Photos: Sayville (7/2025)

 

Interlocking Walkthrough: SH

Let’s take a look to one of the more recent but now defunct interlockings, SH interlocking, located in Southampton, one that came online rather recently with the Speonk to Montauk Signalization Project.

Signals

SH interlocking is a rather simple interlocking, as it starts out as one track then splits into two tracks a couple hundred feet east of the station before there’s a small siding running for at least hundred feet before a pair of crossovers leading into the station, similar to what can been seen at Hampton Bays and Patchogue. There’s only one platform, so the first train would stop do it’s station work, then go onto the passing siding and wait for the other train to go and clear the switch. While’s it’s not ideal, it’s better than nothing and it generally works out alright if the trains are on time. 

However, here’s where things get interesting, they closed the west side switch, so if a train were to enter the siding they wouldn’t be able to come back out on the other side. This basically renders the interlocking defunct. While some may initially think this was a bad descison, it honestly doesn’t affect the LIRR’s South Fork operations too much as it was rarely-used and is much more of a burden then it’s worth considering the high maintenance costs. 

Signals

SH interlocking uses the modern signals Tri-light color signals.

What The Port Jefferson Branch Timetable Could Look Like

For today’s post, we’ll take a look at the Port Jefferson Branch. Before I begin, it’s important I note that for the purposes of this post, the term “Port Jefferson Branch” will refer to the stations east of Syosset all the way to Port Jefferson. Stations west of Syosset will be covered in the huge Mainline timetable. However, I've included stations Floral Park thru Hicksville for the convenience of making/reading the timetable and for intra-island travel. Elmont has also been included for travel to the stadium. Unlike today’s timetable, this timetable specifically covers service for stations east of Syosset, making it less long and much easier to read by Port Jefferson Branch customers, then it’s difficult-to-read counterpart. I have decided to include stations Westbury-New Hyde Park for ease of planning and inter-island travel.

The Port Jefferson Branch is the first real branch that has to deal with significant capacity constraints, ones that extremely de-simplify constructing service patterns because of the lack of train storage at Huntington. For every westbound out of Huntington in the morning, and vice versa in the evening, you must either have to run a reverse-peak train or deadhead equipment, something that's very costly for the LIRR since they have to deadhead various equipment trains from various yards such as Hillside and West Side Yard in order to restock the “pocket tracks” in Huntington.

Therefore, there are some pretty rough gaps in service, especially during the peak-of-the-peak. I tried to provide the most service during the beginning and the end of rush hours, as this is when it’s easiest to deadhead equipment to/from Huntington to restock. I still provided decent service however throughout the rush hour, averaging trains out of Huntington every 10-15 minutes during the busier periods. I tried to provide more express service, with local trains west of Hicksville covering the more inner-zone stops in a later post about the Main Line itself.

In the 1970s, the branch was electrified as far as Huntington, and in 1985, it was single tracked to Huntington.

Nowadays, the Port Jefferson Branch is half-finished, half-assed branch that can barely support itself during rush hours. Capacity is very limited on the branch due to not only relatively limited Main Line capacity (at least it's much, much, much better after Third Track Project), but the very limited capacity at Huntington. Obviously, Huntington is no proper terminal for electric trains, and it wasn't ever even supposed to be built as a terminal, (let alone for the second busiest branch) in the first place. 

Therefore, during rush hours, I decided it wasn't the greatest idea to place the most stress on Huntington to have it provide almost all the rush hour services along the entire Main Line, therefore, I placed larger emphasis on smaller, more western terminals such as Hicksville to carry the local stops during these busy times.

The Port Jefferson Branch sees pretty good ridership from Huntington, Cold Spring Harbor, and Syosset, and while diesel territory does pretty well too, like as discussed in the Montauk Branch post, many people still just drive down to the Ronkonkoma Branch and take trains from there for better service. I think my improving service to the best of my ability on these branches, we can help to even things a tad bit out.

Included in the linked PDF file below is full sample weekday and weekend Port Jefferson 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.

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

Key Assumptions:

• There aren’t really any Key Assumptions.

Service Guidelines:

• During rush hours, service to/from both Huntington and Port Jefferson generally emulates current levels, mainly with additional trains added in to help with capacity and to provide more service to where it’s needed.
• Of the 9 diesel trains from Port Jefferson, 1 terminates at Huntington earlier in the rush hour, 3 go to Hunterspoint Av, 4 go to Long Island City, and the final two go to Penn Station. 
• During the morning rush hour, service towards Huntington is concentrated towards the beginning and end of the rush hours, when it’s easiest to run equipment in the reverse-peak direction out in order to represent westbound runs.
• During the evening rush hour, service into Port Jefferson is structured very similar to how it is today, with two dual-modes, with trains into Port Jefferson roughly every 30-40 minutes, with service trailing off towards the end as equipment becomes more sparse.
• The same can be said for Huntington, which will see roughly the same amount of trains and structure as current levels, with more express trains added in and more service during the peak-of-the-peak.
• During the weekday and weekend off-peak period, service is provided every 90 minutes to/from Port Jefferson. Most of these trains terminate at Hicksville with a handful only going as far as Huntington. 
• Huntington is served twice an hour by electric trains to/from Penn Station (continuing the LIRR’s new practice of providing half-hourly service to/from Penn Station on the 3 main electric branches). These trains make a variety of different stops, with some picking up stops west of Floral Park, others skipping those stops entirely, some running on a skip-stop schedule by skipping Carle Place and Merllion Avenue (just depends on the time). 
• During the busiest travel periods on weekends, I provided extra train service out of/into Port Jefferson to complement the scoots to Hicksville. 
• During the late night hours, service has been enhanced to include additional late-night trains into and out of Huntington & Port Jefferson.

Link to Port Jefferson Branch Timetable

The Port Jefferson Branch (specifically the west of Huntington portion) is a very difficult branch to provide adequate service on, as Huntington isn’t a proper terminal and it can't handle the growing ridership demands on this heavily-used branch. Trying to sustain reasonable service levels, especially during the peak periods was quite a challenge considering the limited amount of space to turn trains, so, in some cases, I had to attempt to combine trains (ex. I had a Port Jefferson train make the added stops of Cold Spring Harbor and Syosset in order to provide service from those stations to HPA). 

I built these timetables with the goal of load balancing. There are certain rush hour trains on the branch that are overcrowded, and I tried to add additional trains in to supplement those, with many of those trains running to alternate terminals (HPA or ATL), not only helping even the loads but also providing direct one-seat rides back to those places. I also tried to provide more express service to/from Huntington during the busiest periods to take stress of the local trains. I also tried to minimize large gaps in service, especially east of Huntington. There’s a long 30-min gap during the rush hour between trains 617 (the 6:40am out of Port Jefferson) and 619 (the 7:10am out of Port Jefferson), and I was able to minimize that by adding a new train in departing at 6:57am.

Another aspect of the timetable that got an upgrade was reverse-peak service. While reverse-peak service got a huge upgrade after the third track, I still feel like reverse-peak service is under thought and underserved, especially considering they deadhead so many sets to Huntington in the morning. I tried when possible to provide robust reverse-peak service, by instead of deadheading all these runs I at least tried to run them in revenue service, providing express service to certain stations. I think I did a decent job of better utilizing the limited infrastructure. The Port Jefferson section was more difficult to fix considering lack of passing sidings, but I tried my best to improve service, especially in the westbound direction on Fridays with students coming home from Stony Brook University, along with people heading in for concerts, which can see the last reverse-peak train out of Port Jefferson, crushloaded due to it running with only 3 cars and it being the last train before the 3 hour gap. I also was able to close that afternoon westbound obnoxious gap as well.

One thing you'll notice with some of the midday Port Jefferson Branch trains is that many of them run to Hicksville. One of the many problems with the Port Jefferson Branch is the obnoxious transfer at Huntington. Not only is it slow, but it's just very painful. Hicksville is much better configured to handle transfers, and the even better thing is, I can have these trains connect with Ronkonkoma trains, providing an even faster ride. While I can't eliminate the capacity issues at Huntington, I can at least annihilate that annoying transfer!

Another thing you'll notice, but will be discussed much more in the Main Line timetable, is that many of the off-peak Huntington trains that typically would run "express" skipping Merllion Avenue and Carle Place no longer do so. Especially during the morning hours, on weekends, when they run express service skipping these poor stations without even saving any time! I don't get the point of that, as your literally just denying them a train when it could easily stop there and still get to it's next stop on time. Therefore, express service has only been provided during hours where there isn't supplemental service west of Hicksville by locals starting out of Hicksville.

Similarly to what was done on the Montauk Branch, on weekends, during the busier travel periods, I provided two additional trains per direction, with the first one being a dual-mode train to Penn Station, and the second one going to Jamaica. I had the dual-mode train make stops at Huntington, Cold Spring Harbor, Syosset, Hicksville, Westbury, Mineola, and New Hyde Park to augment service there. I think this will go a long way in providing better service and reducing crowding at the Main Line stations. I think these trains are well-timed to encourage off-peak travel, a growing trend on the Long Island Railroad!

You'll notice, however, that Huntington is one of the only electric terminals that doesn't recieve any extra service during weekend mornings or afternoons. I did this because I didn’t want to have to have to run any more equipment out there nor turn any more trains, so instead I will run extra trains from Hicksville, to supplement service on the Main Line, and customers at Cold Spring Harbor and Syosset can take advantage of the two additional thru Port Jefferson trains which all stop there.

To be honest, there isn't that much to say about the Port Jefferson Branch timetable. It was difficult because I had to try to provide as much service as I possibly could out of Huntington, and therefore I had to deadhead a lot of equipment. 

Similar to what is the case with the other branches, this timetable is too numerous to cover all the little oddities, but I'm very happy to and would love to answer any questions you may have. I will also happily take any suggestions, especially if your a commuter on the branch yourself. Next time, we'll take a look at the huge Main Line timetable, then take a look at the equally large Babylon Branch timetable, before wrapping up the regular branches with the South and North Fork timetables.

View an index of all other sample timetables, the post about those timetables, and revision history, right here.

Interlocking Walkthrough: PD

Up next is a more local interlocking to me, PD Interlocking. On the scenic but delay-central Montauk Branch, PD interlocking is definitely the biggest delay-creator of them all. PD Interlocking consists of a siding, similar to what is seen all over the Montauk Branch, so it's responsible for various train meets, but in addition, it's also responsible for shuttling the little "Patchogue Scoot" trains around in the mini-yard as they wait on the siding to enter service. PD Interlocking is the first passing siding on the Montauk Branch heading eastbound, as the line becomes two tracks slightly east of Sayville.

Here's a little diagram of PD interlocking I found on Trains Are Fun:

Switches

I'm hoping that diagram made the interlocking pretty clear, but, I'll still explain it anyway. Patchogue consists of only one six-car side platform, and I think you can figure out which side it's on. That's a common theme on the Montauk Branch, as similar setups can be seen at Bellport, Southampton, Hampton Bays, and Westhampton. This is a major inconvenience scheduling-wise, as you can't schedule two trains to load simultaneously like what can be seen at many of the Port Jefferson Branch stations. The platform is after Ocean Avenue and is not shown on the diagram, but after the platform the line splits right back into 1 track just before West Avenue crossing.

Nonetheless, PD interlocking consists only of one large siding that begins just west of Clare Rose Blvd, and between the railroad crossing and the station platform, the North Track splits off and runs north of the station track. Also shown on the diagram is the rather unused fence track, that used to be used much more but now sits pretty much unused. PD got it's name from an old trolley line, as part of the Suffolk Traction Company that went out to Patchogue Dock (see how it got it's name?). It was orginally constructed to protect the railroad from the trolley line as it headed northbound towards Holtsville.

Towers

There used to be a PD tower, which has control of PD, Y, MS, and SK interlockings, but in the 70s, the switches were automated, and then later in March 2006 the tower was removed from service, and control of those interlockings were handed over to BABYLON interlocking. Then in the August of that year it was teared down.

Signals

The interlocking had position-light signals but when it was renovated in 2006 it gained the modern tri-light color signals.

Trivia

I decided to include a bit of trivia, since there are two interesting things about PD Interlocking. A rather common occurence on TrainTime, specifically with a particular train, titled #8 (the 11:41a from Jamaica to Montauk) commonly has Patchogue spelled out as PD on the TrainTime app. This is an odd mistake and I don't know why it's so common on that particular train.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed PD interlocking, and I wish you a happy Fourth of July tomorrow!

MTA Fourth of July Service 2025

Independence Day, also known as Fourth of July falls on a Friday this year, which means that to startoff this post, it's important to note that the LIRR will run on a weekend schedule. 

Here's some of the service changes that'll occur during the Fourth of July weekend:

Wednesday, July 2, 2025:

Long Island Railroad:

• Normal weekday schedule, regular fares.
• Train 14, "Mini-Cannonball" as they call it (the 4:07pm from Penn Station to Montauk) will run. 

Metro-North Railroad:

• Metro-North will operate on a Thursday schedule.

Thursday, July 3, 2025:

Long Island Railroad:

• Normal weekday schedule, regular fares.
• Train 14, "Mini-Cannonball" as they call it (the 4:07pm from Penn Station to Montauk) will run. 
• Train 952 (the 3:58pm out of Ronkonkoma) will be extended to Greenport as 954, and train 953 won't run.

Metro-North Railroad:

• Metro-North will operate on Friday schedule, with some early getaway trains and some combined trains later in the rush hour.

Thursday, July 3, 2025:

Long Island Railroad:

• Normal weekday schedule, regular fares.
• Train 16, "The Cannonball" will run, along with the suit of other Summer Friday Hamptons trains (#10 and #12 to Montauk, along with #66, #89, and #99; SFCC trains #94 and #95 won't run.
• The LIRR will operate an additional extra train to Montauk, titled #24, departing Jamaica at 7:15pm, running non-stop to Patchogue, Mastic-Shirley, and all stops to Montauk.
• Train 952 (the 3:58pm out of Ronkonkoma) will be extended to Greenport as 954, and train 953 won't run.

Metro-North Railroad:

• Metro-North will operate on Friday schedule, with some early getaway trains and some combined trains later in the rush hour.

Friday, July 4, 2025:

Long Island Railroad:

• Normal Saturday schedule, regular fares.
• The LIRR will not operate the regular Sunday fleet of additional westbound trains from Montauk, only the Saturday ones.

Metro-North Railroad:

• Metro-North will operate on Sunday schedule, with some early getaway trains and some combined trains later in the rush hour.
• Metro-North will operate two additional trains targeted towards people coming from the Rye Playland and Macy's Firework Shows. The first extra, #3569, is a 10:54pm local out of Rye, making all stops to Grand Central, with the second extra, #3572, departing Grand Central at 11:13pm, making Harlem-125 St, then running nonstop to Westport, Fairfield, and all local stops to New Haven.

Saturday, July 5, 2025:

Long Island Railroad:

• Normal Saturday schedule, regular off-peak fares.
• The LIRR will not operate the regular Sunday fleet of additional westbound trains from Montauk, only the Saturday ones.

Metro-North Railroad:

• Normal Saturday schedule, regular off-peak fares.

Sunday, July 6, 2025:

Long Island Railroad:

• Normal Sunday schedule, with regular off-peak fares.
• The regular Sunday fleet of additional westbound trains from Montauk will operate.
• The LIRR will operate an additional extra train from Montauk to Jamaica, titled #6021, departing Montauk at 8:45pm, making all stops to Westhampton before then running nonstop to Jamaica.

Metro-North Railroad:

• Normal Saturday schedule, regular off-peak fares.

Also, on the subway, the MTA will run increased service on the A, C, F, N, 2, and 4 lines to accommodate for increased travel to the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks show from the afternoon thru the late evening. 

The thing is, they really need to increase service on the 7 as things can get pretty bad for people watching from near Vernon Blvd-Jackson Avenue. Last year, the 7 got jammed as they didn't run enough trains and this lead to out of control crowding, thus spilling onto the other lines, specifically the G, E, and the N, yet this year they're continuing the same problem by not providing more service on the line that's specifically supposed to target these travelers. 

The (7) is CBTC, so due to the planned work, they could easily store a couple of trains on the express tracks, then deadhead them over to Hudson Yards and mix them with the locals. If I were the you, I'd avoid the 7 at all costs on Fourth of July night since things we'll probably get pretty ugly following the show.

Anyways, I wish everyone a happy Fourth of July weekend!

Interlocking Walkthrough: JAY

Let's now take a look at the busy JAY Interlocking. Similar to it's counterpart, HALL interlocking, it serves as the second major interlocking for Jamaica Station. I like to say HALL and Jay interlocking are decently similar, both with their own unique set of quirks & characteristics.

Here's a diagram of JAY interlocking, from the handy-dandy New York City trackmap:

As you can see, JAY interlocking is extremely busy, and seams to be much less structured than HALL interlocking is.

It's difficult to understand the interlocking, especially at first, but let me try to explain the key fundamentals of the interlocking so you'll begin to understand the rest of the interlocking. 

The idea, similar to what is seen at HALL interlocking, is to segregate trains so they never cross paths. Ever notice that typically speaking, westbound trains leave from tracks 1, 2, and 3 and eastbound from tracks 5, 6 , 7, and 8? While technically any train can leave from any track at Jamaica, they specifically do this for a reason, as to streamline the flow of trains.

This also explains why a majority of the trains headed towards Brooklyn typically come from the Atlantic Branch, since, the way the station is configured, makes it easier to get those trains over to the tracks headed towards Brooklyn.

You'll also notice that for much of the interlocking, westbound and eastbound traffic is actually segregated from each other, therefore the paths of an eastbound train headed towards Babylon, for example, and a westbound train headed towards Long Island City would never once have to cross paths. This speeds up the interlocking substantially and allows for more capacity.

The way the interlocking is setup also gives JAY interlocking a secret advantage, which allows two westbounds (one headed towards Penn/GCT/HPA and one to Atlantic Terminal to both leave simultaneously and never cross paths. This allowed them to do timed-transfers, which, they abolished after East Side Access, and leads to the greater flexibility of the interlocking.

Anyway, I don't think it makes sense to explain the entire interlocking like I normally do as similar to HALL, there's a lot going on and I don't think you guys want to read an entire explanation of it, but I hope that gave you a better idea of what this interlocking is about.

Transfer at Hicksville

In a much-needed sequel to this post done back in June, today, I'll be talking about the other Port Jefferson Branch transfer, Hicksville. Hicksville is a much-less used transfer, and besides a mid-morning round trip, few Port Jeff diesels terminate here. Instead, it's used quite often for intra-island transferring, particularly during rush hours. However, unlike Huntington, Hicksville is well-equipped to serve as a transfer-point and well should've been already been used as the terminal for most Port Jefferson trains following ESA. 

Hicksville, unlike Huntington, is set up in away that can way better be compared to that of what is seen at Babylon, where a diesel train would arrive on the middle track, discharge passengers onto platform A, where an electric train would be waiting or soon to come onto track 1.

The LIRR Today has a good video showcasing the move, which sums it up perfectly:

This process then happens in reverse as the diesel train normally idles there for a while-around 15 minutes for the current and only round-trip to terminate there, before the electric train arrives on track 3, passengers scurry over to the idling diesel set on track 2, board, and the train goes off on it's way towards Port Jefferson.

Transfers at Hicksville are generally scheduled for only a couple of minutes, which, is half the time transfers at Huntington typically take. By transferring at Hicksville, not only is it more convenient in that you don't have to wait in the elements for the electric train to pull in, but it also saves time since the transfer takes less time, and you typically transfer to an express train, rather than a local that on top of already taking longer to transfer, makes more stops.

(Photo: Avasic1995 on Youtube)

I believe that Hicksville is easily the best place to turn diesel trains on the Port Jefferson Branch, as it's a natural transfer station. Instead of having to do the cumbersome up and over which requires you to stand out in the elements at Huntington, all you have to do is walk over the platform to the other train. 

While I can't say I've ever done the Hicksville transfer before, I have done the Babylon one, and it's normally a very smooth experience, as  the worst that can happen is your train is delayed a minute coming out of the yard requiring you to wait maybe a minute or two. Unfortunately, at Hicksville, trains are more prone to delays since they are coming from Ronkonkoma so there's a higher chance you'll be waiting around, though typically these transfers go well.

Unfortunately, however, prior to East Side Access, the LIRR only ran 3 trips per direction to/from Hicksville, with the rest going to/from Huntington or thru-trips to Jamaica, Hunterspoint Av or Penn Station, and now, after East Side Access, there's only one mid-morning trip that ends there. With the amount of time in the schedules between HUN-PJN trips, there's plenty of time for them to extend many of these trains to Hicksville, and if they were to time them better, which would probably have to be done anyway to connect with Ronkonkoma trains, they could have the potential to provide 20-minute service to Cold Spring and Syosset as well. In the future, as a supplement to electrification,  

In conclusion, I hope to see the LIRR extend at least a couple of trips to Hicksville on weekdays, and I'd like to see them invest in full Hicksville service on weekends. It's basically a zero-cost improvement, as minimal crew hours would have to be added on, and it would at least make up for not providing the same level of service seen on the Montauk Branch. In my upcoming reworked Port Jefferson Branch draft timetable, which has been delayed a bit, I'll be showcasing how this transfer could apply to more trains in the schedule.

Metro-North Renovation at 3 Stations in Northern Bronx

This post is a bit late since the annoucement was a couple weeks ago, but Metro-North recently announced that they'd be renovating the Woodlawn, Williams Bridge, and Botanical Gardens on the Harlem Line in the Bronx, all stations that desperately, quite desperately needed overhauls.

At the Woodlawn & Willams Bridge stations, Metro-North will be replacing the platforms and installing a snow-melting system, something that should be helpful when we get snow in the winter months, a weather types that pairs well with the Harlem Line. They'll also bring the total of elevators up to 4, which is impressive for a 2-car station.

At Botanical Garden, they'll also be replacing the elevators and in addition, they'll be "bringing the station into a state of good repair" by improving the structures at these stations, replacing large sections of the platforms, in addition to replacing the old station canopy and building new shelters on the southbound platform.

In order to maintain service at these stations through this construction, they'll be partially-closing the already short platforms, and in other cases they'll be using temporary-platforms.

The new station renderings look gorgeous, and it will be a nice break from the old, crusty current stations we have sitting there. 

Photos: Central Islip (6/2025)