LIRR & MNR Thanksgiving Service 2025

During the busiest travel period of the year, Thanksgiving weekend, both the LIRR and Metro-North both are stuffed up with extra trains operating for various proposes, from serving as early getaway trains on Thanksgiving Eve to transporting people to the Macy’s Thanksgiving day Parade.

This year, which is expected to be a busy one, both the LIRR and MNR will be providing a host of extra trains throughout the weekend. 

Thanksgiving Eve - November 26 

On Thanksgiving Eve, the LIRR will operate on a normal weekday schedule. Train 14 (the 4:07pm from Penn Station to Montauk) will operate.

Metro-North will combine or outright annull a couple of trains (particularly express trains) during the both the morning and evening rush hours. 

They will also provide a couple of additional mid-morning departures into Grand Central on the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven lines to accommodate those traveling into the city for leisure purposes.

Thanksgiving Day - November 27 

On the Babylon Branch, the LIRR will provide 3 additional westbound trains to the parade: 

• A 6:33am local from Babylon to Penn Station, making all stops through Rockville Centre, Jamaica, and Penn Station. 
• A 6:54am local from Babylon to Grand Central, making all stops through Lynbrook, Jamaica, and Grand Central.
• A 7:25am local from Babylon to Penn Station, making all stops through Rockville Centre, Jamaica, and Penn Station.

On the Ronkonkoma Branch, the LIRR will also provide 3 westbound trains getting people into Manhattan:

• A 6:14am train from Ronkonkoma to Penn Station, making all local stops to Hicksville, Mineola, Jamaica, and Penn Station.
• A 6:56am train from Ronkonkoma to Grand Central, making all local stops to Hicksville, Mineola, Jamaica, and Grand Central.
• A 7:01am local from Farmingdale to Penn Station, making all local stops through New Hyde Park, Jamaica, and Penn Station.

Heading back out to Long Island after the parade, 

Heading eastbound on the Ronkonkoma Branch, the LIRR will provide 4 additional eastbounds.

• A 11:17am train from Penn Station to Farmingdale, stopping at Jamaica, New Hyde Park, and local stops to Farmingdale. 
• A 12:13pm train from Grand Central to Ronkonkoma, stopping at Jamaica, MIneola, Hicksville, and all stops to Ronkonkoma.
• A 12:30pm train from Grand Central to Ronkonkoma, stopping at Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and then all local stops to Ronkonkoma.
• A 12:47pm train from Penn Station to Ronkonkoma, stopping at Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and then all local stops from Ronkonkoma

On the Babylon Branch,

• A 12:24pm local from Grand Central to Babylon, stopping at Jamaica, Lynbrook, Rockville Centre, and all local stops to Babylon
• A 12:51pm local from Grand Central to Babylon, stopping at Jamaica, Rockville Centre, and all local stops to Ronkonkoma
  

Finally, the LIRR will provide one additional train heading eastbound to Huntington 

• An 11:53am local from Grand Central to Huntington, stopping at Jamaica, and all stops from New Hyde Park through Huntington

Metro-North 

On the Hudson Line, Metro-North will provide a couple of additional trains into Manhattan for the parade: 

• A 4:54am train from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central, making all local stops to Croton-Harmon, Ossining, Tarrytown, Harlem-125 St, and Grand Central

• A 5:24am train from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central, making all local stops to Croton-Harmon, Ossining, Tarrytown, Harlem-125 St, and Grand Central

• A 6:24am train from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central, making all local stops to Croton-Harmon, Ossining, Tarrytown, Harlem-125 St, and Grand Central

On the Danbury Branch, Metro-North will provide two direct one-seat rides into Manhattan and back out after the parade: 

• A 6:08am train from Danbury to Grand Central, making all local stops to Stamford, Harlem-125 St, and Grand Central

• A 12:19pm train from Grand Central to Danbury, making Harlem-125 St, Stamford, and all local stops to Danbury

Black Friday - November 28 

On Black Friday (aka the day after Thanksgiving), the LIRR will operate on a normal weekday schedule. Train 14 (the 4:07pm from Penn Station to Montauk) will operate.

Metro-North will operate on a WEEKEND schedule with a couple of trains added in for those souls who must commute into the city during the regular peak hours.

They will also provide a couple of additional mid-morning departures into Grand Central on the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven lines to accommodate those traveling into the city for leisure purposes.

Saturday & Sunday - November 29 and 30

Both the LIRR & Metro-North will operate on a normal weekend schedule. Metro-North will operate the hourly New Haven Line "shoppers specials" that run into New York in the morning and back out to New Haven in the evening and run express from Harlem-125 St to Westport before making limited stops.

If your travelling this Thanksgiving, try taking the train. Thanksgiving is already the busiest travel period of the year and this is expected to be one of the busiest years for travel ever. Traffic will be at it's worst so it's a great time to try the train.

LIRR providing extra service to PGA tournament in Bethpage

The LIRR is actually providing quite a suite of extra trains for the PGA tournament in Bethpage next week. They are providing trains to/from Farmingdale to both Ronkonkoma and New York  before and after the event, and they are also staging a couple unscheduled extras to help bare the rest of the crowds.

The nice thing is with the way the Ronkonkoma Branch runs, they actually currently run a couple of equipment trains in the morning, in both directions, to deadhead equipment out to the yard in Ronkonkoma eastbound and to also deadhead a couple sets west to Hicksville and Westbury to represent local runs on the Main Line. 

The LIRR innovatively converted all of the eastbound equipment runs in the morning into revenue service, providing some very impressive headways into Farmingdale in the morning. The two westbound equipment runs also provide express service from Ronkonkoma (the busiest station on the line by far) to Farmingdale. This is very innovative. And, the best part is, since those two westbound runs originate on the Main Line, they won't affect peak hour passengers as those passengers wont get on until it gets to the Main Line.

Reverse-peak direction

• Train 1996, a 4:34am departure from Penn Station, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 5:30am.
• Train 2006, a 5:13am departure from Grand Central, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 6:06am.
• Train 1998, a 5:48am departure from Penn Station, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 6:46am.
• Train 2008, a 5:54am deaprture from Grand Central, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 6:50am
• Train 4906, a 6:36am departure from Penn Station, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 7:35am
• And here's an interesting one, train 2128 (currently a shuttle that deadheads to Farmingdale for whatever reason), a 6:37am departure from Atlantic Terminal stopping at at Nostrand Avenue, East New York, Jamaica, and Farmingdale. 
• Train 4908, a 7:15am departure from Penn Station, stopping at Wooside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale.

Now, see a common theme here? All of these trains are actually scheduled deadhead equipment runs already, so essentially, the LIRR is running these for zero cost. 

Peak direction

During the peak direction, the LIRR doesn't directly add any service, and I don't blame them for this as the line is already pretty much at capacity at that time of the morning, and, by adding more service they'd be screwing the LIRR's most important market, westbound commuters.

• Train 2501, orginates at Ronkonkoma at 5:40am, runs express to Farmingdale stopping there at 6:09am, then runs to Westbury before resuming it's normal route making all local stops.
• Train 2103, originates in Ronkonkoma at 6:54am, stopping at Farmingdale at 7:19am (it orginates there), before resuming it's route making all local stops.

In the afternoon, the LIRR doesn't provide close to as a impressive lineup, but, in their defense, they also provide more service during the afternoon reverse-peak, and they do have some unscheduled extras that'll run. 

Reverse-peak direction

• Train 4955, a 4:57pm departure out of Farmingdale, making Jamaica, and Penn Station.

Peak direction

• The LIRR will add stops on the express trains, providing a very frequent service to points east on the Main Line. 

Weekend

On the weekend, the LIRR is only providing eastbound service in the morning to the event, (I find it supriisng that they aren't convering the very early westbound equipment moves to service but whatever) but my guess is that they'll run unscheduled extras on those days, too.

• Train 7934, a 4:15am departure out of Penn Station, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, Bethpage, and Farmingdale, arriving at 5:13am.
• Train 7936, a 4:39am departure out of Penn Station, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 5:35am.
• Train 8008, a 5:30am departure out of Grand Central, stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 6:28am.
• Train 8012, a 6:33am departure from Grand Central, stopping at Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 7:32am.
• Train 8014, 8016, 8018, and 8020, 7:31, 8:33, 9:33, and 10:33 departures out of Grand Central, all stopping at Woodside, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, and Farmingdale, arriving at 8:29, 9:30, 10:30, and 11:30am respectively.

Now, we get the bad part, the LIRR strike is happening at what is probably the worst possible time, since, apparently they could go on strike as early as September 18, giving them only 5 days to restore service in time for the Tuesday morning rush hour/PGA tournament. 

In all, I think, for the most part, the LIRR mastered this plan, and as long as the strike doesn't put a giant fork in the plans, then this should work relatively well. I feel like the LIRR converting deadheads to service could be hopeful, since it shows their willing to do that. Possibly in the future they could actually convert these deadhead moves to revenue service, full time, which would be huge to provide even more reverse-peak service opportunities, something that would be a huge step forward.

I look forward to seeing how this service pattern plays out, and it's just great to see the LIRR using their deadhead equipment to their advantage to provide a very robust line of service. This is going to be a huge event, and getting people to and from it as quickly as possible is key, and this should be a huge motivation to not drive. 

If you'd like to view the full timetable including all service to the event, you can do so by visiting MTA.info.

Metro-North operating extra trains for Yankees-Red Sox games

Metro-North will be providing a couple extra trains for the Red Sox game today, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday.

Thursday:

An extra “Yankee Clipper” train departs New Haven at 4:47pm, making all stops to Westport, South Norwalk, Stamford, Greenwich, Rye, Larchmont, and New Rochelle, before, Yankees E-153 St at 6:45pm.

Friday:

An extra “Yankee Clipper” train departs New Haven at 4:47pm, making all stops to Westport, South Norwalk, Stamford, Greenwich, Rye, Larchmont, and New Rochelle, before, Yankees E-153 St at 6:45pm.

Saturday:

An extra “Yankee Clipper” train departs New Haven at 9:23am, making all stops to Westport, South Norwalk, Rowayton, Darien, Noroton Heights, and Stamford, before Yankees E-153 St at 11:23am.

In addition, an extra departs Beacon at 9:37am making all stops to Peekskill and Yankees-E 153. Surprised it didn't stop at Croton-Harmon!

Sunday:

An extra "Yankee Clipper" train departs New Haven at 3:10pm, making all stops to Westport, South Norwalk, Rowayton, Darien, Norton Heights, and Stamford, before Yankees E-153 St at 5:07pm.

In addition, an extra departs Beacon at 4:37pm making all stops to Peekskill and Yankees-E 153. Surprised it didn't stop at Croton-Harmon!

They are also providing additional shuttle service from Grand Central to Yankees E-153 St on all of the days, as they typically do, to provide supplemental options, esspecially from those travelling where extra service isn't available.

Note that this in addition to the typical Yankee Clipper runs!

Additional Trains for St. Patrick's Day

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's Day, a religious "celebration" day. Each year, the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade is held in Manhattan and draws crowds from all over the world. This New York City attraction, like many, draws tons of Long Islanders into the city to see or even participate in the parade.

The parade is an "alcoholic celebration" meaning that many people that go will go to restaurants and bars and become drunk afterward, and as more and more people decide to drink and take public transportation home afterward, trains have become more crowded. The sheer volume of extra travelers not only causes loading delays, but clashed with the last of the peak travelers heading in for a day of work, can cause serious delays throughout the system.

Last year, the parade fell on a Saturday, so, the additional trains the LIRR ran allowed them to get through the day pretty well, but this year it falls on a Monday, meaning that not only do you have the rush hour travelers, but now you've got these passengers to worry about as well.

All of this has caused train crews to absolutely despise St. Patrick's Day, as there's nothing worse then having a train full of drunks coming home on a Monday night, multiplied with all the rush hour commuters and you've got jampacked trains full of intoxicated passengers. Often times belingerent drunks would cause problems over not paying fares, arguing with other passengers, dropping food on the floor of already dirty railcars, and drinking even more on the trains! One year, there were over 22 seperate incidents on the LIRR that required police assistance.

As you can tell, this is an overwhelming and not fun day for crews. It's important to be advised that conductors typically have much less patience for unruly passengers, so be aware if your looking to have a good time.

NYC St. Patrick's Day Added Service:

In order to minimize loading delays, the Long Island Rail Road will be providing four additional westbound trains between 8:41 and 9:53. Two of those trains will come from Ronkonkoma while two others will come from Babylon.

• 8:41am from Ronkonkoma, making local stops through Wyandanch, then Farmingdale, Bethpage, Hicksville, Mineola, Jamaica, and Grand Central.
• 9:06am from Babylon, making local stops through Rockville Centre, Jamaica, and Grand Central.
• 9:40am from Ronkonkoma, making local stops through Wyandanch, then Farmingdale, Bethpage, Hicksville, Mineola, Jamaica, and Grand Central.
• 9:53am from Babylon, making local stops through Rockville Centre, Jamaica, and Grand Central.

Last year, the LIRR ran 15 additional westbound trains and 16 additional eastbound trains. I will admit that last year, it was a weekend, so you've got the peak trains and generally good post-peak service to help get people there, but I expect there will be some issues. However, I really would've liked to see them provide at least a bit more additional service. This year we'll be missing out on the dual-modes, which are the only extra service my branch gets, along with the other extra trains. I would've at least liked to see them add at least one additional westbound/eastbound train to Grand Central on the Long Beach, Port Jefferson, and Port Washington Branches, but I guess not. They also aren't running any additional eastbounds, which while I can kinda understand considering travel back from the parade is usually scattered throughout the evening, I'm a bit suprised that they went all out last year and did nothing this year.

In an effort to signficantly reduce the number of incidents and keep trains as orderly as possible, the LIRR will be banning all alcoholic beverages on trains, platforms, and waiting areas from 5:00am Monday 3/17 to 5:00am Tuesday 3/18. MTA Police will enforce this! If you try, they will confiscate it.

Apparantly Metro-North will be providing five additional trains to and from the parade, however, I cannot seam to find any information on them so if anyone knows or can find out please comment below!

Montauk St. Patrick's Day Parade Added Service:

The Annual Montauk St. Patrick's Day Parade will take place on Sunday, March 30th this year and will begin at 12:00 p.m. Quite a few people take the train out east for the parade, and since it's not yet summer, the LIRR will provide additional trains to provide for added capacity.

The exact details for these trains have not been announced as of now, however, you can expect an additional eastbound train about an hour earlier then train 6008, that departs Jamaica at 8:13 and arrives Montauk at 10:55am. You can also expect an additional eastbound that will originate in Babylon, trailing after train 6008.  

Coming back westbound, they typically run a train that emulates summer-only 6007, that departs Montauk in the 1:00pm hour. This train is normally a local to Babylon before terminating in Jamaica. I remember there were delays last year on the Montauk Branch on this date, so hopefully things will do better this year.

It's supposed to rain on Monday during the entire length of the parade, so while many will still go and participate, the loads shouldn't be as bad for this reason. 

So, if your going to ride the train on the "worst day to ride the LIRR", make sure to follow the rules so you have a good time! I'm looking forward to seeing how St. Patrick's Day turns out this year. 

Fun Fact: Did you know that NJTransit's fleet of Single-level coaches, known as Comets are known for their reoccurring odor of vomit as "vomits" or "vomit comets". Thank goodness my beloved C3s aren't stinky!