What The Port Jefferson Branch Timetable Could Look Like

For today’s post, we’ll take a look at the Port Jefferson Branch. Before I begin, it’s important I note that for the purposes of this post, the term “Port Jefferson Branch” will refer to the stations east of Syosset all the way to Port Jefferson. Stations west of Syosset will be covered in the huge Mainline timetable. However, I've included stations Floral Park thru Hicksville for the convenience of making/reading the timetable and for intra-island travel. Elmont has also been included for travel to the stadium. Unlike today’s timetable, this timetable specifically covers service for stations east of Syosset, making it less long and much easier to read by Port Jefferson Branch customers, then it’s difficult-to-read counterpart. I have decided to include stations Westbury-New Hyde Park for ease of planning and inter-island travel.

The Port Jefferson Branch is the first real branch that has to deal with significant capacity constraints, ones that extremely de-simplify constructing service patterns because of the lack of train storage at Huntington. For every westbound out of Huntington in the morning, and vice versa in the evening, you must either have to run a reverse-peak train or deadhead equipment, something that's very costly for the LIRR since they have to deadhead various equipment trains from various yards such as Hillside and West Side Yard in order to restock the “pocket tracks” in Huntington.

Therefore, there are some pretty rough gaps in service, especially during the peak-of-the-peak. I tried to provide the most service during the beginning and the end of rush hours, as this is when it’s easiest to deadhead equipment to/from Huntington to restock. I still provided decent service however throughout the rush hour, averaging trains out of Huntington every 10-15 minutes during the busier periods. I tried to provide more express service, with local trains west of Hicksville covering the more inner-zone stops in a later post about the Main Line itself.

In the 1970s, the branch was electrified as far as Huntington, and in 1985, it was single tracked to Huntington.

Nowadays, the Port Jefferson Branch is half-finished, half-assed branch that can barely support itself during rush hours. Capacity is very limited on the branch due to not only relatively limited Main Line capacity (at least it's much, much, much better after Third Track Project), but the very limited capacity at Huntington. Obviously, Huntington is no proper terminal for electric trains, and it wasn't ever even supposed to be built as a terminal, (let alone for the second busiest branch) in the first place. 

Therefore, during rush hours, I decided it wasn't the greatest idea to place the most stress on Huntington to have it provide almost all the rush hour services along the entire Main Line, therefore, I placed larger emphasis on smaller, more western terminals such as Hicksville to carry the local stops during these busy times.

The Port Jefferson Branch sees pretty good ridership from Huntington, Cold Spring Harbor, and Syosset, and while diesel territory does pretty well too, like as discussed in the Montauk Branch post, many people still just drive down to the Ronkonkoma Branch and take trains from there for better service. I think my improving service to the best of my ability on these branches, we can help to even things a tad bit out.

Included in the linked PDF file below is full sample weekday and weekend Port Jefferson 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.

As always, before we can dive into the actual excel timetables, let’s quickly go over Key Assumptions and Service Guidelines:

Key Assumptions:

• There aren’t really any Key Assumptions.

Service Guidelines:

• During rush hours, service to/from both Huntington and Port Jefferson generally emulates current levels, mainly with additional trains added in to help with capacity and to provide more service to where it’s needed.
• Of the 9 diesel trains from Port Jefferson, 1 terminates at Huntington earlier in the rush hour, 3 go to Hunterspoint Av, 4 go to Long Island City, and the final two go to Penn Station. 
• During the morning rush hour, service towards Huntington is concentrated towards the beginning and end of the rush hours, when it’s easiest to run equipment in the reverse-peak direction out in order to represent westbound runs.
• During the evening rush hour, service into Port Jefferson is structured very similar to how it is today, with two dual-modes, with trains into Port Jefferson roughly every 30-40 minutes, with service trailing off towards the end as equipment becomes more sparse.
• The same can be said for Huntington, which will see roughly the same amount of trains and structure as current levels, with more express trains added in and more service during the peak-of-the-peak.
• During the weekday and weekend off-peak period, service is provided every 90 minutes to/from Port Jefferson. Most of these trains terminate at Hicksville with a handful only going as far as Huntington. 
• Huntington is served twice an hour by electric trains to/from Penn Station (continuing the LIRR’s new practice of providing half-hourly service to/from Penn Station on the 3 main electric branches). These trains make a variety of different stops, with some picking up stops west of Floral Park, others skipping those stops entirely, some running on a skip-stop schedule by skipping Carle Place and Merllion Avenue (just depends on the time). 
• During the busiest travel periods on weekends, I provided extra train service out of/into Port Jefferson to complement the scoots to Hicksville. 
• During the late night hours, service has been enhanced to include additional late-night trains into and out of Huntington & Port Jefferson.

Link to Port Jefferson Branch Timetable

The Port Jefferson Branch (specifically the west of Huntington portion) is a very difficult branch to provide adequate service on, as Huntington isn’t a proper terminal and it can't handle the growing ridership demands on this heavily-used branch. Trying to sustain reasonable service levels, especially during the peak periods was quite a challenge considering the limited amount of space to turn trains, so, in some cases, I had to attempt to combine trains (ex. I had a Port Jefferson train make the added stops of Cold Spring Harbor and Syosset in order to provide service from those stations to HPA). 

I built these timetables with the goal of load balancing. There are certain rush hour trains on the branch that are overcrowded, and I tried to add additional trains in to supplement those, with many of those trains running to alternate terminals (HPA or ATL), not only helping even the loads but also providing direct one-seat rides back to those places. I also tried to provide more express service to/from Huntington during the busiest periods to take stress of the local trains. I also tried to minimize large gaps in service, especially east of Huntington. There’s a long 30-min gap during the rush hour between trains 617 (the 6:40am out of Port Jefferson) and 619 (the 7:10am out of Port Jefferson), and I was able to minimize that by adding a new train in departing at 6:57am.

Another aspect of the timetable that got an upgrade was reverse-peak service. While reverse-peak service got a huge upgrade after the third track, I still feel like reverse-peak service is under thought and underserved, especially considering they deadhead so many sets to Huntington in the morning. I tried when possible to provide robust reverse-peak service, by instead of deadheading all these runs I at least tried to run them in revenue service, providing express service to certain stations. I think I did a decent job of better utilizing the limited infrastructure. The Port Jefferson section was more difficult to fix considering lack of passing sidings, but I tried my best to improve service, especially in the westbound direction on Fridays with students coming home from Stony Brook University, along with people heading in for concerts, which can see the last reverse-peak train out of Port Jefferson, crushloaded due to it running with only 3 cars and it being the last train before the 3 hour gap. I also was able to close that afternoon westbound obnoxious gap as well.

One thing you'll notice with some of the midday Port Jefferson Branch trains is that many of them run to Hicksville. One of the many problems with the Port Jefferson Branch is the obnoxious transfer at Huntington. Not only is it slow, but it's just very painful. Hicksville is much better configured to handle transfers, and the even better thing is, I can have these trains connect with Ronkonkoma trains, providing an even faster ride. While I can't eliminate the capacity issues at Huntington, I can at least annihilate that annoying transfer!

Another thing you'll notice, but will be discussed much more in the Main Line timetable, is that many of the off-peak Huntington trains that typically would run "express" skipping Merllion Avenue and Carle Place no longer do so. Especially during the morning hours, on weekends, when they run express service skipping these poor stations without even saving any time! I don't get the point of that, as your literally just denying them a train when it could easily stop there and still get to it's next stop on time. Therefore, express service has only been provided during hours where there isn't supplemental service west of Hicksville by locals starting out of Hicksville.

Similarly to what was done on the Montauk Branch, on weekends, during the busier travel periods, I provided two additional trains per direction, with the first one being a dual-mode train to Penn Station, and the second one going to Jamaica. I had the dual-mode train make stops at Huntington, Cold Spring Harbor, Syosset, Hicksville, Westbury, Mineola, and New Hyde Park to augment service there. I think this will go a long way in providing better service and reducing crowding at the Main Line stations. I think these trains are well-timed to encourage off-peak travel, a growing trend on the Long Island Railroad!

You'll notice, however, that Huntington is one of the only electric terminals that doesn't recieve any extra service during weekend mornings or afternoons. I did this because I didn’t want to have to have to run any more equipment out there nor turn any more trains, so instead I will run extra trains from Hicksville, to supplement service on the Main Line, and customers at Cold Spring Harbor and Syosset can take advantage of the two additional thru Port Jefferson trains which all stop there.

To be honest, there isn't that much to say about the Port Jefferson Branch timetable. It was difficult because I had to try to provide as much service as I possibly could out of Huntington, and therefore I had to deadhead a lot of equipment. 

Similar to what is the case with the other branches, this timetable is too numerous to cover all the little oddities, but I'm very happy to and would love to answer any questions you may have. I will also happily take any suggestions, especially if your a commuter on the branch yourself. Next time, we'll take a look at the huge Main Line timetable, then take a look at the equally large Babylon Branch timetable, before wrapping up the regular branches with the South and North Fork timetables.

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

Could More Dual Modes Be A Suitable Substitute For Electrification?

In today's post, I'm going to build on yesterday's post about the Crippling State of the LIRR's Diesel Fleet, by talking more about the future of the LIRR's current diesel fleet.

In the LIRR's most recent 20-year needs assessment (which will soon be getting a post of it's own), the LIRR didn't mention anything about electrification out to Port Jefferson or Patchogue, hinting this is not coming in the next 10 or so years. They did say that they'd analyze it in the 2025-2029 capital program, suggesting it's coming.

While it wasn't mentioned in the 20-year needs assessment, the LIRR once again, for like the third capital program, did mention possible future electrification of the Main Line to Yaphank, along with capacity improvements on the Port Jefferson and Montauk branches. It seams, at least for now, that given the order of up to 66 new locomotives, they're going down the dual-mode route. Even if they weren't to electrify the Main Line to Yaphank, 66 new locomotives would be more than enough equipment to cover service on the Port Jefferson Branch, Montauk Branch, Oyster Bay Branch, and Main Line east of Ronkonkoma. They may also have enough equipment to use it as a supplement to MUs on busy trains on other electrified lines, such as an 8-car MLV set covering a busy westbound Babylon Branch train in the morning, for example.

I believe the LIRR made the right choice with replacement of it's diesel fleet. They bought enough of them to provide a comfortable level of service, where they don't have to worry about not having enough equipment, something they constantly have to deal with now, and they have a little "wiggle room" to expand. I mean, look, it's better to have extra diesels around, which could be used to supplement electric trains during events, or provide emergency service during after major catastrophes (think Long Beach after Hurricane Sandy), then to have too few when electrification projects fall through. 

I'd much rather have a couple of extras lying around, which I guarantee you they can somehow find a way to use, and even if they can't they can always lease them. Some have voice concerns about ordering too many, and then it would "come back to bite them" if they do manage to finish any electrification projects during that timeframe. To me, this is very shortsighted as given the MTA's current track record of getting things done, they typically set a release date and it typically goes over that, sometimes by even a third or half. If they are planning to electrify, then they'll have 25 years before these new locomotives are due for replacement, to finish the job. 

At this point, I think the LIRR should focus on improving service with the current fleet they've got and is getting. While electrification has and probably always will be the ideal option, as it allows for the lowest operating costs, direct service to all terminals, I believe if they truly make the best possible use out of the diesel equipment they have, then they could provide a level of service comparable to the average electric line.  Look at Metro-North, for example, which provides hourly dual-mode service to/from Poughkeepsie (besides the last train of the night from Croton-Harmon.) Those trains are constantly the most popular in the entire system, and are even more travelled than the electric trains are. If the LIRR were to adopt a similar system, they could possibly be even more successful.

I believe the main reason diesel service is so unattractive is because of the gaps. Frequencies are generally fine right now, and if they were to electrify to Patchogue and Port Jefferson, or provide dual-mode service, then they could probably provide hourly service to Port Jefferson and service every 30 minutes to Patchogue. While I believe hourly service is enough for my home section of the Montauk Branch west of Patchogue, if they were to electrify, they'd probably have to provide 30 minutes as a compensation for taking land. Plus they love to spoil this area anyway, so if there gonna electrify, you might as well let them do it. It would bring a lot to my area to have half-hourly service to points west.

Dual-Mode Fever

The massive order of 66 locomotives is more than enough to provide a baseline of hourly service from Patchogue, Oyster Bay, and Port Jefferson direct into Penn Station during pretty much all hours of the day, along with even better peak service than what is provided today. I'd say the biggest improvements would be on the East End, where they could close some of the largest gaps in service and provide more peak options. Look at Metro-North, which, like I mentioned above, provides a baseline of hourly-service to/from Poughkeepsie; that could represent service levels of Port Jefferson and Patchogue. Meanwhile, Danbury would do a great job representing Speonk and Oyster Bay (with roughly bi-hourly to/from HPA), Waterbury would represent the North Fork (with mainly shuttles to Ronkonkoma, possibly with the added bonus of a thru-train every once in a while), and Wassiac would represent service levels on the South Fork. Not only does Metro-North have considerable success with it's dual-mode operations, but, NJTransit's dual-modes are also doing a pretty good job.

If they are so popular, you may be wondering why the LIRR doesn't provide more dual-mode service now. I mean they have the equipment for it, and the demand, don't they? Well, the main reason they limit it is because they really don't have enough equipment to do so, and now that they'll have more equipment, this issue will finally be resolved.

I think the LIRR's main goal with buying these locomotives is mainly not only to expand their diesel fleet, but also to buy time to stall on electrification. Like I mentioned earlier, electrification should be the ultimate reward for these communities, as it provides a level of service that can't be seen using dual-modes, period, if the LIRR does a "free trial" using the dual-modes for 10-15 years, people of the communities in diesel territory will begin to realize the benefits, and possibly be more open to electrification.

In conclusion, yes, if the LIRR actually steps up and decides to make use of the new dual-mode locomotives to provide much-wanted dual-mode service, then, I strongly believe dual-mode service could supplement electrification, at least for a little while. 

Included below is a poll. Considering it's going to be another 20-25 years or so before these new coming locomotives are replaced, I'd love to know your opinion on how far you think the LIRR will have electrified it's system by the time 2045 rolls around:

online polls

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.

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.

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.

What The Far Rockaway Branch Timetable Could Look Like

Our fourth post will take a look at The Far Rockaway Branch. The Far Rockaway Branch is a rather short branch, and is also of relatively low-speed. However, that doesn’t mean that ridership isn’t solid, though, as it sees decent ridership just short of the Long Beach Branch.  

Included in the linked PDF file below is the full sample weekday and weekend Far Rockaway Branch timetables. Peak, off-peak, and reverse-peak trains have all been 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 the crew and equipment rotations using AI and will be written down on paper. They’ll be included in a separate page in the attached pdf. Nonetheless, I have tried whenever possible to minimize the amount of deadheading as it’s essentially wasted crew and equipment hours. However, in some cases, it’s unavoidable in order to make the best use out of the resources available.

Like was said on the introduction page, before we can begin talking about the actual timetables, “Key Assumptions” and “Service Guidelines” needs to be taken care of and mentioned before this project can become fully 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, I will try my best to make it as “clockface” as possible, and I will also try to meet the 20-minute headways I’ve set up. I will try to provide one flyer per rush hour, however, that’s unlikely considering the branch’s size. I will try to provide one train to/from Penn Station per hour, along with a Grand Central or Atlantic Terminal at a minimum. During most hours, one additional train will originate in Valley Stream, and make all stops west of Valley Stream to provide additional service west of there. 
• During off-peak hours, service is provided approximately every hour to and from Grand Central.
• During the morning reverse-peak period, apart from hourly service from Grand Central, there are also a hodgepodge of trains from Atlantic Terminal to provide additional reverse-peak service. I've also implemented hourly service from Penn Station to Valley Stream during morning reverse-peak hours to provide additional service to these Queens stations.
• During the afternoon reverse-peak period, service consists of a mixture of trains going to all 3 city terminals. 
• On weekends, train service is increased during the busiest times; (specifically 8:30am to 11:30am WB and 4:00pm to 7:30pm EB).

Link to Far Rockaway Branch Timetable

Similarly to the Long Beach Branch, peak hour service on the Far Rockaway Branch has been designed to make it easy to get to and from any one of the 3 city terminals during rush hours. I specifically designed this timetable to run on a clockface-like schedule, except unlike the Long Beach Branch, it isn't perfectly clockface. Reverse-peak service on the branch, essepcially during the earlier hours of the morning, is phenomenal, thanks to Far Rockaway having two tracks all the way to the final stop and due to it not really having a yard, meaning many of these trains are "revenue deadheads".

I believe that the 20-minute headways that were established during most of the peak should meet the ridership demands of the branch. I also believe that this branch's setup that allows you to get to pretty much any one of the three terminals during almost all the peak hours is a good system allowing for fast and frequent service. I have also added hourly trains from Valley Stream during the morning rush allowing for additional trains so provide more express runs.

During the busier periods on weekends, I was able to provide additional service to/from Penn Station (in the mornings), and Atlantic Terminal (in the evenings). I may change which terminals those extra trains go to upon further input. That is in addition to hourly trains from Valley Stream during those that will allow those extra trains to Penn Station to skip Rosedale, Laurelton, and Locust Manor. 

Especially during the morning rush, I tried to add Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, Woodside, and Sunnyside stops during convenient times to allow for intra-city travel along the branch. You will notice that additional trains have also been started.

I firmly believe my current setup for the Far Rockaway Branch will provide customers with a fast, frequent service, and if you have any questions about how this service is ran, please feel free to ask me.

As always, if you have any questions/comments/suggestions/corrections/thoughts, etc, you can leave a comment 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.

What The Hempstead Branch Timetable Could Look Like

From the West Hempstead Branch's eastern terminal of West Hempstead, we must hop a couple of blocks down Fulton Street to the east and north a little bit to get to the eastern terminal of another (much more favored) branch, the Hempstead Branch. The branch's eastern terminal of Hempstead is right across the street from Hempstead Transit Center, which is one of NICE's main bus terminals. Quite a few people, upon arrival into Hempstead Transit Center will not cross the street and hop on the LIRR but instead will change to another bus to Jamaica and hop on the subway!

Those lucky enough to make the choice to hop on the train, will take a trip up through Garden City, and stop at no less than 3 stations in Garden City, before pulling through Stewart Manor before meeting the LIRR's Mainline at Floral Park.

From Garden City through Floral Park, the Hempstead Branch runs pretty darn closer to the Mainline. Crazy enough, Nassau Blvd is only a mile south of Merllion Avenue and New Hyde Park is even closer only being a half a mile south of Stewart Manor. In both cases, the Hempstead Branch stations are not even 2 minutes apart on New Hyde Park Road. The tracks that branch off going perfectly eastbound at Garden City are actually the remnants of the old Central Railroad of Long Island and this could become the route many Ronkonkoma Branch trains could take if the LIRR were to reactivate this portion. 

The LIRR could work to use the relatively close spacing of stations to their advantage. Both New Hyde Park and Merllion Avenue lie on the busy Mainline, and due to this, they both have capacity constraints. A lot of people who would use the Hempstead Branch stations actually just end p driving to stations along the Mainline due to crowding or because service can get very lazy on this branch at times. A family friend of mine who use to commute into New York who lives very close to both Nassau Blvd and Merllion Avenue stations (slightly closer to the latter) would just go to Merllion Avenue since he said the station was quieter.  

My hope is by increasing service on the Hempstead Branch, along with the Far Rockaway and Long Beach branches, service will begin to even a tad bit out more. I personally think the Hempstead Branch definitely has some growing to do, and the LIRR just needs to help it grow.

To get onto the actual timetable, the linked .pdf file includes the full set of weekday and weekend Hempstead Branch timetables. Peak, off-peak, reverse-peak, and special-event trains trains have all been included within the timetables.

The timetables only show revenue trains, not deadhead or equipment 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.

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.

Just like the other timetable posts, here are some "Key Assumptions" and "Service Guidelines" which I built the timetables on: 

Key Assumptions

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

Service Guidelines

• During peak hours, service is provided on 20 minutes headways as a minimum throughout the course of the rush hour. Train service is provided to Penn Station, Grand Central, and Atlantic Terminal hourly. 
• I’ve decided to cut-back a bit on service to Queens Village and Hollis stations during rush and reverse-peak hours however they will continue to get off-peak service. The Belmont Park trains will now be the main flag carriers for the branch, and they will now get 30-minute headways during off-peak hours. 
• During off-peak hours, service is provided hourly on the branch and these trains continue to operate to/from Grand Central w/ a couple of exceptions during late-nights. 
• During the weekday reverse-peak period, additional trains are run in the reverse-peak direction from Penn Station to help provide 30-minute headways. My hope is that by providing additional reverse-peak service, especially earlier in the rush hour, this will continue my effort of minimizing deadheading/empty equipment moves.  These trains are targeted at people holding jobs in western Nassau County, and others may take the train to Hempstead to connect with NICE bus. 

Link to Hempstead Branch Timetable

Knowing that service at Main Line stations such as Merllion Avenue and New Hyde Park would be unfortunately sporadic, I wanted the Hempstead Branch to be a fast, frequent, and viable alternative. I tried to space service on this branch evenly, so it's a good alternative to catching the train at Merllion Avenue and New Hyde Park. 

During the morning peak period, service is set up to run from Hempstead roughly every 20 minutes, and there's a direct train to/from every terminal pretty much every hour. There are multiple flyers that run over the course of the rush hour. 

During the evening peak period, service is set up a bit more sporadic, however, generally you can get a direct train from any one of the 3 main city terminals out to Hempstead every hour. 

During off-peak periods, trains continue to run from Grand Central, which I believe is fitting for the branch. 

I am personally a big advocate for improved transit in eastern Queens, therefore, I've reinstated the Belmont Park Branch to run as a full-time branch for the first time. As a result, some peak Hempstead trains that used to stop at Queens Village and Hollis will now skip the station along with Elmont-UBS Arena, which is overserved. However, most off-peak trains will continue to stop at these stations, providing bi-hourly service to Queens Village and Hollis. While it may seam a bit over, I strongly believe this branch, while very small, could succeed if done properly.

During weekend "peak" periods, I was able to provide three additional westbound trains from Hempstead towards Atlantic Terminal during the busiest times of the morning, along with four additional eastbound trains towards Hempstead. 

I thank everyone who has taken the time to read my timetables project so far, it's been a very fun project and I've learned a lot about the railroad through it. I look forward to continuing to work on it. Today's my birthday and I realized that I haven't gotten a single comment yet, it would be a nice surprise to see someone comment giving any thoughts, suggestions, corrections, etc. You can leave suggestions, thoughts, comments, etc by leaving a comment on the comment form below, or you could 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.

What The Montauk Branch Timetable Could Look Like

Next up is the Montauk Branch. I decided to do this one today, because Sunday is well, my birthday, and today is well the last day of school before my birthday so why not do such a special post on such a special day! Anyways, we’ve now entered uncharted territory. Up until now, we’ve mainly been covering branches with rather simple service patterns and simple peak service, but today, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll dive into the rather complex Montauk Branch! Weekday service is complicated enough, but once you throw in seasonal service, things start to become extremely difficult.

It’s often overlooked, but the Long Island Rail Road’s Montauk Branch sees quite a few riders along its length, especially during the summer. The branch is known for its summer services, and the famous “Cannonball” that runs nonstop from New York’s Penn Station all the way out to the Hamptons and Montauk. Ridership has been growing, especially along the segment between Babylon and Patchogue, but also out in The Hamptons and Montauk. Even Mastic-Shirley and Speonk, despite service challenges, are slowly growing. The achilles heal of the branch is on Summer Sundays when the LIRR can’t keep up with the extreme demand being put on the Summer Hamptons trains causing extreme crowding and delays. My hope is that the LIRR will continue to adjust the schedule until they finally get it right. I’ve definitely made many changes to how the Summer Sunday service is run in an effort to even the loads and shift service a bit.

As you may or may not know through my various posts overtime or by knowing me, my home branch is the Montauk Branch and I ride it relatively frequently. I’m very familiar with it and therefore, I believe I’m able to help it even more and I’ve put in “extra effort” in an attempt to really try to get it right and excuse me if I go a little “over” with  service on this branch. 

One of the most important observations I’ve noticed is the increase in intra-island travel. In general, the further east you go, the less and less people who will actually go as far as Manhattan. People in the Hamptons and Montauk are tired of trekking all the way to the city all day, therefore, they seek jobs in locations in Suffolk or even Nassau Counties. However, since train times to their jobs aren’t favorable, they just drive instead. The introduction of the South Fork Commuter Connection (SFCC) definitely made a difference, but there’s still more to be done with both LIRR and SFCC service out there. My timetables specifically pay extra attention to intra-island travelers, as there’s so much room for growth in that department especially on this branch, and I did my best to make sure they were well looked after.

In general, my sample Montauk Branch timetable represents a noticeable increase in trains, especially during the reverse and off-peak periods. However, this also represents a smarter use of equipment. A good example of this is balancing the amount of trains to Montauk. The timetables below show sample service patterns for weekday and weekend Montauk Branch service, east of Babylon. It’s important to note that at this time, connecting trains aren’t shown, and they may or may not be once all the timetables have been created and published. 

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

Before we can dive into the actual excel timetables, let’s quickly go over Key Assumptions and Service Guidelines:

Key Assumptions

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

Service Guidelines

• Rush hour service should be increased to meet current ridership demands, especially in The Hamptons and on the Babylon - Patchogue segment.
• During the morning rush hour, service mainly consists of a mix of trains out of Speonk and Patchogue. Trains from Speonk and Mastic-Shirley typically originate out of Speonk Yard while trains from Patchogue usually turn off eastbound trains at Patchogue. Service definitely resembles what’s currently on the timetable, but there’s the addition of more trains. The branch keeps the current westbound dual-modes with both following the same schedule as today. Two trains originate out of Montauk in the morning rush to match the two that terminate there in the evening rush. In addition, I was able to schedule an additional early-morning run out of Patchogue. 
• Service during the evening rush hour is much less structured (not that it is during the morning rush) but I think I did a good job of balancing equipment over the course of the rush hour. The two current dual-modes in the evening run on the same schedule as currently and I’ve introduced new trains to fill in the various gaps over the course of the rush hour, and most of those trains leave from Hunterspoint Avenue/LIC or Jamaica. 
• An important thing to note that SFCC Services/East End Scoots have not been included. Those will be included in the South Fork timetable which will come out in a couple of months once I’ve made it. 
• During the midday off-peak period, hourly service at a minimum has been sustained to Patchogue, and while much more “wild” I was able to give Speonk and Mastic-Shirley a rough average of bi-hourly service. This meets the current service standards as far as Patchogue, and there’s a huge improvement in midday service to Speonk. There’s currently some very nasty gaps including a large gap during the entire morning between 7:14am and 12:46pm, and I was able to completely eradicate that. 
• Another addition is expanded reverse-peak service. Currently, during the mornings, there’s a 2 hour gap between trains to Patchogue and I was able to lessen that gap by exactly an hour with the inclusion of a brand-new reverse-peak train to Speonk for the first time ever! Trains that would otherwise be equipment trains will now accept passengers along their way. For example, there are now several “revenue deadheads” out of Jamaica Storage Yard in the early morning hours, and I had these trains make stops along the Mainline or Babylon Branch to supplement service there too. Westbound reverse-peak service in the afternoon has also been improved, esspecially along my home section with trips being added from Sayville, Patchogue, and Speonk. 
• On weekends, hourly service has been sustained at a minimum to Patchogue and bi-hourly to Speonk. I’ve also added additional trains during the busier weekend periods in the morning going westbound and in the evening going eastbound, especially by completely eradicating the ridiculous two-hour 6 minute gap along the Patchogue-Babylon segment. I will discuss Summer Hamptons service below. 

Link to Montauk Branch Timetable

To start, we need to note that the LIRR has very limited diesel equipment. Therefore, it was difficult to provide good service on the diesel branches. The current fleet is in no way capable by any means of handling the overwhelming ridership, especially during the Summer, and with the current equipment, there’s little room for growth. That being said, I’ve written these timetables with the intent of them being utilized by current equipment. Luckily and also sadly (Railfan part of me), the LIRR has ordered more equipment so I will do my best to provide even better service once they come.

On the weekday westbound panel, a new early morning train has been added out of Patchogue, therefore closing the 50 minute gap between the 4:47 and 5:37am, as commutes are growing earlier. 

Morning peak service is structured similar as it is today, and many of the morning rush hour favorites have resumed similar or the same schedules as their real-life counterparts. Most of the through-trains on the branch terminate at Hunterspoint Avenue or Long Island City, however, the first through-train from Patchogue terminates at Jamaica for better use of equipment (train #51 turns in Jamaica to make up the first morning departure to Oyster Bay.) The first dual-mode train which is out of Southampton continues to follow its schedule, while the other dual-mode from Speonk also continues to depart Speonk at 6:18am. Currently, there’s only one morning train from Montauk. One of the biggest additions to this timetable is the addition of a new express DM from Montauk at 4:37am. This train makes all stops to Speonk, then runs express from Speonk to Patchogue, before running nonstop to Jamaica, all the while doing this in as little time as humanely possible. This train provides an earlier departure from Montauk, something I’d desperately like to see, while providing an express run and getting people in in city in time for 8am jobs. This train runs ahead of my favorite train, train #37, therefore, people who need the local stops can just drop-back at either Speonk or Patchogue. 

I’ve done my very best to built up service on the branch in hopes of drawing riders of the busy Ronkonkoma trains, and by increasing Montauk Branch service, during the peak of the peak, especially west of Patchogue, I hope to make the Montauk Branch a much more attractive option. Currently, there’s a large westbound gap between 6:56am and 7:35am on the Patchogue-Babylon section, therefore you can get to New York at 8:18am or 8:52am. I personally think this is very annoying that they don’t run another train in between, therefore, I’ve added in an additional train in departing Southampton at 6:11am at to eliminate that gap and provide another train during the peak-of-the-peak that I think is perfectly timed and I think this will be worthwhile in getting people to stop driving from communities along the Montauk Branch up to Mainline stations since Montauk Branch service stinks compared to what they can get at Ronkonkoma, for example. 

During the morning rush, there’s a funny-looking train I think I better mention, train #57. This train originates in Patchogue and closely follows the same schedule as its counterpart as far as Babylon, however, instead of terminating in Babylon, it continues up the Central Branch, making all local stops on the Main Line between Bethpage and Floral Park, before going to Belmont Park via the eye there. While this train isn’t perfectly timed for the average intra-island traveller, this train is perfectly timed for people who need to get to Nassau County earlier, such as teachers or construction workers. This train is perfectly timed to encourage intra-island travel to places on Long Island such as Bethpage, Westbury, Floral Park, and Belmont, while also providing additional opportunities for Hicksville and Mineola. I had this train run to Belmont Park  so it doesn’t get overrun with by making all the local stops from Patchogue to Floral Park. Manhattan commuters, however, aren’t left-out as they can transfer at Babylon to an electric express train to Grand Central. My hope for this train is to encourage intra-island travel along the South Shore. The equipment would then turn for to become #1823 from Belmont Park to Long Island City where it would be mixed back into the diesel pool, therefore it would be theoretically possible to ride the train all the way to the city if you wanted to go all the way out of your way! 

One of the most beautiful things of this timetable is the improved service east of Speonk. 2 new westbound trains #13 and #19, departing Montauk at 9:30am and 6:23pm have been added to the schedule along with the dual-mode. All 3 of these trains fill huge gaps left by other trains, and coupled with the South Fork Scoots, will really help encourage midday travel on the East End. I’ve also added many more trains to/from places in the Hamptons such as East Hampton, Bridgehampton, and Southhampton, and especially during Rush and reverse-peak hours, these really help make the frequencies east of Speonk attractive.

Midday service on The Montauk Branch is mainly comprised of  typical hourly-scoots to Patchogue, along with the occasional Speonk train, however, additional westbound trains have been added throughout the day from Mastic-Shirley and Speonk to encourage ridership. In addition, there’s a new weekday off-peak eastbound train from Jamaica to Southampton. One thing you’ll notice as a trend through this timetable project is that there’s many more off-peak and reverse-peak trains start/end in Hunterspoint Avenue or Long Island City, I believe that with the development going on in the area, there’s definitely room to grow and I also believe it’s much easier to just turn trains there. I’ve tried to convert all trains that run empty equipment moves there over to revenue runs, and I’ve sent additional trains to turn there as well as an alternative to Oyster Bay service. Certain off-peak trains add stops at Hicksville and Mineola and this was done specifically to supplement service there.

To give a word on weekday reverse-peak service, there are a number of “revenue deadheads” that will start out of Jamaica Storage Yard early in the morning in order to get equipment out to Speonk and Patchogue to makeup westbound runs. These trains will make additional stops along the Babylon Branch or Mainline to supplement service there, too.

The weekday eastbound timetable includes most of the current eastbound runs, however, several trains have been eliminated and repurposed to provide better service. I’ve been able to add additional trains into the excel timetable, especially during the peak-

Weekend service mainly resembles current weekend service, however, additional trains have been added to the schedule during the busier weekend periods (specifically 8:30am WB to 11:30am WB and 4:00pm EB to 7:30pm EB). One additional train has been added out of Montauk on weekends leaving Montauk at 9:23am in hopes of eradicating that nasty gap between 7:01am and 3:16pm during the winter, and to take some load off of #6005 in the summer. A new early-bird fisherman’s train departs Hunterspoint Avenue at 5:00am sharp on summer weekends, allowing travelers to maximize their time out on the East End. In addition, multiple additional eastbound trains have been added to the schedule in order to provide additional weekend East End travel opportunities all year long. Additionally, two eastbound trains have actually been fitted it in the afternoons, to patch the unacceptable 7 hour gap in eastbound service out there.

Once we slither over to the weekend westbound panel, we notice that all of the Summer Sunday Hamptons trains pretty much take over the timetables. Be sure to read the reference notes in the columns carefully in order to determine which trains run on which days!

From my observations on how the Montauk Branch survives functions during weekends in the summer, the vast majority of delays are first caused by slow loading. These delays are some of the worst type of delays as they can quickly amplify into huge delays that we therefore have to suffer through the entire afternoon. What happens is, the platforms at stations in the Hamptons are short, therefore, trains have to spend lots of time taking on passengers at every stop and while the train may have enough cars to accommodate the loads (rarely), the short platforms slow things down CONSIDERABLY! If a train has to sit there for a couple of  extra minutes at each stop, that time can add up to 20 minutes by the time you finally reach Speonk. Minor delays can throw off even the most heavily padded of them all, and one late train (#6005 I’m looking at you!) can put a chokehold on the entire branch. 

Summer Sundays are some of the worst days to ride this branch as trains OTP’s are atrocious, and while I wish I could say I had a solution, I really don’t. There’s really not much I can do to help things, you see, the LIRR is an extremely capacity-restricted system, and there’s not enough equipment to provide the level of service needed on these days. I tried to patch the worst of the gaps, but the most I could do was add a train here or there from Southampton, to hopefully dull some of the loads, but most of the loads are from stations east of here anyway.

One thing you may notice is the addition of a couple of Patchogue-Hicksville scoots on summer weekends. As we know, the most of the crowding and lateness comes from the East End, however, there's also crowding at stations such as my home station of Sayville for people going to the fire island ferries. These trains are timed to run before the their typical counterparts to provide additional options in hopes of reducing crowding.

I’ve noticed that the trains that typically rack up the worst of the crowds are trains 6001 (the 7:01a from Montauk to Jamaica), 6005 (the 11:37a from Montauk to Jamaica) and 6007 (the 1:47p from Montauk to Jamaica). If you know the schedules, you may notice a trend, all 3 of these trains have huge gaps accompanying and preceding them. #6005 is easily the worst of these problems as it’s so popular due to the fact that there’s a 4-hour+ gap  before it. Therefore, it constantly runs extremely late due to overcrowding and during the worst summer weekends gets extended to Penn Station since it typically runs with dual-mode equipment and because there really isn’t room on any poor connection to be bombarded with 12 cars worth of people! I’ve decided to just extend it to Penn Station since it obviously goes there normally anyway.

One thing I’ve done is add Hicksville and Mineola stops to some Montauk, Speonk and Southampton trains in both directions, allowing for Nassau County residents to more easily get out to Fire Island and the East End more easily.

The Cannonball and its westbound counterpart, The Cannonball West both run on the same schedule as they currently do, and many other famous Hamptons trains continue their legacy. In the future once I dive even deeper into East End Service Patterns, I hope to bring back famous named-trains such “The Sunrise Special”, “The South Shore Express”, “The Montauk Special”, and “The Patchogue Express”!

I also want to quickly touch upon the brand-new train 6008. Currently, the current 6008 is an all-year train to Montauk, leaving Jamaica at 8:13am, and is the most popular of the weekend Jamaica-Montauk trains. However, in my schedule, that will run on it's same schedule, but under #6010 to make room for the new #6008, a 7:14am express from Penn Station to Montauk. This new train will depart New York at 7:14am, stop at Jamaica before running non-stop to Patchogue, Speonk, and all stops to Montauk. This train runs unsettlingly close to train #6006, however, on Summer Saturdays, it provides a one-seat ride and much needed capacity. I originally planned to include Bay Shore and Sayville stops on this trains to provide a one-seat to the fire-island ferries, however, I decided by doing that that would get rid of the "express" nature I wanted for this train. In addition, later on in the afternoon, I added an a

 

In conclusion, I think I’ve given a good run-down on the major points of these service patterns. You’ll definitely notice oddities in this schedule, and I almost always have explanations for them, so if you’re interested in more elaboration, please don’t  hesitate to leave a comment. It's a huge branch and time did not permit me to cover nearly close to all the material there was to cover. It's way more likely then not that I made a mistake, especially with the single-track east of Sayville, and if you catch any mistakes please let me know. As always, if you have any comments, thoughts, suggestions, corrections, etc, you can leave a comment below. 

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

What The Oyster Bay Branch Timetable Could Look Like

In all branches we’ve taken a dive into so far, most of them haven’t been too much of a struggle. Other than the single-tracked segment of The Port Washington Branch, things haven’t gotten too complicated. Today’s post will focus on the last of the LIRR’s “simple” branches, The Oyster Bay Branch. After this, we’ll dive into the thick of the LIRR’s operations, ending with the crazy Mainline and busy Montauk Branch! This is where things get interesting.

The Oyster Bay Branch serves as a decent bridge between the two. Its service patterns are somewhat simple, and it receives comparatively little ridership and attention for its comparatively low service. However, integrating Oyster Bay Branch trains into the busy Mainline and all of its traffic can be relatively challenging.

The Oyster Bay Branch, which begins in Mineola and slithers through some of the more sparsely-populated North Shore towns, ending in the beautiful enclave of Oyster Bay. The area it traverses through isn’t nearly as dense central and southern Long Island, but it does provide one of the only transportation links.

However, the one achilles heal of the Oyster Bay Branch is that it’s always suffered from being very slow. The MAS (Maximum Allowed Speed) on most of the branch is 60 mph, and the line is pretty straight as far as Roslyn, but once you travel east of that, it constantly curves this way and that, and with many curves come many curve-related speed restrictions. For most of the line past Roslyn, your chasing 30 mph speed restrictions littered on the ridiculous curves for the remainder of the branch.

It may not seem that bad, but once you add slowly-accelerating dual-modes into the mix and things can get ugly as far as travel times go, and pair that with the infrequent service, many people will just drive to electrified stations (i.e Manhasset if you live faster up the branch or Mineola if you live in Williston Park.)

There have been numerous talks about changing how the branch is ran. There have been some talks of electrification, and other ideas call for the railroad to just get a bunch of DMUs and run them back and forth from Mineola or introducing a “Transfer at Mineola”, however, I don’t believe any of those are feasible. First off, I highly doubt the LIRR will even think about electrifying it anytime soon, which is for good reason. Second, while DMUs might allow for some faster acceleration and deceleration between station stops, purchasing DMUs won’t help with the curves, and therefore, they’ll will still be speed restrictions, and when you do the math, chances are running trains with DMUs will only improve travel time by a couple of minutes, and all that saved time will vanish quickly once passengers are forced to stand and wait on the platform at Mineola. Instead, I think we should make the most of what we have and attempt to improve service.

With all that in mind, let’s jump into the sample timetables for The Oyster Bay Branch! It doesn’t include DMUs (because, look, if they were interested in using them, they’d need to think of procuring them now, since the new locomotives are already on the way, and obviously the MTA doesn’t have the money for that right now, and quite honestly, if they really were interested in doing that, it would probably be best to just skip the trouble and abandon the branch altogether.)

Key Assumptions: 

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

Service Guidelines:

• During the morning rush hour, service is spaced at an average of 40-45 minutes apart. Seven trains have been provided over the course of the rush hour, one more then current levels. Most of the trains during the rush hour have pretty much stayed the same, except the first dual-mode has been operated slightly earlier and trains 509 and 511 have swapped terminals to provide a truly express experience. All trains operate to Jamaica or Hunterspoint Av/LIC, with the exception of the two dual modes that arrive at Penn Station at 7:10 and 8:14am. 
• Like before East Side Access, East Williston will go back to being utilized as an electric terminal for several trains during rush hours, however, that will be shown on the Mainline timetable and I’ll add those trains onto this timetable too.
• In the evening, six trains are provided up the branch (five on Fridays). This provides an upgrade from the measly five trains that are currently provided up the branch. A nice addition is train 560, a brand new 5:21pm departure from Jamaica which will complement train 562 and provide relief to that train. Manu of these evening peak runs have been extended to Hunterspoint Av, providing better peak service there.
• During off-peak and weekend times, service will be provided approximately every 90 minutes normally going to/from Hunterspoint Av.
• You could say an increase has been provided of one additional reverse-peak train per rush hour. 
• Limited late night service is provided on the The Oyster Bay Branch.

Link to Oyster Bay Branch Timetable

Threading Oyster Bay Branch trains onto the crazy Mainline during rush hours is no easy task, however, the hard part was making time for Oyster Bay Branch trains to join the Mainline at Mineola. It was also difficult for me to come up with a reasonable plan for evening service to Oyster Bay, however, I think I did a reflectively good job in the end. 

In the morning, all but one train operates through to a western terminal. The first train of the morning leaves 4 minutes earlier than it did under current schedules at 4:52am. Recently, last September, train #511 had been switched from Hunterspoint Avenue to Penn Station, providing a second morning dual-mode up the branch for the first time ever. As you know the train before is a 7:01 express train that only makes a small handful of stops along the closely-packed branch, speeding up travel time, and I decided it made more sense to send that to Penn Station instead, giving a true express run for those commuters as you don’t have to transfer anymore.

In the PM peak, I was able to squeeze a total of six trains up the branch, a good improvement over the current five.

During off-peak times, service is improved from bi-hourly to every 90 minutes. On weekends, the current schedule requires two sets to provide the bi-hourly headways, so it actually wouldn’t require any additional equipment or crews to improve. It would allow crews and equipment to spend less time laying around in yards, a problem especially at  Oyster Bay. In addition, most off-peak trains now run to/from Hunterspoint Avenue, providing better service there too. That should pretty much make up the off-peak service there, with additional Port Jefferson and Montauk trains added in here and there to complement and to fill in gaps.

The first train up the branch in the early morning now departs at 12:14am, therefore giving one final train before the long overnight gap. Reverse-peak service is now maintained at slightly more consistent headways. By a quirk of scheduling and in order to provide that extra Jamaica-Oyster bay train in, train 569 will originate in Locust Valley (running from Oyster Bay following #560’s arrival).  

I think I’ve pretty much covered everything worth covering on The Oyster Bay Branch. Going on from here, things will progressively get more difficult, and we can say goodbye to those solid blocks of time with local service and consistent service patterns, but, we’ll see if we can shove a minimum of 50 trains down the Mainline and Babylon Branch during a period of just a couple hours soon! In the meantime, feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, suggestions, or comments on this branches timetable or service patterns. Any or all comments are greatly appreciated!

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