Daylight Savings Time comes to an end at 2:00 AM tomorrow morning for most of the United States. This time around, we "fall" back an hour and at 2:00 AM, we set the clocks back an hour to 1AM and we get an extra hour of sleep.
Since all of the MTA's territory observes Daylight Savings Time (DST), the MTA must make some adjustments to the schedules to transition smoothly back to Eastern Standard Time.
On Sunday, there are essentially two 1am hours. I decided to break this up across the MTA system.
Long Island Railroad-
For the Long Island Railroad, what basically happens is that all trains that leave their terminal during the Eastern Daylight Hour, the first 1:00am hour, will operate normally, While all trains that were scheduled to depart during the second 1:00 AM (Eastern Standard Hour) will be annulled.
So, if your standing at Penn Station, after midnight Sunday morning, the trains that depart in the 12:00 AM hour will do so as normal, then the clock will strike 1, at this point, the 1:09 AM to Ronkonkoma, 1:34 AM to Huntington, and 1:57 AM to Long Beach will depart as if it were a normal night. Then when the clock strikes 1:59 AM, by playing the magic of Daylight Savings Time game, the clock will blink back to 1:00 AM, and at this point, there will be no trains departing during this hour. It's not like these will run again. Then, after an hour of nothingness, the clock will strike 1:59, then 2:00 AM and everything will proceed as normal again!
However, as you may have noticed, that huge 1 hour gap with nothing scheduled won't make passengers very happy. In past years, the LIRR has added a couple extra trains to the schedule during the second 1:00am hour. The LIRR has added a train #9100, a 1:48 AM EST departure to Babylon stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Rockville Centre and all stops, getting there at 3:02 AM. They also operate a second train in the second 1:00 AM EST hour to Ronkonkoma, stopping at Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and all stops (besides Pinelawn) to Ronkonkoma.
Now, it's looks pretty weird on TrainTime as the LIRR doesn't make it that clear that there's two 1AM hours. On TrainTime, the 1:09 AM from Penn Station to Ronkonkoma stops at Hicksville at 1:54 AM, then stops at Bethpage at 1:00 AM, making it rather confusing, and I think they could do a slightly better job as it was even confusing for researching for this post.
Since, in theory, all trains will operate, there will be no missing equipment turns at terminals, and the two extra trains will hurry back west whenever it's convenient for the LIRR.
Metro-North Railroad & NJTransit-
This daylight savings time problem is a problem that is rather unique to the LIRR. The vast majority of transit agencies conclude service for the day around 1am, then start running trains the next morning around 4-5am. So, most other companies wouldn't have a problem with Daylight Savings Time. Metro-North & NJTransit do not have a single 2AM departure, so that means that they do not have to provide extra services, and those few trains that are running are most likely equipment moves or are just discharging passengers.
New York City Subway-
I thought i'd just briefly cover this: to my knowledge, the subway headways will continue as normally during the second 1:00am hour.
Amtrak-
Amtrak, unlike most of the others, operates trains all over the US, and many of them operate fully or partly overnight. But, Amtrak's plan makes much less sense, in my opinion, then the MTA's. Here's what Amtrak does: In the spring, when the clock moves forward an hour all of their trains become instantly late, and they try to play this game of making up the time en route. When your train is on it's merry way and suddenly the clocks switch back to 1am, your train advances towards it's next scheduled station and then waits a whole extra hour until it's scheduled departure time.
So, yeah, that's the time change, I tried to make this as easy to comprehend as possible, but if I did make any mistakes, please let me know or leave a comment below if you have any questions, and remember to set your clocks back on Saturday night!