthought. Service to both of those stations continues to be atrocious, with large gaps even during peak hours. With the introduction of direct service to the East Side, many people who used to take the train there and catch a 7 train to Midtown now just go via Grand Central Madison, therefore, ridership decreased. However, there’s still a significant amount of potential ridership growth for people with origins and destinations in Queens itself, and I believe many more people would it use it if they gave it improved service.

And, the truth is as a Long Islander, I was just driving through the area right at the yards and the development in the area is very good, it’s definitely changed since before. Development in both Hunterspoint Avenue and Long Island City have both improved, and the skyline has actually changed considerably. 

Photo: Tri-State Rail NOW

According to the United States Census Bureau’s data, the total number of jobs in the Long Island City-Hunters Pt Neighborhood has increased by nearly 68% since 2010, and this area added over 15,000 new jobs over the last decade- while the LIRR still acts like nobody uses the station or could.

Approximately 40% of those who work in this area commute from the city itself, suggesting there’s significant potential for ridership to/from the greater LIC area. For years, the LIRR has ignored requests and proposals to improve service from these stations, especially from branches in electric territory. HPA and LIC have now become diesel-only stations, served by only the diesel branches which bring the most riders from Suffolk County (who account for less then 5% of commuter demand to this area!), and do not adequately serve people coming from places further into Queens and Nassau, which account for 35% of ridership demand to/from Hunterspoint Avenue and LIC. 

Additionally,  the population of the Long Island City - Hunters Pt area has actually tripled over the last 10 years, adding 20,000 more residents who could probably take a job on Long Island if they had reasonable reverse-peak service there.

Requiring riders to either one take the subway to either Grand Central (requiring you to double back) or Woodside is definitely not an acceptable alternative. Not only are you charged for the railroad, but you also must pay a subway fare in addition to having to spend 12 additional minutes on your trip. 

I strongly suggest the LIRR should considering service to both Hunterspoint Avenue and Ling Island City, by at the minimum providing faster, and more frequent service then what is currently provided. The good thing is, the LIRR can actually do this pretty easily, and there are several ways to accomplish this, in which many of these can largely be accomplished without utilizing existing train and crew downtime outside of rush hours:

• Converting all equipment trains and hard trains that currently run empty between LIC and Jamaica during reverse-peak and midday periods, including several revenue trains that run empty to Jamaica before starting revenue service there. 
• Extending all diesel trains (at least on the Oyster Bay Branch) to operate to/from Hunterspoint Av and LIC. In addition to providing service to HPA/LIC while not sacrificing Manhattan service, this would also benefit diesel branch riders as they wouldn’t have to deal with annoying transfers at Huntington and double-transfers at Babylon (while I’d say the Huntington up-and-over is much worse then Babylon). 
• Adding additional trains from the smaller electric branches to and from HPA and LIC. The LIRR’s current service plan currently has the small electric branches (West Hempstead, Hempstead, Long Beach, and Far Rockaway) continuing to see frequencies way below their capacity. The LIRR’s could easily add trains from those branches there to accomplish several things: better serve the Nassau-Queens commuter market, provide additional service opportunities to everyone on the smaller branches (no matter their destination)c, and allowing the LIRR to load these grains with the more local stops in lieu of adding stops on busier Manhattan-bound trains from busier branches, reducing travel-time for those riders all the while providing more service to HPA/LIC.
• Reducing travel-time between Hunterspoint Avenue and Long Island City. It’s rare that you can “reduce travel time” on the LIRR, however, currently, all trains from LIC must park at Hunterspoint Avenue for several minutes, while they “load up” passengers. There’s absolutely no need for that, and given the very small distance between the stations, many trains can make the distance in only 5-7 minutes. 
• Adding additional shuttles between Jamaica and HPA/LIC. While I can understand why the LIRR is hesitant about sending electric trains there, especially considering not all the tracks at LIC are electrified, these could help address the most acute gaps in service and can work very similar to the Brooklyn shuttles. These sets can be fed from Hillside or Jamaica-Johnson Avenue during rush hours, and can run back and forth before heading back to the yard following rush hours. 

Overall, the LIRR still serves Long Island City as if it’s only home to half-abandoned warehouses and is all industrial, yet it’s instead a thriving and rapidly growing neighborhood. There are many opportunities for the LIRR to grow service at both HPA and LIC in a way that can’t be done via a subway transfer. Even if they only convert a couple of equipment trains, it’s still something. 

Brooklyn 

Brooklyn is perhaps the worst of the problems of the new service plan. The LIRR's elimination of through-service from Brooklyn to eastern points on Long Island meant a big blow to these commuters, especially considering 85% to 90% of those riders needed to get somewhere further east then Jamaica, where the shuttles end.

The thing is ridership is growing to Brooklyn at a much faster rate then what is seen to Manhattan, and according to ticket sales data, ridership grew a whopping 23% to Brooklyn between 2016 and 2019, thats nearly half of all the new riders wanting to go to Brooklyn.

In my opinion, if anything, the LIRR should be looking to increase service to Brooklyn, not reduce it! It's even worth nothing that the considerable growth Brooklyn has gotten has taken place even after the LIRR has pretty much ignored it over the last 40 years. You can only imagine the growth that would occur if the LIRR actually improved service substantially there.

Brooklyn is more personal to me because I used to take it before the service changes much more to go see family, but as time has gone on, I've unfortunately gone there less, however, when I do take the train there, the up-and-over normally doesn't bother me to much, but for someone who has to do it everyday I can understand why people hate it so much. 

One of the biggest downsides to reduced service to Brooklyn is to the many people who went to Atlantic Terminal as a shortcut to get to Lower Manhattan. When the LIRR reduced service to Brooklyn, these riders were basically forced to crowd onto Manhattan-bound trains, in which many of them will either go to Penn Station and the crowd the already crowded Seventh and Eighth Avenue Lines, or will go to Grand Central, and will be forced to walk all the way back to 48th St to reach the already severely crowded Lexington Avenue Line. Not a great choice, huh. Instead of being able to spread out across the 5 subway lines that serve Atlantic Terminal, have considerable capacity, and can get you anywhere in Lower Manhattan, there forced to overcrowd the packed subway trains in Manhattan.

Further, by scaling-down service to Brooklyn, the LIRR is actually hindering their operational flexibility. By sending pretty much all their traffic via the Main Line to Manhattan, they are basically placing all their eggs in one basket. If a service disruption or incident was to occur, they'd be forced to basically grind ALL service to a complete halt, without the flexibility to divert trains to/from Brooklyn, and it would be a complete mess in Jamaica with trains waiting for trackspace to discharge. If something were to happen at Forest Hills, for example, the entire Mainline would go down for good and that could ruin an entire rush hour causing a ripple effect and causing delays lasting for hours and hours on end. The LIRR shouldn't place all it's fate in the Main Line, as we've seen before, incidents are relatively common on the Main Line, and there've even been a couple of full suspensions. 

I'll be elaborating on this more in my reworked timetable project, but I believe the LIRR should operate a handful of locals to Brooklyn on the bigger branches, and provide more supplemental Brooklyn service during the peak and reverse-peak periods. By doing this, not only are they giving these branches more service, while giving Brooklyn riders more connection options, they are also allowing themselves some room in case of a delay on the Mainline. If there were to be a large enough delay to suspend the Main Line in either or both directions, they could divert trains to Brooklyn and people could then catch the subway up to Midtown or wherever else they want to go.

I believe it's important that the LIRR should evaluate demand on each one of the LIRR's branches, and determine which branches need Brooklyn service most, and at what times, and try to incorporate more of it as a supplement. If carefully planned, trains operating on the Atlantic Branch up to Brooklyn can stand clear of "more important" trains from the South Shore heading up towards the Main Line. They'd definitely have to make some changes to the track layout at Jamaica, but I'm sure it could be done relatively easily.

I'll be talking more about improvements to Brooklyn in my Reworked Timetable Project, as we go further into the smaller branches, so, you'll see just exactly what the LIRR could do to improve service there.

The LIRR's new service plan didn't unnoticed, as the baseline schedules did make some valuable improvements across the board including service patterns the LIRR should stick with, but it did reduce service where it's needed most, and it introduced some serious, structural flaws that shouldn't go unnoticed.  

And in conclusion, I believe the LIRR should go back to the drawing board, start from scratch, and rethink the service patterns, adding more trains to Brooklyn and HPA/LIC, instead of just diverting them there!

Late Friday Links 3/21

Hello Everyone! I’ve been very busy this week with both school and other things, not room mention it being my birthday on Sunday, so it’s been difficult to make new posts. Most of the posts this week were made in past weeks, and things have been dull this week so I had to really look to find things worth viewing. Here are some Late Friday Links for your reading pleasure during your afternoon commute:

• 10 Arrested After Trespassing in Riverhead

Apparently some people were trespassing in Riverhead and to be honest they should’ve been just left off with a warning since there’s like basically no service out in Riverhead!

• A Battery-Powered Metro-North

Metro-North is now looking into battery-powered trains on the New Haven Line’s diesel branches. Wouldn’t that be interesting if it came true….

• Metro-North’s Six Heritage Unit

Metro-North has now unveiled its 6th heritage unit.

Anyways, be on the lookout for posts this week as they’ll be posts pretty much everyday this week! The next installment of our Reworked Timetables Project will release on Sunday also, so be on the lookout for that. 

If your going to be traveling on the rails this weekend, switch replacement on the Ronkonkoma Branch will knock out the eastern portion of it, therefore, one train per hour in both directions will originate/terminate in Farmingdale, while the other train per hour will originate/terminate in Deer Park.

Have a good weekend!

What The Montauk Branch Could Look Like

Next up is the Montauk Branch. I decided to do this one today, because Sunday is well, my birthday, and today is well the last day of school before my birthday so why not do such a special post on such a special day! Anyways, we’ve now entered uncharted territory. Up until now, we’ve mainly been covering branches with rather simple service patterns and simple peak service, but today, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll dive into the rather complex Montauk Branch! Weekday service is complicated enough, but once you throw in seasonal service, things start to become extremely difficult.

It’s often overlooked, but the Long Island Rail Road’s Montauk Branch sees quite a few riders along its length, especially during the summer. The branch is known for its summer services, and the famous “Cannonball” that runs nonstop from New York’s Penn Station all the way out to the Hamptons and Montauk. Ridership has been growing, especially along the segment between Babylon and Patchogue, but also out in The Hamptons and Montauk. Even Mastic-Shirley and Speonk, despite service challenges, are slowly growing. The achilles heal of the branch is on Summer Sundays when the LIRR can’t keep up with the extreme demand being put on the Summer Hamptons trains causing extreme crowding and delays. My hope is that the LIRR will continue to adjust the schedule until they finally get it right. I’ve definitely made many changes to how the Summer Sunday service is run in an effort to even the loads and shift service a bit.

As you may or may not know through my various posts overtime or by knowing me, my home branch is the Montauk Branch and I ride it relatively frequently. I’m very familiar with it and therefore, I believe I’m able to help it even more and I’ve put in “extra effort” in an attempt to really try to get it right and excuse me if I go a little “over” with  service on this branch. 

One of the most important observations I’ve noticed is the increase in intra-island travel. In general, the further east you go, the less and less people who will actually go as far as Manhattan. People in the Hamptons and Montauk are tired of trekking all the way to the city all day, therefore, they seek jobs in locations in Suffolk or even Nassau Counties. However, since train times to their jobs aren’t favorable, they just drive instead. The introduction of the South Fork Commuter Connection (SFCC) definitely made a difference, but there’s still more to be done with both LIRR and SFCC service out there. My timetables specifically pay extra attention to intra-island travelers, as there’s so much room for growth in that department especially on this branch, and I did my best to make sure they were well looked after.

In general, my sample Montauk Branch timetable represents a noticeable increase in trains, especially during the reverse and off-peak periods. However, this also represents a smarter use of equipment. A good example of this is balancing the amount of trains to Montauk. The timetables below show sample service patterns for weekday and weekend Montauk Branch service, east of Babylon. It’s important to note that at this time, connecting trains aren’t shown, and they may or may not be once all the timetables have been created and published. 

Included in the linked PDF file below is full Sample Weekday and Weekend Montauk Branch Timetable. Peak, off-peak, extra, and special event trains are all included. Note that this is a new and improved timetable design. 

The timetables have yet to include deadhead/non-revenue moves, which will be planned out using AI to align with crew and equipment moves and will be written down on paper. They’ll be included on a separate page in the attached PDF. I tried to mostly minimize deadheading as it’s essentially wasted time, crew, and equipment hours but in some cases it’s unavoidable to make the most out of the resources available.

Before we can dive into the actual excel timetables, let’s quickly go over Key Assumptions and Service Guidelines:

Key Assumptions

• The current infrastructure on the branch will remain the same or similar to what it is today.

Service Guidelines

• Rush hour service should be increased to meet current ridership demands, especially in The Hamptons and on the Babylon - Patchogue segment.
• During the morning rush hour, service mainly consists of a mix of trains out of Speonk and Patchogue. Trains from Speonk and Mastic-Shirley typically originate out of Speonk Yard while trains from Patchogue usually turn off eastbound trains at Patchogue. Service definitely resembles what’s currently on the timetable, but there’s the addition of more trains. The branch keeps the current westbound dual-modes with both following the same schedule as today. Two trains originate out of Montauk in the morning rush to match the two that terminate there in the evening rush. In addition, I was able to schedule an additional early-morning run out of Patchogue. 
• Service during the evening rush hour is much less structured (not that it is during the morning rush) but I think I did a good job of balancing equipment over the course of the rush hour. The two current dual-modes in the evening run on the same schedule as currently and I’ve introduced new trains to fill in the various gaps over the course of the rush hour, and most of those trains leave from Hunterspoint Avenue/LIC or Jamaica. 
• An important thing to note that SFCC Services/East End Scoots have not been included. Those will be included in the South Fork timetable which will come out in a couple of months once I’ve made it. 
• During the midday off-peak period, hourly service at a minimum has been sustained to Patchogue, and while much more “wild” I was able to give Speonk and Mastic-Shirley a rough average of bi-hourly service. This meets the current service standards as far as Patchogue, and there’s a huge improvement in midday service to Speonk. There’s currently some very nasty gaps including a large gap during the entire morning between 7:14am and 12:46pm, and I was able to completely eradicate that. 
• Another addition is expanded reverse-peak service. Currently, during the mornings, there’s a 2 hour gap between trains to Patchogue and I was able to lessen that gap by exactly an hour with the inclusion of a brand-new reverse-peak train to Speonk for the first time ever! Trains that would otherwise be equipment trains will now accept passengers along their way. For example, there are now several “revenue deadheads” out of Jamaica Storage Yard in the early morning hours, and I had these trains make stops along the Mainline or Babylon Branch to supplement service there too. Westbound reverse-peak service in the afternoon has also been improved, esspecially along my home section with trips being added from Sayville, Patchogue, and Speonk. 
• On weekends, hourly service has been sustained at a minimum to Patchogue and bi-hourly to Speonk. I’ve also added additional trains during the busier weekend periods in the morning going westbound and in the evening going eastbound, especially by completely eradicating the ridiculous two-hour 6 minute gap along the Patchogue-Babylon segment. I will discuss Summer Hamptons service below. 

Link to Montauk Branch Timetable

To start, we need to note that the LIRR has very limited diesel equipment. Therefore, it was difficult to provide good service on the diesel branches. The current fleet is in no way capable by any means of handling the overwhelming ridership, especially during the Summer, and with the current equipment, there’s little room for growth. That being said, I’ve written these timetables with the intent of them being utilized by current equipment. Luckily and also sadly (Railfan part of me), the LIRR has ordered more equipment so I will do my best to provide even better service once they come.

On the weekday westbound panel, a new early morning train has been added out of Patchogue, therefore closing the 50 minute gap between the 4:47 and 5:37am, as commutes are growing earlier. 

Morning peak service is structured similar as it is today, and many of the morning rush hour favorites have resumed similar or the same schedules as their real-life counterparts. Most of the through-trains on the branch terminate at Hunterspoint Avenue or Long Island City, however, the first through-train from Patchogue terminates at Jamaica for better use of equipment (train #51 turns in Jamaica to make up the first morning departure to Oyster Bay.) The first dual-mode train which is out of Southampton continues to follow its schedule, while the other dual-mode from Speonk also continues to depart Speonk at 6:18am. Currently, there’s only one morning train from Montauk. One of the biggest additions to this timetable is the addition of a new express DM from Montauk at 4:37am. This train makes all stops to Speonk, then runs express from Speonk to Patchogue, before running nonstop to Jamaica, all the while doing this in as little time as humanely possible. This train provides an earlier departure from Montauk, something I’d desperately like to see, while providing an express run and getting people in in city in time for 8am jobs. This train runs ahead of my favorite train, train #37, therefore, people who need the local stops can just drop-back at either Speonk or Patchogue. 

I’ve done my very best to built up service on the branch in hopes of drawing riders of the busy Ronkonkoma trains, and by increasing Montauk Branch service, during the peak of the peak, especially west of Patchogue, I hope to make the Montauk Branch a much more attractive option. Currently, there’s a large westbound gap between 6:56am and 7:35am on the Patchogue-Babylon section, therefore you can get to New York at 8:18am or 8:52am. I personally think this is very annoying that they don’t run another train in between, therefore, I’ve added in an additional train at 7:15am to eliminate that gap and provide another train during the peak-of-the-peak and I think this will be worthwhile in getting people to stop driving from communities along the Montauk Branch up to Mainline stations since Montauk Branch service stinks compared to what they can get at Ronkonkoma, for example.

During the morning rush, there’s a funny-looking train I think I better mention, train #57. This train originates in Patchogue and closely follows the same schedule as its counterpart as far as Babylon, however, instead of terminating in Babylon, it continues up the Central Branch, making all local stops on the Main Line between Bethpage and Floral Park, before going to Belmont Park via the eye there. While this train isn’t perfectly timed for the average intra-island traveller, this train is perfectly timed for people who need to get to Nassau County earlier, such as teachers or construction workers. This train is perfectly timed to encourage intra-island travel to places on Long Island such as Bethpage, Westbury, Floral Park, and Belmont, while also providing additional opportunities for Hicksville and Mineola. I had this train run to Belmont Park  so it doesn’t get overrun with by making all the local stops from Patchogue to Floral Park. Manhattan commuters, however, aren’t left-out as they can transfer at Babylon to an electric express train to Grand Central. My hope for this train is to encourage intra-island travel along the South Shore. The equipment would then turn for to become #1929 from Belmont Park to Long Island City where it would be mixed back into the diesel pool, therefore it would be theoretically possible to ride the train all the way to the city if you wanted to go all the way out of your way! 

One of the most beautiful things of this timetable is the improved service east of Speonk. 2 new westbound trains #13 and #19, departing Montauk at 9:30am and 6:23pm have been added to the schedule along with the dual-mode. All 3 of these trains fill huge gaps left by other trains, and coupled with the South Fork Scoots, will really help encourage midday travel on the East End. I’ve also added many more trains to/from places in the Hamptons such as East Hampton, Bridgehampton, and Southhampton, and especially during Rush and reverse-peak hours, these really help make the frequencies east of Speonk attractive.

Midday service on The Montauk Branch is mainly comprised of  typical hourly-scoots to Patchogue, along with the occasional Speonk train, however, additional westbound trains have been added throughout the day from Mastic-Shirley and Speonk to encourage ridership. In addition, there’s a new weekday off-peak eastbound train from Jamaica to Southampton. One thing you’ll notice as a trend through this timetable project is that there’s many more off-peak and reverse-peak trains start/end in Hunterspoint Avenue or Long Island City, I believe that with the development going on in the area, there’s definitely room to grow and I also believe it’s much easier to just turn trains there. I’ve tried to convert all trains that run empty equipment moves there over to revenue runs, and I’ve sent additional trains to turn there as well as an alternative to Oyster Bay service. Certain off-peak trains add stops at Hicksville and Mineola and this was done specifically to supplement service there.

To give a word on weekday reverse-peak service, there are a number of “revenue deadheads” that will start out of Jamaica Storage Yard early in the morning in order to get equipment out to Speonk and Patchogue to makeup westbound runs. These trains will make additional stops along the Babylon Branch or Mainline to supplement service there, too.

The weekday eastbound timetable includes most of the current eastbound runs, however, several trains have been eliminated and repurposed to provide better service. I’ve been able to add additional trains into the excel timetable, especially during the peak-

Weekend service mainly resembles current weekend service, however, additional trains have been added to the schedule during the busier weekend periods (specifically 8:30am WB to 11:30am WB and 4:00pm EB to 7:30pm EB). One additional train has been added out of Montauk on weekends leaving Montauk at 9:23am in hopes of eradicating that nasty gap between 7:01am and 3:16pm during the winter, and to take some load off of #6005 in the summer. A new early-bird train departs Hunterspoint Avenue at 5:00am sharp on summer weekends, allowing travelers to maximize their time out on the East End. In addition, multiple additional eastbound trains have been added to the schedule in order to provide additional weekend East End travel opportunities all year long. Additionally, two eastbound trains have actually been fitted it in the afternoons, to patch the unacceptable 7 hour gap in eastbound service out there.

Once we slither over to the weekend westbound panel, we notice that all of the Summer Sunday Hamptons trains pretty much take over the timetables. Be sure to read the reference notes in the columns carefully in order to determine which trains run on which days!

From my observations on how the Montauk Branch survives functions during weekends in the summer, the vast majority of delays are first caused by slow loading. These delays are some of the worst type of delays as they can quickly amplify into huge delays that we therefore have to suffer through the entire afternoon. What happens is, the platforms at stations in the Hamptons are short, therefore, trains have to spend lots of time taking on passengers at every stop and while the train may have enough cars to accommodate the loads (rarely), the short platforms slow things down CONSIDERABLY! If a train has to sit there for a couple of  extra minutes at each stop, that time can add up to 20 minutes by the time you finally reach Speonk. Minor delays can throw off even the most heavily padded of them all, and one late train (#6005 I’m looking at you!) can put a chokehold on the entire branch. 

Summer Sundays are some of the worst days to ride this branch as trains OTP’s are atrocious, and while I wish I could say I had a solution, I really don’t. There’s really not much I can do to help things, you see, the LIRR is an extremely capacity-restricted system, and there’s not enough equipment to provide the level of service needed on these days. I tried to patch the worst of the gaps, but the most I could do was add a train here or there from Southampton, to hopefully dull some of the loads, but most of the loads are from stations east of here anyway.

I’ve noticed that the trains that typically rack up the worst of the crowds are trains 6001 (the 7:01a from Montauk to Jamaica), 6005 (the 11:37a from Montauk to Jamaica) and 6007 (the 1:47p from Montauk to Jamaica). If you know the schedules, you may notice a trend, all 3 of these trains have huge gaps accompanying and preceding them. #6005 is easily the worst of these problems as it’s so popular due to the fact that there’s a 4-hour+ gap  before it. Therefore, it constantly runs extremely late due to overcrowding and during the worst summer weekends gets extended to Penn Station since it typically runs with dual-mode equipment and because there really isn’t room on any poor connection to be bombarded with 12 cars worth of people! I’ve decided to just extend it to Penn Station since it obviously goes there normally anyway.

One thing I’ve done is add Hicksville and Mineola stops to some Montauk, Speonk and Southampton trains in both directions, allowing for Nassau County residents to more easily get out to Fire Island and the East End more easily.

The Cannonball and its westbound counterpart, The Cannonball West both run on the same schedule as they currently do, and many other famous Hamptons trains continue their legacy. In the future once I dive even deeper into East End Service Patterns, I hope to bring back famous named-trains such “The Sunrise Special”, “The South Shore Express”, “The Montauk Special”, and “The Patchogue Express”!

 

In conclusion, I think I’ve given a good run-down on the major points of these service patterns. You’ll definitely notice oddities in the schedule, and I almost always have explanations for them, so if you’re interested in more elaboration, please don’t b hesitate to leave a comment. As always, if you have any comments, thoughts, suggestions, corrections, etc, you can leave a comment below. 

 

Mastic-Shirley renovation work completed

After a nice long wait, the station renovations at Mastic-Shirley station on the Montauk Branch have finally been completed.

Photo: MTA

The renovation project, which completely replaced the 65-year old station building with a brand-new 2,000 sq ft plaza, and featured concrete repairs to the platform, making it beautiful. In addition, they also made a new reconstructed platform shelter, new LED lighting, new AVPS digital screens, refinished railings, and new station signage. 

Photo: MTA

Separately, crews enhanced accessibility by repairing the ADA ramp, and adding features to the sustainable hub, in addition to repairing the tactile strip and installing a new bike ramp.

The project was performed by LIRR in-house teams in addition to Orange County Engineering (OCE) Contracting, a Walkill, NY based company.

Photo: MTA

From the photos, the station looks very nice, and while I'm sure everyone will miss the old, typical Montauk-branch station design, upgrades have been necessary, and it's great to see this project that has been worked on since December 2023 finally completed.