Photos: Lindenhurst 8/2024

 I took these photos yesterday, Friday, August 23, while railfanning at the station. If you’d like to watch the full video you can view it here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uRvoblBjvjg&si=KBd0_caMRk792y6W

NJ Transit announced a holiday week of fares!

   NJ Transit is giving away an early holiday present: a full 7-day week free of fares!

    Gov. Phil Murphy wants to thank NJT riders for their patience after enduring yet another "summer of hell". A week of free rides from August 26th through September 2. Not only will this be on the trains, but this will also apply on Busses, Light Rail and any other form of transportation! Unfortunately though, if you already bought a monthly ticket, you'll only receive a 25% discount on there September Monthly Pass through the app, at ticket machines or ticket windows. 

 This gift is being called a "thank you" to the thousands of loyal NJT customers, for holding on through this not so great summer.

Gov. Murphy said this: "Understanding that our commuters have faced many disruptions this summer, we are providing a one week holiday for NJT riders". He also stated that the company is working diligently with Amtrak to find the root cause then solve these problems, and that he thanks the many "New Jerseyans" who rely on public transit to get around.

As I'm from New York, I rarely take New Jersey Transit but I think that this is a perfect solution for the moment. They might not be able to solve these problems as of right now, but I'm thankful that there at least using an innovative approach. It must have been very difficult to make this decision as their throwing tons of money away but I think this will hopefully be a very nice relief to NJT riders and hopefully end the summer on a slightly better note.

Reimbursement for NJ Commuters is on the Horizon!

    On Monday, New Jersey Transit announced that some relief would be on the way for commuters who depend on New Jersey's Commuter Rail, New Jersey Transit, through a plan that would compensate the riders that experienced long & hot delays this summer due to Amtrak issues. The last couple of months for New Jersey Transit have been pretty "hellish" as delayed Amtrak & NJT trains have caused long delays esspecially during rush hours causing stranded passengers and huge backups. These disrupctions have plagued NJ Transit trains, often times leaving people stranded in hot train stations. 

     Finally though, New Jersey Congressman Gotthemier is proposing a passenger bill-of-rights that would force Amtrak to reimburse commuters for their train tickets if there are unreasonable delays or cancellations. He claimed that Amtrak would be on the hook since they own the Northeast Corridor which is the NJ Transit Line with the most delays this summer. 

     Amtrak released a statement on this:

    

     "Amtrak is working hard to improve the reliability of the Northeast Corridor after nearly five decades of chronic underfunding by both the federal government and our commuter partners. We and NJ TRANSIT, like, Congressman Gottheimer, want on-time service that meet customer expectations and we are working diligently, together, to identify root causes and make improvements to the many old assets we rely on every day to support roughly 450 daily trains in New Jersey. Assertions that Amtrak infrastructure alone is the cause of the delays experienced this summer by Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT riders aren't supported by the facts, and we certainly don't take a "run to failure" approach, although funding constraints have long forced us to extend the use of aging assets rather than replace them. Now finally, the funding recently provided by the transformational Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, made possible in part by work of Congressman Gottheimer, has enabled Amtrak to begin to rectify this and launch the company's largest-ever capital investment program, which has more investment planned in New Jersey than any other state, reflecting the criticality of these tracks to whole the Northeast Corridor. While we deeply appreciate the $6 billion in supplemental federal funds to replace Amtrak's old assets and enhance accessibility on the NEC, most of these funds are committed already to other vital projects and are a downpayment on the tens of billions needed from Congress, and our commuter partners, in the future to modernize the Northeast Corridor from Washington DC to Boston over the coming decade. We, and our partners, are already actively working to maximize all the potential funding sources available under the BIL to improve service now and in the future. We look forward to discussing all the actions Amtrak, and our partner NJ TRANSIT, are taking today to improve the railroad with Rep. Gottheimer and getting his continued help to secure the funding required to improve the customer experience going forward." 

    

     While I'd agree that it's certainly not fully Amtrak's fault in any way, I do think they should take at least partial-responsibility for it since they own the corridor and some of there trains caused these delays for NJ Transit Commuters. Luckily, a lot of people are taking the next couple of weeks (selectivity) off for summer vacations, but hopefully coming back into the fall & winter monthes, The Northeast Corridor will hopefully have less issues due to it cooling down. I'm also hoping that next summer will be a lot better with this problem at least partly solved.

LIRR announces September/Fall timetables to further shift-off peak service to NY Penn Station

The LIRR announced a couple of days ago that it’s new fall timetables will take effect right after Labor Day on 9/3. As a Long Islander myself, these new timetables genuinely pleasantly-surprised me! I did not expect the LIRR to announce these new timetables so early, neither did I expect them to make such significant changes to off-peak service. 

Beginning in September, there will be a lot of reshuffling for off-peak service:

• Both Ronkonkoma trains each hour will run to-from NY- Penn Station

• Both Huntington trains each hour will run to-from NY- Penn Station

• Long Beach trains will run to/from NY-Penn Station on weekdays, and now weekends as well.

• The local trains to/from Babylon & NY-Grand Central will now be truncated to Massapequa. To make up for this change, the express trains will now add all stops from Massapequa-Lindenhurst

• Far Rockaway trains will now run to/from NY-Grand Central oppose to NY-Penn Station, which I think sounds very fitting.

• West Hempstead trains will now run to/from NY-Grand Central instead of Brooklyn on middays and weekends except during late night hours (trains will run from Jamaica- West Hempstead.)

• Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn will now get 20-minute headways with just shuttle trains.

These new changes support a big drawback in service to/from NY-Grand Central. All four Main Line trains will now run to/from NY-Penn Station oppose to just two. Along with that, only one train from the South Shore will run to NY-Grand Central and that will only run from Massapequa due to construction work in Babylon, meaning that there will be absolutely no off-peak service to/from NY-Grand Central to anywhere in Suffolk County. 

The MTA is making these changes (at last) to better meet off-peak ridership demand. During peak hours, NY-Grand Central has very steady ridership and is well-worth it, but, during off-peak hours, few people travel there as there is a lot more to do on The West Side (near Penn Station). To add to this, crowding on off-peak trains to NY-Penn Station (especially during more Winter months) has become a decently significant problem. 

Credit to The LIRR Today for the image.

As you can see from the image, there is quite less off-peak service offered to NY-Penn Station then is offered to NY-Grand Central. These changes have been progressive over time and show the significant retreat from NY- Grand Central. After the MTA spent $12 Billion on one of the most expensive new rail terminals on Earth, ridership has simply not achieved to the level that the MTA had hoped, at least during off-peak hours, anyway.

Since Grand Central Madison’s opening, the LIRR has been cutting trains from there and shifting trains to Penn Station for a variety of reasons, including for events at MSG. And, in April of this year, they cut Grand Central North’s hours during weekends and evenings. 

They also did two interesting things for peak hours. The first thing they announced on the site was that they were “for the first time, running two trains from Oyster Bay to Penn Station”. Train #513 the 7:17a  from Oyster Bay to Hunterspoint Avenue is now being switched over to Penn Station, I’m very happy about this change as unexpected as it is, as it now gives a useful Oyster Bay dual-mode. However, I do believe it would actually make more sense for #509, the 7:01a express train to run to Penn Station as currently while it does save time, it would be nice for it have a direct faster ride for these stops. But, by having #513 shift, it does give all the Oyster Bay Branch stops a direct ride! Following that, the LIRR also announced that one of the shuttle trains to Atlantic Terminal will now start at Valley Stream, and then make all local stops to Atlantic Terminal, I’m not sure what time this train will leave, but most likely, this is another good thing.

By cutting trains to NY-Grand Central, they have to make sure that they do a good job lining up connections at Jamaica. I really think they should bring back timed-transfers, as there are sometimes some very large gaps at Jamaica between trains to each terminal. I feel like what will determine whether or not these schedules were good is the wait times at Jamaica, if the wait times are very long then we have a problem, but, if the LIRR does a good job evenly spacing the 3 NY-Grand Central trains during the evening hours, then this can be a success.

At the end of the day, while it’s disappointing to see service to this new beautiful terminal being scaled away so quickly, clearly it’s for the better as there's clearly a big difference in off-peak travel for the East Side vs the West Side. I do want to give the LIRR credit for this, as it was probably very frustrating for the MTA and LIRR after they spent so much money on this for it to not be close to as successful as they had hoped. I’m happy the LIRR has finally admitted this and has done something to address it as this has been an obvious problem for anyone taking weekend trains. After about 17 months, The LIRR has finally woken up.