LIRR announces summer timetables 2025

The Long Island Rail Road’s new schedules- just announced at the board meeting yesterday, finally bring much-needed tweaks to schedules. 

While the LIRR has added some very desperate and much needed tweaks, they haven’t dug any deeper to really solve the route causes of the overcrowding and delays nor have they sought to actually provide more options. The truth is, Long Island is known for having some of the best beaches in the world, and the LIRR should try to match that by providing the best transportation to those beaches. 

Schedule Padding

The LIRR has added one-additional minute of running time between Ronkonkoma and Central Islip for trains 2017 through 1031. They've also given all Montauk westbound trains one additional minute of running time between Montauk and Amagansett, same being said with the Oyster Bay Branch with all those westbounds getting an additional minute between Oyster Bay and Locust Valley. The agrevating thing about this is that this schedule padding isn't needed- firstoff westbound Montauk trains constantly arrive in Amagansett 1,2,3 or even 4 minutes early, and while it's bit tighter with Ronkonkoma trains, they still normally arrive either early or on-time. I will admit I see them with some of the padding on Summer Sundays, but besides that, they shouldn't be wasting time padding trains that have ran perfectly fine for 2 years. 

South Fork

The LIRR’s seasonal service to the Hamptons and Montauk is back- and the railroad has made some changes to improve summer service! Remember train #6005, the 11:37am out of Montauk? You may remember that it used to always run late and overcrowded and more often than not got extended to Penn Station because it ran with 12-car dual-mode equipment and way to many passengers to try to get off the platform and onto other busy trains into New York. With these new schedule changes, train 6005 is now running to New York as train 6095 on Sundays, this is something I predicted. In addition, the lesser-known train 6013, the 4:18pm from Montauk is now also extended to Penn Station, a move I can definitely see. They also updated the times to include additional padding for many of the summer Sunday westbound trains, and while I normally don’t support schedule padding to too much of a degree, this is something that had been needed for a long time.

Summer Fridays

While many of you will remember the LIRR’s various summer offerings, I’ll go over them since they made a couple of changes. On Fridays, the LIRR adds a couple of trains:

• Train 89 departs Patchogue at 3:17pm, stopping at Sayville, Bay Shore, and Babylon only.
• Relief Train 66 departs Babylon at 12:05pm, stops at Bay Shore, Sayville, and Patchogue only.
• Train 12 departs Hunterspoint Avenue at 1:11pm, stopping at Jamaica before running express to Westhampton, before calling at all local stops at Montauk.
• Train 16, The Cannonball, departs Penn Station at 4:07pm, runs non-stop to Westhampton, before stopping at Southampton, Bridgehampton, East Hampton, and Montauk. They’ve added additional padding at most of the stops, bringing the final arrive time into Montauk to 6:56pm, eight minutes later than last year. 
• Dual-mode train 20, the 5:13pm from Penn Station to Montauk will run 5-days a week for the first time, replacing train 42 permanently for at least the summer. 
• Train 24, the holiday-only 7:19pm express from Jamaica to Montauk has been annulled from the schedule with no reason provided.

The first run of The Cannonball thru Sayville in 2024

One of the nicest upgrades with this new schedule is the LIRR’s new shift to focus more on providing better summer-service earlier in the week. Currently, the LIRR’s summer-schedule is much more oriented around people who are leaving for the South Fork later in the afternoon on Fridays, however changing patterns after COVID-19 with more people working from home more have caused many people to want to head out east earlier in the week (such as on Thursdays and even Wednesdays) and “work from home” from wherever they’re staying on Thursday and/or Friday. While I’m not trying to conclude that the LIRR’s capacity on the Montauk Branch isn’t busy, there’s been a decent shift to service earlier in the week and the LIRR should look to grow it, something they are finally doing. 

As part of the reworked timetable project, I will continue to work to fine-tune summer service on the Montauk Branch until I get it right.

Summer Sundays

Service on the Montauk Branch on Summer Sundays last year was a HUGE problem last year, with many trains running late and overcrowded on various weekends last year. There’s not much the LIRR can do about this- as on Summer Sundays westbound service is already running at hourly headways which is at capacity. The LIRR should really look to fine-tune service at this point, since the most they can do is possibly add one or two relief trains out of Southampton to help balance service a bit. This years Sunday return schedule offers the same suite of trains as last year, however they have padded a bit more to help with slow-loading something that should greatly improve OTPs. They also have two popular trains, trains 6005 and 6013 (the 11:37am and 4:18pm trains out of Montauk respectively) run to Penn Station, to help with overcrowding and provide an easier option by not requiring 12 full cars worth of people to trundle off at Jamaica and attempt to fit into an MU headed for Penn Station. In my reworked timetable project, I predicted they’d extend #6005 to Penn Station, as its something they did routinely last year, and I think it’s a great thing that is zero-cost but will improve service for everyone. The extra trains that operate out of The Hamptons on Summer Sundays are: 

• Train 6005, the 11:36am train out of Montauk, making all local stops to Speonk before running non-stop to Jamaica, arriving there at 2:18pm. This train has now been renumbered to #6095, and extended to Penn Station, arriving there at 2:41pm. 
• Train 6007, the 1:46pm train out of Montauk, making all local stops to Speonk before running non-stop to Jamaica, arriving there at 4:20pm.
• Train 6009, the 3:25pm train out of Southampton, making all local stops to Speonk before running non-stop to Jamaica, arriving there at 5:14pm.
• Train 6013, the 4:17pm train out of Montauk, making all local stops to Mastic-Shirley, then Patchogue and non-stop to Jamaica, arriving there at 6:56. This train has now been extended to Penn Station, arriving there at 7:22pm.
• Train 6017, the 6:21pm train out of Montauk, making all local stops to Westhampton before Jamaica and Penn Station, arriving there at 9:10pm.

In my opinion, it’s imperative to provide hourly-service going westbound from the Hamptons on Summer Sundays to avoid points of dangerous overcrowding. One trend is that many people tend to spend a week out on the South Fork, therefore alleviating the need to take a later train in the afternoon. Therefore, those people are overcrowding trains #6001, #6005, and #6007, putting extreme stress on them. In my opinion, The LIRR should look to take the equipment of train 6007, and instead use it on a new train, departing Montauk around 9:30am to firstly provide a better option for people in the Hamptons looking to head into the city for a day, while also cutting that four-hour gap that puts #6005 under so much stress in half. Train 6007 has never been the busiest train ever, and I think the equipment would be much better used on that. 

I look forward to seeing how these changes and the additional padding will affect train 6005 and its running time as it and its overcrowding was a big talk of last year.

North Fork 

The LIRR’s new 2025-updated schedules make no changes to North Fork Service, another area I feel has extreme potential for growth. This will be talked about more in the North Fork Reworked East Side Access timetable.

Summer Weekends

Long Beach

The LIRR has made no changes to service to Long Beach, with the same super-express trip departing Penn Station at 9:33am, making Jamaica and Long Beach only at 10:20am. The return-trip departs Long Beach at 4:28pm, only 10-minutes before the local, making it much less useful this year. 

I believe the Long Island Rail Road could make more effort to improve summer-service to/from Long Beach, which would be a huge win for both the railroad and the town of Long Beach, and this will be discussed in the Long Beach Branch Reworked Timetable post.

Jones Beach/Freeport

The Long Island Railroad sneakily cut the three eastbound extra trains to Freeport, in addition to the  extra westbound trains.

In conclusion, while I believe the LIRR made some targeted changes to improve service, I believe there’s still a long way to go and in addition to the discussions regarding Summer Service in my Reworked Timetable Project, I may write further posts further diving into summer service specifically.

Interlocking Walkthrough: WEST HEMPSTEAD

We will now take a look at the interlocking known as WEST HEMPSTEAD, also known as WM. For the purposes of this post and for the purposes of simplicity, I'll refer to it as WM in this post. WM interlocking, is a rather new interlocking, being put into service on a weekend in October of 2009.

As The LIRR Today states it, "while the naming behind WM is complicated, the interlocking itself isn't".  As you may know, the West Hempstead Branch is only single-tracked for it's entire length, therefore, going east, the branch is single-tracked right up to where the pocket track splits off from the Main Track to go around to the station’s island platform.

The "yard" itself consists of two tracks: fence and long. The fence track is shorter and runs "along the fence", and the track is an direct extension from the pocket track, however, it can also be accessed via a crossover from the long track.

On the other hand, the LONG track is rather long. It actually is long enough to extend all the way to Hempstead Gardens station, visible from the platform there, hence the name. Now it seams to only be able to hold a 12-car set (NOW try to think of a 12-car set on the West Hempstead branch) showing how close the West Hempstead Branch's tiny terminal and it's next station are, but it's rather long for the tiny West Hempstead Branch.

The West Hempstead Branch actually does have a small yard (I prefer to call something of this scale a layup), similar to what is seen at Far Rockaway. Now, the way the yard is setup requires a train to first enter the platforms, then switch onto a track leading to the yard, something that doesn't seam to be too much of an issue on this small, local branch. 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

WM Interlocking consists of one big position-light signal smack down inside the middle of the action.

Anyway, thanks for checking out this short interlocking walkthrough. Sorry it was so short and poorly put together, I had to try to make it in a short amount of time to get it out for tomorrow.

What The Belmont Park Branch Timetable Could Look Like

It was not too long ago that we saw how the Hempstead Branch fit into my “master plan”. We’ll now take a look at the next branch in this project which is the Belmont Park Branch. As you may know, one of my main goals of this project is to improve railroad service in Eastern Queens, and, one of those ways is to introduce a new Belmont Park Branch. The Belmont Park Branch, a small spur off the Mainline east of QUEENS down to the Belmont Park terminal, is only used during sporting events, and has been abused over the last couple of years as the Belmont Stakes hasn’t occurred due to construction at the arena and due to the new Elmont-UBS Arena station. Belmont Park is also located near the bustling Cross-Island Expressway along with the busy Route 24, therefore, we can bring in possible Park&Ride opportunities, similar to what it is seen at NJ-Jersey Avenue.

Not only does Belmont Park serve as an anchor in my project for Eastern Queens, it could also be the answer to the intra-island (city) travel equation; as it has good potential to serve as the final terminal for trains specifically designed for intra-island and intra-city travel. 

Belmont Park could also serve as an excellent place to turn trains, as there’s lots of places to store them (similar layout to Long Beach and Hempstead stations), and turning them is fairly straightforward. The one problem with the station is that the platform itself is not designed for speedy boarding, as it is the one and only low-level platform in the system, however, while I’d expect the MTA to perform at a minimum basic station rehabilitation, (building a new platform to replace that single-level one) before introducing this new branch line, they could go without that. 

Included in the linked PDF file below is full Sample Weekday and Weekend Belmont Park 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.

Just like all of the other timetable posts, let’s take a look at the “Key Assumptions” and “Service Guidelines” that I built these timetables on:

Key Assumptions

• The current infrastructure on the branch will remain the same or similar to what it is now. 
• While not urgent, basic rehabilitation of the station to include all high-level platforms, along with improving the station itself would be welcomed.

Service Guidelines

• During peak hours, service is provided relatively frequently, with an average of 15-minute headways provided.
• The Belmont Park trains will bear the load of intra-city travelers, making all stops West of Jamaica, even on the busiest of peak trains. 
• During peak and reverse-peak times, many Hempstead Branch trains will drop stops at Hollis and Queens Village in favor of Belmont trains making those stops.
• During off-peak hours, service is provided once per hour between Belmont Park and Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.
• During the weekday reverse-peak period, additional trains are ran in the reverse-peak direction to provide service on 30-minute headways.
• On days where racing events will be held at Belmont Park, multiple additional round-trips will run between Penn Station and Belmont Park, along with one additional round-trip to/from Grand Central.
• Belmont Park service will run with 6-car M7’s during peak and reverse-peak times, running with 8-car equipment during all other times.

Link to Belmont Park Branch Timetable 

One of the problems with the Hempstead Branch and those East of Bellerose Main Line stations is that those trains are required to switch over two tracks just in order to reach Elmont-UBS Arena, Queens Village, and Hollis Stations. Doing this results in huge bottlenecks on the Main Line, and coupled with slow-switches, it’s a huge pain to have Hempstead Branch trains stop on the Main Line. And, like I talked about in The Belmont Problem, Elmont-UBS Arena is an insufficient station to serve the UBS Arena and should instead be focused on serving the neighborhood of Elmont- which is right on the border. 

As you look at the timetable, one thing you’ll notice is sometimes relatively unreasonable huge gaps in service, and while this wasn’t done to screw  anybody, Belmont Park just wasn’t my number one priority due to it only really serving three stations. My goal during rush hours was just to provide a fast and frequent ride for these Queens stations, and that’s all I wanted. Also you’ll also notice that the Hempstead Branch trains stopping At Queens Village and Hollis have not been included in the timetable. Right now I’m still making so many little changes and once the project is done I’ll go back and polish the timetable and add those trains in. 

On weekends, this will mainly serve as the anchor for Atlantic Terminal service, however, during the hide weekend periods, additional trains will be added from eastern terminals all across the island to Atlantic Terminal, therefore, they can add the West of Jamaica shuttles whenever needed to provide whatever headway desired. 

I have also put the responsibility of serving Hillside and Boland’s Landing employee stops on these trains, with the times indicated at the bottom of the timetable. 

As of the moment, I’d like some input on Atlantic Terminal service, as I’m interested in sending service from one additional eastern terminal to Brooklyn, but I need more information on which branch would be best for it, and in addition, I'd love any suggestions on race service as I don't feel I've nailed it yet, therefore, in addition to any input welcomed on this Brooklyn topic and on race service, any other comments, suggestions, corrections, etc on this timetable or service plan are also very welcome and very much appreciated. You can leave a comment by using the Disqus comment form below, or you can e-mail me at gavin.s.wilcox@gmail.com. 

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

You Can Purchase A LIRR Ticket To Yankee Stadium

Let’s pretend some guy came up to you and asked you “if you can purchase an LIRR ticket to Yankee Stadium”, what would your response to him be?

For many of you it would probably be no, however the answer is actually yes. If you were to wander up to an LIRR ticket vending machine, if you search “Y”, the option next to Yaphank would be Yankee Stadium.

Photo: The LIRR Today

Now as you must know, the LIRR hasn’t and probably never will operate trains to and from Yankee Stadium, but they included that as a convenience to riders going to/from that station. Basically, from what I’ve seen, the LIRR does or at least did designate “The Train to The Game” route as taking the LIRR to 34 St-Penn Station, then walking to 6th Avenue, and taking a Bronx-bound (D) up Central Park West to 161 St- Yankee Stadium. The nice bonus is that this gives you a ticket, allowing you to skip using a crummy Metrocard Machine.

Since East Side Access, it’s even less useful since you can just take the LIRR to Grand Central and connect to Metro-North there, and now that they are unfortunately phasing out Metrocards to OMNY, I don’t know what will be of this little-known feature. I’m not even confident it exists anymore on the ticket machine to be totally honest.

I personally can’t tell you what it says on the ticket, since I’ve never purchased a ticket there and probably never will. I tried looking it up but their doesn’t seam to be any photos of the ticket online and I’m too lazy to go up to my local station and buy one.

In conclusion, it’s another useless little Easter egg that little know about due to it being hidden away with Yaphank (a station, again, few search for), but next time your going to take the LIRR and connect to the subway, try the Yankee Stadium option and see if it raises any eyebrows! 

Interlocking Walkthrough: PILGRIM

For this week's interlocking walkthrough, let's take a look at PILGRIM interlocking located in Brentwood. I apologize for this being such a brief post, there's just little to see. 

Switches

So as you can probably see from the photo above, all PILGRIM consists of is a small switch off a side track back onto the Main Line.

Signals

PILGRIM Interlocking consists of the more modern tri-light color signals. 

Towers

From what I'm aware, this interlocking has always been controlled by DIVIDE Tower.

Neighbors

This interlocking is bordered by JS Interlocking to the west and by PINEAIRE Interlocking to the east. 

I've been fairly interested in Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center recently, and I just saw while researching for this post that there used to be a Pilgrim State Hospital station spur on the Ronkonkoma Branch, and I thought I'd add a couple of photos of the spur to make this post more interesting.

Welp, this concludes this interlocking walkthrough.

What The Ronkonkoma Branch Could Look Like

It’s been a while since we’ve moved onto the next branch in this series of sample timetables, but today we are finally moving on, this time to the Ronkonkoma Branch. Be aware, as we move deeper and deeper into areas of the Main Line, things get even more complicated.

Anyways, ridership along the Main Line (particular the Ronkonkoma Branch) is huge. You may even n know that Ronkonkoma is actually the second busiest station on the entire railroad that’s not in New York City, after Hicksville. It’s important to note that the Main Line refers to the entire portion of the Ronkonkoma Branch between Greenport and LIC, however neither I nor the railroad referred to it as that and I like to say the Main Line runs as far as Hicksville when referring to it here. After the railroad electrified to Ronkonkoma, this resulted in a ridership boom along the branch. Since the opening of the third track, a lot of the major capacity constraints along the Main Line specifically got eliminated, however, there are still some capacity constraints along the Ronkonkoma Branch itself.

Still, when trying to manage sustainable levels of service using only 3 tracks when your trying to balance local and express trains from the Ronkonkoma and Port Jefferson Branches along with trains from Speonk, Port Jeff, and Oyster Bay coupled with the occasional local west of Hicksville can prove to be a rather difficult task.

For the purpose of these timetables, I gave the Ronkonkoma Branch the most track space of all the branches on the Main Line. I did this because ridership clearly reflects that, and as I mentioned in Mid-Suffolk Electric Yard, it also has the most storage space. However, so far, I’ve been successful at giving Huntington great service too!

Included in the linked PDF file below is the Full Sample Weekday & Weekend Ronkonkoma 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 the deadhead/non-revenue moves, which will be planned out along with crew and equipment rotations as well using AI 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 much as possible, since it’s essentially wasted time, crew, and equipment hours, but in some cases it was unavoidable to make the most out of the resources available.

Key Assumptions

• My only real assumption is that with these timetables would the LIRR attempt to improve service east out to Yaphank, Riverhead, and Greenport. Turns out this post is well timed as recently the LIRR announced they’d be Yaphank station and I assume that with that they’ll at least make some effort to improve service out there, especially since they could provide better reverse-peak options for those going to the lab.

Service Guidelines

• During the morning rush hour, a hodgepodge of local and express trains depart Ronkonkoma throughout the peak. I’d say there’s no real consistency as to how service is run, and that is just how it is given the difference in service needed throughout the peak. Service generally emulates current service however additional trains have been added to provide better service to all terminals along with added express service. Additional trains have been ran from Central Islip, Brentwood, Wyandanch, and Farmingdale to complement this new service. I tried to avoid awkward gaps, but especially towards the start and end of the peak, there were some cases where that was unavoidable due to capacity restrictions. For the first time since East Side Access, I’ve provided valid peak service to Atlantic Terminal.
• During the evening rush hour, service is also quite scattered, however, more trains make all stops along the branch and express service has been reduced. 
• I truly believe I provided adequate service during rush hours. It was no easy task considering the limited capacity, specifically on the branch itself, however, I think ai did a good job thanks to a combination of things including East Side Access, the Third Track and Mid-Suffolk Electric Yard.
• I tried to concentrate service on this branch toward the height of the rush hour, in order to better complement Huntington trains. You’ll notice that service on this branch trails off slightly earlier then on many of the other branches due to its location being eastern and due to the yard running out of equipment.
• During the busiest travel periods, service has been upgraded to every 20 minutes to reflect ridership.
• In an effort to give even more additional peak service, I set up a system of Hicksville-Ronkonkoma scoots, similar to what the LIRR used to do when the branch was diesel. Equipment was badly needed in Huntington most, so having the few reverse-peak trains there’s room for go there, you can give everyone the most opportunities to get to their destination. In this approach, you only need one Main Line slot west of Jamaica, therefore eliminating the need for one more train to further clog up Jamaica. 
• I’ve yet to include service east of Ronkonkoma. It will get added in a future post about the North Fork.
• My main goal with this branch was to provide a fast, frequent, and reliable service for these customers into and out of Manhattan, while still providing ample-service opportunities for people travelling intra-island and going to other terminals, and despite all the challenges I faced, I think I did that.

Link to Ronkonkoma Branch Timetable

In my opinion and as The LIRR Today said it, Ronkonkoma can be viewed to as a monster. If you don’t constantly give it trains, it will turn around and gobble you up real quickly. The Mainline is already one of the worst routes for overcrowding, and during rush hours, the branch gets slammed with tons of people having to stand for the entire ride home.

During the morning rush hour, one thing I noticed with the LIRR’s new schedules has been the absence of most of the true express service from Ronkonkoma. I truly believe that given the branch’s setup that a couple of “super-expresses” to/from Ronkonkoma during the morning and evening rush hours would go a long way for crowding and would be well-travelled.  

Despite all the capacity constraints along the branch, over the course of the morning rush hour, I provided four one-seats to Atlantic Terminal and two to Hunterspoint Avenue. The first of them departs Ronkonkoma at 5:13am and heads towards Hunterspoint Avenue, making quite a few stops getting there. I think this will be well travelled by construction workers (note all the development in that area of Queens) who need to get an early start. The second of these runs on the same schedule as today’s only one-seat ride to Atlantic Terminal, departing at a bright-and-early 5:30am. If you were a regular commuter of the Ronkonkoma Branch prior to East Side Access, you may remember the 6:56am out of Ronkonkoma to Atlantic Terminal, and that train has been revived since it gets people into Atlantic Terminal in time for the workday. In addition, one final train departs Ronkonkoma for Hunterspoint Avenue at 7:49am. To some, this may seam like wasted capacity, however, intra-island travel along the Mainline is good, and also has quite a lot of potential. By keeping these trains, not only can they provide one-seat service to these stations, but they also can run more local providing more local options for riders.

In the evening, I tried to add more express trains and “flyers” to the schedule to help loosen crowding. It’s much more difficult in the evening since you have to balance eastbound trains out of two terminals oppose to just one.

During the off-peak, I provided service every 30 minutes to/from Ronkonkoma. Most off-peak trains run to/from New York as ridership warrants it. Despite Ronkonkoma growing a lot during the off-peak periods, capacity constraints keep me from providing better off-peak service. 

As always, if you have any questions/comments/suggestions/etc or want me to explain anything about these sample timetables, feel free to either leave a comment below or e-mail me at gavin.s.wilcox@gmail.com. 

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

The Ronkonkoma Problem

I wasn’t busy today (yep, a Monday in Feburary), so I’ve been writing a bunch of posts that’ll be coming out in the far-future and getting them ready now. Aside from New York, Brooklyn, and Jamaica, Ronkonkoma station is actually the busiest station on Long Island, with Hicksville right on its heals. You may be lead to believe that Ronkonkoma’s popularity is something that is a great thing, however, once you dig deeper, you see it’s actually a problem.

The Hamlet of Ronkonkoma, a place I live near and visit often, probably seams very dense due to its ridership, however, there’s barely more people who live in Ronkonkoma then that use the station. The problem is, the vast majority of those who board at Ronkonkoma are actually not from Ronkonkoma, or even the surrounding communities, but are instead from many different points east, north, south, and even west of Ronkonkoma. 

In order for commuter rail to work as it supposed to, service should be consistent proportional to population density, all the way out to the end of the line. At no point should there be a steep service dropout (unless the population similarly drops off, which hasn’t and won’t happen on Long Island). Service may be relatively proportional out in Greenport, however, Riverhead for example, has about 30% people living there, but sees an 85% drop in service. Many of those who could use Riverhead station (or any other station along the North and South forks), just drive to Ronkonkoma and park there for free.

These riders fly past their local stations because the levels of service in many cases is just laughable. The lack of service on the East End is much worse considering there are very few alternatives (if you want decent service). A prime example of this is the West Hempstead Branch, which gets much, much better service then the East End, but doesn’t get service proportional to Western Nassau County population, or better, to its peers over on the Far Rockaway, Hempstead, and Main Line branches.

Not only do the desperate riders on the Ronkonkoma-Greenport section of the Mainline flock to Ronkonkoma, so do many riders along the North and South forks. Many riders that live closer to the Montauk and Port Jefferson branches often find themselves driving, and parking at Ronkonkoma. I feel like there’s lot to be done to peak service on the Montauk and Port Jefferson branches which have room for more, and many riders would rather just drive to Ronkonkoma to get the direct and frequent service out of there. Many times, when my mother needs to go into the city for an appointment or what not, she’ll drive to Ronkonkoma even though our local Montauk Branch station is just up the block! My dad normally takes the Montauk Branch though.

The truth is only 34% of Ronkonkoma ridership actually comes from the nearby area. Roughly two thirds of riders who use this station are driving from a community elsewhere in Long Island that is locally served via a different station. It’s possible to determine from the LIRR’s 2012-2014 Origin and Destination Survey where the MTA asked riders to obviously provide their origin and destination, all bc with their home ZIP codes so they could chart a more overall picture of riders’ overall choice. I’ll give the breakdown:

• About only 34% riders come from the local area, while the most 18% of the riders drive south from communities along the Port Jefferson Branch.
• 17% of the riders backtrack east from Brentwood and Central Islip (specially from Islandia which is more understandable given the location being closer to Ronkonkoma.)
• 15% of riders drive north from communities along the Montauk Branch in the towns of Brookhaven and Islip. 
• 12% of riders drive from areas along the Main Line in eastern portions of the Town of Brookhaven (instead of using Medford or Yaphank stations which is highly understandable given the poor service there)
• 3% of riders drive west from the North Fork (areas in Town of Riverhead and Southold)
• 2% of riders drive up the island from the South Fork (areas in the Towns of Southampton and East Hampton)

If this doesn’t get the point across about just how many people use this station, then I don’t know what does. Many of these people are diesel branch refugees, and the rest are riders backtracking from Central Islip and Brentwood which surprised me, however, considering some of the best trains skipped these stations, you can kind of understand it more. While I expect this has changed quite a bit since commuting patterns changed because of COVID-19 and ESA, and many of these people who used to take popular trains to New York such as: 

• The old train 2013 (the 6:24am from Ronkonkoma), which ran nonstop to Hicksville
• The old train 2015 (the 6:39am from Ronkonkoma), which ran just before the old train 2017 from CI that skipped Jamaica and this train possibly carried local passengers and passengers to alternate terminals. 
• The old train 2021 (the 7:04am from Ronkonkoma) which ran nonstop to Deer Park.
• The old train 2019 (the 7:19am from Ronkonkoma), which only maked Ronkonkoma, Central Islip, and Brentwood before running nonstop to New York. This is one of the busiest trains for these stations, therefore those who live close to the border would likely chose eastbound. 
• The old train 2061 (the 4:46pm reverse-peak from Ronkonkoma), which used to skip Brentwood before the double track. 

Nowadays, those trains are gone with East Side Access (for the better in some cases). Nowadays, I expect that number has gone down as service patterns on the branch have gotten much more simple, however I assume that the smaller percentage of back trackers would do it for these trains:

• Train 2017 (the 6:29am flyer from Ronkonkoma) This train can get relatively crowded and I wouldn’t be surprised if some Brentwood riders would backtrack to guarantee a seat. 
• Train 1917 (the 6:36am from Ronkonkoma) Another well-traveled train.
• Train 2019 (the 7:10am from Ronkonkoma) This train is probably the busiest train on the entire branch, and I assume that there would be many standees for anyone who didn’t board at Ronkonkoma. 
• Train 1921 (the 7:28am from Ronkonkoma) Another well-traveled train. 

Coupled with the diesel riders, all of this puts extraordinary stress on poor Ronkonkoma. While capacity improvements have improved greatly since the Third Track project opened, there’s still capacity constraints, and Ronkonkoma just cannot keep up with the loads. It’s crazy to note that some trains out of Ronkonkoma in the morning already have standees before even making their first station stop.

As you’ve seen with my timetable project, I’ve been trying to balance the loads around, and with the recent unveil of my Montauk Branch timetable, many of you hopefully saw the improvements that were made to diesel peak service, in hopes of improving peak commutes on the Montauk Branch.

I believe the worst of the problems lies in off-peak and event service. Trains after big events on the Ronkonkoma branch consistently have all 8, 10, or even 12 cars filled to the gills with the standees, and even some weekend off-peak trains during the busier travel periods can get rough. 

The Ronkonkoma Branch timetable will release this Monday at 6:00am, so stay tuned!

Mid Suffolk Electric Yard

One of the main problems with the Mainline is its capacity, even after East Side Access + The Third Track. If you follow this website, you probably know that there’s a huge train layup yard in West Islip that’s used for storing many of the electric trains used on the Babylon Branch, but, did you know that there’s an almost equally prevalent yard all the way up in the middle of the island too? Well, many of you will guess it’s called Ronkonkoma yard, but it’s actually called Mid-Suffolk Electric Yard and I’m here to tell you about it.

The Ronkonkoma/Mid-Suffolk Electric Yard (however you prefer to call it) now has 18 tracks, meaning it can store a decent amount of train sets. And, while it’s definitely not been full when I’ve been there, it definitely has more trains there then at Babylon Yard, but again, I’ve been to both of them the most during middays when you don’t expect eastern yards to have the most stuff. In addition to the yard, there’s also the “Ronkonkoma Pocket Track” as I’ve named it. It used to be known to store the old and missed train #2017 from Central Islip to Penn Station, however, with the East Side Access train annulments came this trains funeral/final run. I’m not to sure what is stored in that track, as my only guess, #2103 (the 7:19am local out of Farmingdale for NY) appears to come from KO (radar). I’d definitely like to see the LIRR use that siding to possibly fit another peak round-trip out of Central Islip or Brentwood, and I could definitely find some ideal slots.

I believe Ronkonkoma definitely has enough storage space. However, the main problem is Huntington. There’s essentially almost no storage space for trains at Huntington. There’s the North and South Side tracks, but the combined capacity of those tracks is only equivalent to the storage space seen at Far Rockaway, which only sees a third of this branch’s ridership. 

Back when it was first introduced, the term “Mid-Suffolk” made little sense to many. The term “Mid-Suffolk” wasn’t specific and it could be used to describe a yard in Yaphank, Medford, or Ronkonkoma, however, as we found out it turned out out to be Ronkonkoma.

When finalized, Mid-Suffolk Electric Yard consisted of 11 new storage tracks, along with work on an “Employee welfare building”, new substations, yard lighting, comm and security systems, new drainage systems, new service roads, and new walkways.

I personally believe Mid-Suffolk Electric Yard was an ideal and great solution to a large problem. Ronkonkoma had long had capacity issues, not being able to run enough trains out of there to meet demand during rush hours, and this allowed them to run more trains without having to deadhead equipment out there. Not only does Ronkonkoma Yard serve the namesake branch, but it’s also been used to store trains beginning in Hicksville and Westbury, providing better service on more western parts of the Main Line.

The LIRR’s Spring Trackwork Program

It’s a Friday afternoon, your waiting on the platform at Hunterspoint Avenue for an eastbound train towards the Hamptons (cuz, let’s face it who doesn’t take a train to the Hamptons in April) and you hear on the PA an announcement stating that tie replacement on [affected branch] will [cause this to happen]. 

Yep, that’s right we’re now approaching the busiest portion of the LIRR’s Spring Trackwork program, massive program

Here’s a general overview of what will be going on on the railroad this spring, please note that some of these have already finished, I decided to include everything that’s going on: 

• Valley Stream - Switch Rehabilitation & West Hempstead Crossing Rehabilitation 

On the weekends of March 29-30, April 5th and 6th, and April 12th and 13th, one of the two main tracks on the Montauk Branch (Babylon Branch) will be closed between Jamaica and Rockville Centre to support a series of switch rehabilitations in or near Valley Stream, along with a grade crossing rehabilitation on the West Hempstead Branch, which will take the West Hempstead Branch fully OOS on those weekends. 

Due to this, Babylon Branch service will be reduced in both directions between Penn and Babylon during the majority of these 48-hour periods. Also except Montauk Branch schedules to be changed with some trains being extended to/from Jamaica. Limited semi-express service will continue to operate between Penn Station and Babylon for the majority of these 48-hour periods. Additionally, bus service will replace train service on the West Hempstead Branch for this 48-hour period. LIRR customers should expect adjusted schedules on trains on these affected branches while switch work is being performed. Additional service will be provided to/from Montauk on Sunday, March 30th for the Montauk St.Patrick’s Day Parade. 

• Montauk Branch - Crossing Replacement and Maintenance Activities 

On Saturday, April 19th, all tracks between Babylon and Montauk will be out of service for a period of 30 hours while the Snake Hollow Road crossing in Bridgehampton is replaced Tut hull Creek Bridge timber rehabilitation occurs between Sayville and Patchogue, and other track/structural maintenance is performed between Babylon and Montauk. 

With all main tracks out of service between Babylon and Montauk, the Montauk Branch will bustitute train service during a period of 30 hours.

• ADA Station Rehabilitation - Hollis

The ADA project at Hollis is excepted to resume construction on March 24th.

While construction is performed to support the ADA Rehabilitation Project at Hollis, select trains will bypass stops at Elmont-UBS Arena, Hollis, and Queens Village during the midday/weekday period. 

• ADA Station Rehabilitation Project - Forest Hills

The ADA Station Rehabilitation Project at Forest Hills is slated to resume construction in April.

While construction is performed to support the ADA Rehabilitation Project at Forest Hills, select trains will bypass stops at Kew Gardens, Forest Hills; and Woodside during the weekend period. 

With all the construction projects going on, and add that to all the extra trains the LIRR has been running for the St.Patrick’s Day Parades in New York and Montauk, it will be difficult for the railroad to hold up, but I’m sure they’ll manage it as they always do.

Interlocking Walkthrough: DIVIDE

Welcome to the interlocking walkthrough I've been dreading for days now. I can assure you this one is gonna be a wild ride. DIVIDE, not that it's a weird interlocking, just has a lot to it's name and is difficult to understand/explain due to it's complexity. I'll do my best though.

DIVIDE Interlocking, known as DIV for short, is one of my personal favorites, is one of the larger interlockings in this project, spanning 3 miles from west to east. Due of the size of this interlocking, I cannot take one photo of it, therefore, you can follow along using Google earth. Here’s a bird eye view of the location.

DIVIDE Interlocking gets it name due to it's apparent form. As the name suggests, the interlocking "divides" into two after Hicksville, with the Port Jefferson Branch splitting up towards Huntington and Port Jefferson, while the Main Line goes down towards Ronkonkoma, Greenport, and Montauk via the Central. 

DIVIDE has always existed at this location since the Port Jefferson Branch was built all those years ago. When they elevated Hicksville, this interlocking got a new look, and an elevated viaduct above it's former location. 

Switches

DIVIDE Interlocking begins almost halfway between Westbury and Hicksville. If your approaching the interlocking from the west, it begins just east of the Wantagh Parkway Overpass. 

Now, the first switch we encounter heading from the west to the east (eastbound) is a crossover from Mainline 2 (the eastbound track) to Mainline 1 (the middle "third" track). That switch is rarely used by passenger service, however, it's not uncommon for freight to use it to access the next switch.

Following after that, there's another crossover, this time from Mainline 1 (the middle track) to Mainline 3 (the eastbound track).  

Next, the North Track branches off the Main Line. The North Track is rarely used, especially after East Side Access, however, it's used every once in a while to store a train during peak hours that begins or ends its run in Hicksville. But it's mainly used to store an MP15AC or two camping out there to get out of the way of other incoming Main Line traffic. The North Track is electrified by third rail, therefore an M7 can camp there if need be.

From the North Track splits of the Runaround track. The Runaround track is used to "runaround" engines in the rare case that it's "necessary". "Runaround" is a railway term used to describe run an engine around a train, so, back in the days before cab cars, once a train reached it's final destination and wanted to change direction, they literally had to physically uncouple it from the rest of the train, pull it forward, reverse it onto another track, then "run around" the train it's coupled to, then go past another switch, then pull it forward onto the track with the train on it and recouple it. But then somebody invented one of the best inventions in modern railroading, cab cars, and the need to turn around (runaround) engines at every end point went away (imagine if those things were stuck on the 42nd Street Shuttle). During regular LIRR operations these days, it's quite rare to see the need for a runaround, however, in a location so busy with so much work action, I personally think it's nice to have just in case. The runaround track does not have third rail.

Roughly halfway down this runaround track, the lead track for the Hicksville Team Yard splits off. The Hicksville Team Yard is home to two customers from what I understand: Eastern Wholesale Fence which receives covered hoppers with polyvinl, and Consolidated Edison (known as Con-Ed), which receives Di-Electric Fluid (no idea what that is) in tankers. Further down the runaround track there's a small stub track that splits off. It currently serves no purpose and pretty much just sits there.

It's important to note that we've now entered milepost 24 (meaning there's 24 miles to Long Island City)

At around this point, the speed limit drops from 80 mph (the maxium allowed speed on the railroad... period) to 40 mph. 

After that, the North track continues for a short distance before merging back into Mainline 3, then goes for roughly a couple hundred feet, before merging off again and then going east for another couple hundred feet before ending again with a bumper block. Meanwhile, shortly before that siding ends for the second time, there's a crossover from Mainline 2 to Mainline 3, and while that's going on, there's another crossover between Mainline 1 and Mainline 3. This is followed by both Mainline 1 and Mainline 3 merging into one track along with Mainline 2 crossing over.

Right after the speed change, there's a crossover from Mainline 2 to Mainline 1, then there's another crossover from Mainline 1 to Mainline 3, then Mainline 3 goes to the left of platform A. Then, there's another crossover from Mainline 1 to Mainline 2, and those tracks become Station tracks 2 and 3. (confusing, I know).

The tracks through the station are considered Mainline 3 at top, Mainline 1 middle, and Mainline 2 being the southernmost.

Here's a quick fun fact while we talk about Hicksville: Did you know that platform B is tied for being the second-longest platform in the entire system? Platforms E, F and G in Penn Station take the cake for being the longest at 17 cars, then both Hicksville and Bellmore tie at second with 14 car platforms. However, the LIRR doesn't run any trains longer then 12 cars (from what I know the M3s and M7s can't, and while the M9s have, they would never be in revenue service, and if we were to see a 14-car diesel set (quite useful on #6005, wouldn't it be?, it would probably require 3 engines!)

Once we get east of the station, that's where things get real complicated. Beginning with Mainline 2, immediately east east of the station, there's a switch, so you can either stay straight on Mainline 2 and head towards Ronkonkoma, or you can diverge to the left where your lined up with Port Jefferson 2 towards Huntington.

Mainline 1 is directly aligned with Port Jefferson 1, therefore a Port Jeff westbound has a straight shot through the station. Mainline 3, however, merges into Mainline 1, and just as that is happening, there's a diamond/double slip switch allowing for a train from Mainline 3 to either go straight over the diamond and head east on Mainline 2, or make a left and go east on Port Jefferson 1 instead. Most westbounds from the Ronkonkoma Branch use this switch to stay on Mainline 1 through the entire interlocking then platform on Mainline 1 (the middle track), this would also explain why many of the trains from Hicksville platform on this track because they come from the Ronkonkoma Branch. [exhale then deep breath] Complicated, huh, well it’s just getting started.

Mainline 1 then goes east a bit more before there’s another diamond/slip switch that allows for a train on Mainline 1 to either straight onto Mainline 1 or to go left onto Port Jefferson 2. Followed by that, at this switch, the switch that first broke off my Mainline 2 before towards Port Jefferson 2 meets here, and allows trains  from Mainline 2 to get to Mainline 1 if a train wanted to go from the eastbound to the westbound tracks @Hicksville. 

At this point is where both branches part ways as the Port Jefferson heads up towards Syosset, Cold Spring, Huntington and Port Jefferson, meanwhile the Main Line heads down towards Bethpage, Farmingdale, Brentwood, Central Islip, Ronkonkoma, Riverhead and Greenport. 

On the Port Jefferson side, towards the very end of the interlocking Port Jefferson 1 goes to Port Jefferson 2. The speed limit then upgrades back up to 80 after that final signal bridge is passed. 

Meanwhile, on the Main Line, there’s a crossover from Mainline 1 to Mainline 2. If your like me and your wondering why there’s not crossovers between Mainline and Port Jeff 2 back to Mainline and Port Jeff 1 on these lines, that’s because that dirty work should’ve been taken care of in the peak of the interlocking.

At this point, the interlocking finally ends! Finally!

Signals

DIVIDE Interlocking consists of those old Pensy-style position light signals as you've might have guessed. As you've seen, the interlocking is huge and there's all sorts of signals (gantries, pedestals, you name it), and explaining it would make me crash out.

Towers

DIVIDE Interlocking is home to DIVIDE tower, which controls all the smaller interlockings east of here on the Port Jefferson Branch and Main Line (this consists of KO, AMOTT, HUNT, DUKE, FOX, POST, STONY, JEFF, BETH, FARM, JS, PILGRIM, PINEAIRE, and CI if your keeping score.)

Neighbors

DIVIDE interlocking is bordered to the west by obviously NASSAU, and as for the east, since DIVIDE is a junction, it's bordered by AMOTT on the Port Jefferson Branch and BETH on the Main Line. 

Hew! Well, that was long! Way longer then I expected, anyways, this wraps up DIVIDE. Next up is PILGRIM interlocking in Brentwood (That's nice and easy!)

Interlocking Walkthrough: PORT

This week’s Interlocking Walkthrough will take a look at PORT interlocking. When you first think about it, you’d probably think it’s in Port Washington, however, it’s actually in Freeport. 

Sorry the images are so blurry 

PORT interlocking is the interlocking for Freeport, which as you may know has a small yard that can store two electric trains during rush hours. This interlocking first went into service as “FY” tower in 1926, before being renamed to PORT in April 1937. 

Switches

PORT Interlocking consists of an initial crossover from Montauk 2 (the eastbound track) to Montauk 1 (the westbound track), followed by the two-track Freeport Layup Yard splitting off track 1. These tracks continue on for maybe 

The two layup tracks consist of enough track space to hold two twelve car trainsets. These layup tracks are used during rush hours to allow trains that begin/end at Freeport to get onto the pocket track and get out of the way of busy Babylon Branch rush hour traffic. After Freeport Yard tracks split off there’s another crossover from  Montauk 1 back to Montauk 2. 

At the eastern tip of Freeport Layup Yard, the northernmost of the two tracks merges into the other one, and here, unlike at many yards/layups, there’s a crossover from the southern layup track back to Montauk 1 then the track continues for a short while before ending. I assume this little pocket was designed to store a small protect engine m, yet these days it’s quite rare to see one hanging out here, but there’s space for it if and when it becomes necessary. Another oddity at PORT is that at the eastern end, there’s isn’t one last crossover once the layup track merges in, therefore, trains cannot easily get from the layup over to the eastbound Montauk track, and while they probably won’t need to, it is an inconvenience. Therefore, if a train does want to get east from Freeport Layup Yard, they would either have to back into the station before being able to continue east, or wrong-rail all the way to WANTAGH.

Since we’re reached the eastern end of PORT, so does the walkthrough.

LIRR given green-light on relocation of Yaphank station

"We're saying goodbye to the old Yaphank station, where trains have been running, believe it or not, since 1844", said MTA Chairman Janno Lieber. The MTA has finally got going on a project to relocate the existing least used LIRR station, Yaphank, which "sits in the middle of nowhere" just east of Yaphank Avenue to a new location much closer to Brookhaven National Lab 3 miles from the current location.

The new station, which would be located near William Floyd Parkway will feature a 2-car platform, the norm out here on the Greenport line, 50 parking spaces, CCTV cameras, AVPS displays/speakers, and help points. and would be a nice, brand-new, ADA accessible station. Coupled with the Mastic-Shirley renovations, it will really improve public transit in this area. 

This new station while not only being very close to Shirley's Amazon Warehouse, will only take a 7-minute shuttle ride to Brookhaven National lab, making it a possible attractive option for reverse-peak and intra-island riders looking to work in BNL.

MTA President of Construction and Development Jamie Torres-Springer said "It's going to be a great station for passengers"  and while MTA officials broke the news that it won't be part of an electrified track, it's a good step in the right direction, and LIRR president Rob Free said "it's part of a larger picture as we look down the road to expand and electrify a double track out here."

While the date for opening hasn't been confirmed, it's set for sometime in Mid-2026, giving construction workers a year to build and polish this new station.

After years of delays due to low funding, arguments about the proposed location, and due to it being low on the MTA's priority list, funding was finally provided in the MTA's Capital Program, and this project will finally come to reality

The name...

One thing that I cannot confirm is the name of this new station. Multiple names have been floated around including just Yaphank, East Yaphank, Upton/BNL, or North Shirley, and the current favorite seams to be Camp Upton/BNL, paying tribute to Camp Upton. Janno Lieber said the current station will remain on it's current schedule until the station opens.

The thing about Yaphank...

I'm personally looking forward to this new station, which I may try to go see during it's construction if I can get out there. However, the new station is only part of a larger picture. Ridership has been so light out at this station mainly due to the very low service, not as much due to it's location. Many of the residents didn't even know about the station, not just because it's hidden, but because service was so bad that many simply forgot about it. Ridership on a given day is so low that it barely hits double-digits.

The building of this new station opens up an opportunity out here. We've seen multiple improvements recently out on the East End (or close to it), and I believe we should continue. Service east of Ronkonkoma is the worst seen in the entire system, with TERRIBLE spacing between trains, with an average of 7 hours between trains! If they plan to build a station and provide the service currently provided, they may as well just forget about it. They must improve service at a least a bit for this to make sense, especially during the peak and reverse-peak periods. I will talk about this more in the South and North fork posts of my Reworked Timetable Project, but I believe they should aim for gaps no larger then 3 hours during off-peak periods with shuttles to Ronkonkoma, and they should aim for hourly service during peak and reverse-peak periods to/from Ronkonkoma along with a select few thru-trains. It may be difficult, considering it's not double tracked nor does it have a signal-system, but I think with careful planning it's probably achievable. Some believe they should electrify to Yaphank in the near future, I believe that isn't a good option. First, if they were even to electrify, it should be to Riverhead because even though thats another good 20 miles or so of track to electrify, it will allow for expansion in that area, plus, I believe it's much more practicial to electrify the Port Jefferson Branch first, then work from there. 

They've also outlined they plan to abandon and demolish the current station once the new one is in service, which I also personally believe they should leave the current Yaphank station where it is. 2.5 miles turns out to be the average length between stations on the railroad entirely, and while many say station location isn't the greatest, it's still near some residential development and would be of zero cost for them to just "let it sit there". I don't ever think it's really a good idea to just "abandon" a station, especially here considering the near location of Suffolk County offices.

What's next...

Now that we are making improvements on this badly-needed stretch of track, we should look towards the future of rail on the East End. I believe the LIRR should look into building new stations on the East End, particularly on the North Fork, providing more rail opportunities. There are are some huge gaps between stations on the North Fork, and by building new stations, we can close these gaps and bring back old stations that were closed years ago providing growth in surrounding communities. I will talk about this in future posts about rail in the North and South Forks.

Similar to Mastic-Shirley station, here are some renderings of what the station could look like. I expect it to look somewhat similar to Mastic-Shirley station looks like now. 

Sec. Sean Duffy goes on a "field-trip" to Manhattan

I thought I'd make a quick post on a news thing that occurred with the MTA and New York City Transit that I saw yesterday evening. Been a while since I've covered New York City Transit, but I think this important. Yesterday, Sean Duffy, head of DOT, took a two-stop ride on the B train (possibly not the greatest choice), with the goal of addressing the New York City Subway's state of security and safety at this time. His findings were rather, aggressive, and he claimed "We're not where this needs to be" after being brought on a brief tour by Mayor Adams. 

He said he passed people who seamed to be unwell during his tour, and he called it "not humane" to have people with mental illness living in the subway. At the press event later, he said he may try to send DOGE folks down to the MTA to see how there spending their money and try to make any improvements to how taxpayer money is being spent. 

Amazingly, when asked if he considered the subway a "shithole" he said "Some would say". Quite a defeat to all those who work in and for it. An annoyed Gov. Kathy Hochul said this "Sec. Duffy  has literally no idea what he's talking about. As Mayor Adams and most New Yorkers know, Gov Kathy Hochul has stepped up to add NYPD officers and security guards resources on public transit. Now, subway crime has declined by double digits and ridership continues to grow". "We hope secretary enjoyed his field trip to Manhattan." 

Apparently, he's now threatening to defund the MTA over their crime issues alone. Personally, I believe the MTA has been trying to improve crime rates, and that it's a very difficult task considering the size of the system and the amount of crime and homelessness that was allowed to build up over time. I'd like to see him provide more constructive feed back, instead of just slamming them. This must be a huge slap in the face for the the entire MTA leadership including Janno Lieber himself.

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How to get to Citi Field from….

Okay, now that tomorrow is the first day of the Mets Home Opener, let’s celebrate by taking a look at “How to get to Citi Field from _______” different places via the train.

There’s two Mets-Willets Point stations, my personal favorite, the subway station, and there’s a railroad station on the Port Washington Branch.

from Penn Station…

Board a Port Washington Branch train (it’s colored red on the destination sign) going to Great Neck or Port Washington. If it’s during rush hours, make sure to check the TrainTime app or timetable to guarantee your train stops there. Mets is the second stop.

from Port Washington Branch stations…

Board a westbound Port Washington branch train (they typically run every 30-60 minutes). If it’s during rush hours, make sure to consult to the TrainTime app or timetable to guarantee the train stops there.

from Jamaica 

Board a westbound train stopping at Woodside (they typically depart from tracks 1,2, and 3, and check the destination signs to make sure your train is stopping there, many trains don’t stop there. At Woodside, wait on the middle platform for an eastbound train to either Great Neck or Port Washington. During weekday evening games, check the schedule to guarantee your train is stopping there.

from all other stations EAST of Jamaica…

Board a train at your home station and take it to Jamaica, may require a transfer at somewhere else (take Babylon for example) if you live in diesel territory. If your train happens to stop at Woodside, you can stay not, otherwise, transfer at Jamaica to a train stopping there. Once you reach Woodside, wait on the middle platform an eastbound train to Great Neck or Port Washington. During weekday evening games, check the schedule to guarantee your train is stopping there.

from Kew Gardens or Forest Hills…

Board any westbound train to Penn Station  (unless your traveling there at 3:42am or 8:40am, in which you can get off at Woodside and skip to step 2), and ride it all the way to Penn Station, then, at Penn Station, board a Port Washington Branch train (it’s colored red on the destination sign) going to Great Neck or Port Washington.

from Hunterspoint Avenue to Long Island City…

Board any eastbound train, once you reach Jamaica, use the overpass to crossover to tracks 1, 2, 3, where you should board a westbound train stopping at Woodside, check the destination signs to make sure your train is stopping there, many trains don’t stop there. Once you reach Woodside, wait on the middle platform an eastbound train to Great Neck or Port Washington. During weekday evening games, check the schedule to guarantee your train is stopping there. However, if your traveling from either station, I’d highly recommend just taking the no.7 train, which stops in both neighborhoods and is a much easier and cheaper alternative. 

from Atlantic Terminal, Nostrand Avenue, or East New York…

Board any eastbound train that stops at Jamaica (not that any don’t!), then, at Jamaica, use the overpasses to crossover to tracks 1, 2, or 3, where you should board a westbound train stopping at Woodside, check the destination signs to make sure your train is stopping there, many trains don’t stop there. Once you reach Woodside, wait on the middle platform an eastbound train to Great Neck or Port Washington. During weekday evening games, check the schedule to guarantee your train is stopping there.