Let’s take a brief aside from all our posts about the operations of the LIRR to take a look at its neighbor- New Jersey Transit and specifically the Lexington Avenue Line. Crowding on the Lexington Avenue Line has been known for years to be an issue, to the point where people can’t fit into the train cars therefore having to wait for 1, 2, 3, or even 4 trains to pass before even being able to fit inside the subway car. When the Second Avenue Subway opened it definitely helped to relieve some crowding, but since the Lexington Avenue Line is the only main trunk line to serve the East Side of Manhattan, and since the Second Avenue Subway relieves Manhattan customers, not the Bronx and Brooklyn commuters that rely on it to get to the East Side much of the crowding is still existent. Crowding is also a classic issue at 59th St- as it’s a transfer point for many Queens commuters between N/Q/R/W and the Lex Avenue Lines. Now, mainly at stations like 59 Street and Grand Central where during rush hours service comes so frequently only minutes apart at worse, you’d think the loads would be spread evenly but due to the scale of the operations on this line that turns out to not be the truth and it results in situations like this:
