What The Oyster Bay Branch Timetable Could Look Like

In all branches we’ve taken a dive into so far, most of them haven’t been too much of a struggle. Other than the single-tracked segment of The Port Washington Branch, things haven’t gotten too complicated. Today’s post will focus on the last of the LIRR’s “simple” branches, The Oyster Bay Branch. After this, we’ll dive into the thick of the LIRR’s operations, ending with the crazy Mainline and busy Montauk Branch! This is where things get interesting.

The Oyster Bay Branch serves as a decent bridge between the two. Its service patterns are somewhat simple, and it receives comparatively little ridership and attention for its comparatively low service. However, integrating Oyster Bay Branch trains into the busy Mainline and all of its traffic can be relatively challenging.

The Oyster Bay Branch, which begins in Mineola and slithers through some of the more sparsely-populated North Shore towns, ending in the beautiful enclave of Oyster Bay. The area it traverses through isn’t nearly as dense central and southern Long Island, but it does provide one of the only transportation links.

However, the one achilles heal of the Oyster Bay Branch is that it’s always suffered from being very slow. The MAS (Maximum Allowed Speed) on most of the branch is 60 mph, and the line is pretty straight as far as Roslyn, but once you travel east of that, it constantly curves this way and that, and with many curves come many curve-related speed restrictions. For most of the line past Roslyn, your chasing 30 mph speed restrictions littered on the ridiculous curves for the remainder of the branch.

It may not seem that bad, but once you add slowly-accelerating dual-modes into the mix and things can get ugly as far as travel times go, and pair that with the infrequent service, many people will just drive to electrified stations (i.e Manhasset if you live faster up the branch or Mineola if you live in Williston Park.)

There have been numerous talks about changing how the branch is ran. There have been some talks of electrification, and other ideas call for the railroad to just get a bunch of DMUs and run them back and forth from Mineola or introducing a “Transfer at Mineola”, however, I don’t believe any of those are feasible. First off, I highly doubt the LIRR will even think about electrifying it anytime soon, which is for good reason. Second, while DMUs might allow for some faster acceleration and deceleration between station stops, purchasing DMUs won’t help with the curves, and therefore, they’ll will still be speed restrictions, and when you do the math, chances are running trains with DMUs will only improve travel time by a couple of minutes, and all that saved time will vanish quickly once passengers are forced to stand and wait on the platform at Mineola. Instead, I think we should make the most of what we have and attempt to improve service.

With all that in mind, let’s jump into the sample timetables for The Oyster Bay Branch! It doesn’t include DMUs (because, look, if they were interested in using them, they’d need to think of procuring them now, since the new locomotives are already on the way, and obviously the MTA doesn’t have the money for that right now, and quite honestly, if they really were interested in doing that, it would probably be best to just skip the trouble and abandon the branch altogether.)

Key Assumptions: 

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

Service Guidelines:

• During the morning rush hour, service is spaced at an average of 40-45 minutes apart. Seven trains have been provided over the course of the rush hour, one more then current levels. Most of the trains during the rush hour have pretty much stayed the same, except the first dual-mode has been operated slightly earlier and trains 509 and 511 have swapped terminals to provide a truly express experience. All trains operate to Jamaica or Hunterspoint Av/LIC, with the exception of the two dual modes that arrive at Penn Station at 7:10 and 8:14am. 
• Like before East Side Access, East Williston will go back to being utilized as an electric terminal for several trains during rush hours, however, that will be shown on the Mainline timetable and I’ll add those trains onto this timetable too.
• In the evening, six trains are provided up the branch (five on Fridays). This provides an upgrade from the measly five trains that are currently provided up the branch. A nice addition is train 560, a brand new 5:21pm departure from Jamaica which will complement train 562 and provide relief to that train. Manu of these evening peak runs have been extended to Hunterspoint Av, providing better peak service there.
• During off-peak and weekend times, service will be provided approximately every 90 minutes normally going to/from Hunterspoint Av.
• You could say an increase has been provided of one additional reverse-peak train per rush hour. 
• Limited late night service is provided on the The Oyster Bay Branch.

Link to Oyster Bay Branch Timetable

Threading Oyster Bay Branch trains onto the crazy Mainline during rush hours is no easy task, however, the hard part was making time for Oyster Bay Branch trains to join the Mainline at Mineola. It was also difficult for me to come up with a reasonable plan for evening service to Oyster Bay, however, I think I did a reflectively good job in the end. 

In the morning, all but one train operates through to a western terminal. The first train of the morning leaves 4 minutes earlier than it did under current schedules at 4:52am. Recently, last September, train #511 had been switched from Hunterspoint Avenue to Penn Station, providing a second morning dual-mode up the branch for the first time ever. As you know the train before is a 7:01 express train that only makes a small handful of stops along the closely-packed branch, speeding up travel time, and I decided it made more sense to send that to Penn Station instead, giving a true express run for those commuters as you don’t have to transfer anymore.

In the PM peak, I was able to squeeze a total of six trains up the branch, a good improvement over the current five.

During off-peak times, service is improved from bi-hourly to every 90 minutes. On weekends, the current schedule requires two sets to provide the bi-hourly headways, so it actually wouldn’t require any additional equipment or crews to improve. It would allow crews and equipment to spend less time laying around in yards, a problem especially at  Oyster Bay. In addition, most off-peak trains now run to/from Hunterspoint Avenue, providing better service there too. That should pretty much make up the off-peak service there, with additional Port Jefferson and Montauk trains added in here and there to complement and to fill in gaps.

The first train up the branch in the early morning now departs at 12:14am, therefore giving one final train before the long overnight gap. Reverse-peak service is now maintained at slightly more consistent headways. By a quirk of scheduling and in order to provide that extra Jamaica-Oyster bay train in, train 569 will originate in Locust Valley (running from Oyster Bay following #560’s arrival).  

I think I’ve pretty much covered everything worth covering on The Oyster Bay Branch. Going on from here, things will progressively get more difficult, and we can say goodbye to those solid blocks of time with local service and consistent service patterns, but, we’ll see if we can shove a minimum of 50 trains down the Mainline and Babylon Branch during a period of just a couple hours soon! In the meantime, feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, suggestions, or comments on this branches timetable or service patterns. Any or all comments are greatly appreciated!