What The Long Beach Branch Timetable Could Look Like

Our last post focused on the Ronkonkoma Branch and now we're going to move on and take a look at a revamped Long Beach Branch Timetable. The Long Beach Branch is a rather short branch, with only a limited couple of stops, however, it sees a fair amount of riders, especially from it's eastern terminal in the city of Long Beach.

Included in the linked PDF file below is the Full Sample Weekday and Weekend Long Beach Branch timetable. Peak, off-peak, reverse-peak, 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.

Like was said on the Introduction Page, before we can begin talking about the actual schedule “Key Assumptions” and “Service Guidelines” needs to be taken care of and mentioned before this project can become totally feasible since I’ve built the timetables off of it. I’ve tried my best to make these schedules able to be done with these projects completed or not, but in some cases that isn’t possible.

Key Assumptions

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

Service Guidelines: 

• During peak hours, for the majority of the peak, service operates on a "clockface" schedule and headways allow for trains up the branch every 20 minutes or so. I was successful at giving every train at least one train to all 3 city-terminals per hour at a minimum. Back are the highly missed "flyers" with one to Penn Station and Grand Central.
• Lynbrook will now be served exclusively by Long Beach Branch trains, Babylon Branch trains will no longer stop there except for a couple of exceptions.
• During
• During the morning reverse-peak period, additional trains are ran in the reverse-peak direction from Atlantic Terminal to provide service roughly every half-hour during reverse-peak time. Many of these trains turn off of other Far Rockaway and Long Beach Branch trains, allowing for appropriately sized consists.
• On weekends, service is increased during the busiest times (specifically 8:30am to 11:30am WB 
• On summer weekends, and winter Saturdays, a non-stop express trip will operate to/from Long Beach with additional express trains to/from Penn Station and Grand Central.

Link to Long Beach Branch Timetable

When setting up peak hour service on this branch, I tried my best to provide hourly service (at a minimum) to all 3 city terminals. During a majority of the peak, trains also run on a “clockface” schedule. The evenly (or even semi-evenly spaced service) allows for additional off-peak service to be snuck across LEAD drawbridge in times of need, therefore, giving half-hourly (or better) off-peak service at times. 

While the fancy 15-20 minute headways may seam like a lot at first, it’s important to remember that many of these trains will take on additional stops west of Lynbrook (especially on Jamaica - New York section, therefore, giving other trains faster running times.) 

Service during off-peak hours consists of hourly departures into and out of Long Beach, and that matches current service levels. Increasing service to half-hourly can be done if need arises (I’d have trains alternate between Penn Station and Grand Central because I don’t think it personally make sense to provide half-hourly service to Penn Station on this branch.) But, until demand is met, the Long Beach branch will continue to call Penn Station it’s home. 

During times of the weekend when travel is typically higher, service has been included to include some additional trains into and out of New York. In my experience, such trains should be able to sustain themselves year-long, however, if ridership patterns disagree, than they can be cut to run from Memorial Day through New Years. 

Currently, the LIRR runs an extra round-trip departing Penn Station around 9:35am and running non-stop to Jamaica and Long Beach, with the westbound departing around 4:35pm. In my schedule, I have these trains continue to run close to their current schedule, however, they will skip Jamaica and will run on Winter Saturdays, too. 

In conclusion, I know some of the Long Beach Branch service may seam ambitious, I think with all the added stops west of Lynbrook, I think the service should be able to support itself.