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.

The Belmont Problem

For years, there's been talk of providing full-time service to the tiny spur station known as Belmont Park. Even before the new UBS Arena, and the Belmont Park Redevelopment project, it's still been on people's wishlists as a park-and-ride facility.

Local officials from several levels of government— including the Town of Hempstead, and county/state legislatures have called on the MTA LIRR to establish full-time service to the spur station in the past. They have said it would provide more rail options for those who live in Elmont, Franklin Sq, and the unincorporated areas of North Valley Stream. These communities do not have their own rail stations, and parking at other nearby stations in western Nassau is limited and restricted to local residents, so if you live in these areas your largely shut-out from rail service, besides the one Elmont-UBS Arena Station which only gets 8 peak trains, and many of those go to Brooklyn.

By unlocking the large, underused parking lots at Belmont Park and allowing riders from both Western Nassau as well as Eastern Queens (where there are limited transit options as well) to park and ride on the LIRR, the MTA could expand access to a much larger potential ridership base in Eastern Queens and Western Nassau County, which both have very limited transit access, along with additional opportunities for those who drive to Manhattan.

For the retail and entertainment complex, Elmont-UBS Arena station is virtually useless. With most of the activity centered on the large south parking lot south of Hempstead Turnpike, the current Elmont station is nearly a mile-long hike from the retail complex. 

To add, both the retail shops and the UBS Arena are both reasonably closer to Belmont Park then to Elmont-UBS Arena, and while the LIRR does run shuttles during events, I think everyone can agree that it's much more sensible for people to be able to walk then to have to bare the burden of providing shuttle buses every event.

Therefore, I've concurred that it's much easier for people to get train service to Belmont Park then to Elmont-UBS Arena. I definitely think some rough form of full-time train service to Belmont Park spur station would be greatly appreciated in both the short and long-terms.

If the railroad does run a reasonably frequent service between Belmont Park and the western terminals, it could offload stops at Queens Village, Hollis, and Hillside (if needed), and all 3 of the Mainline stops (Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, and Woodside) onto trains to/from the spur station, that way the railroad could keep trains bound for other more important places moving, and it might allow the busy Ronkonkoma trains to drop Kew Gardens and Forest Hills which drastically slows down running times. 

Because of Belmont's close location to city terminals, improving service to the spur station might not need to many crew and equipment resources, trains that go out east can bounce back to Belmont Park for a second or third trip when they might not be able to make it all the way back to Babylon, Ronkonkoma, or Far Rockaway with enough time before the end of the rush hour.

A dormant spur

These calls for full-time service at the station have been ignored by the LIRR, which has never thought much of the spur. The "Manhattan & Ronkonkoma Railroad" seams perfectly content with letting Belmont Park wither and die by providing the bare minimum of service to the spur station for events, and by spending $106 million on a brand new mainline station that while is very nice, is literally in line of sight of 4 other stations, and isn't as close as Belmont Park is to these events. I would not be surprised if the LIRR seeks to abandon the spur in the near future.

The railroad has generally just ignored these requests, but it has offered a handful of excuses, too. These have ranged from limited western terminal capacity (which isn't an issue now that we have Grand Central Madison/ESA), as well as risks of congestion @ QUEENS interlocking as trains slowly crawl onto and off the spur. The new station, Elmont- UBS Arena, on the mainline, is located nearly 3-quarters of a mile from the arena, and even further from the retail complex, and it will slow down the commutes of everyone who passes through the area.

While you can argue that by providing additional service to the spur station, you'd be effectively forfeiting a slot that could be used to serve more riders coming from stations' further east, I believe the idea is still plausible. While full-time service to Belmont Park would mean a slight sacrifice to frequency further east along the Main Line, I strongly believe that by offloading local stops onto Belmont Park trains would not only make these trains much more useful, but it would also allow for suburban trips (i.e Ronkonkoma, Hempstead, and Huntington trips) to be faster, since these trips would be able to dump stops at Queens Village, Hollis, maybe even Hillside, and far few trains on all the branches to/from Eastern LI would need to bother stopping at the local stops along the Main Line between Jamaica and New York.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that providing some sort of full-time service to Belmont Park would not only be beneficial for nearby residents, but also for the entire railroad. Not only would it provide better service for residents of Eastern Queens and Western Nassau, but it will also allow for faster suburban trips if used properly, and it will allow for quicker access to events at the nearby arena.