Interlocking Walkthrough: GARDEN

This week’s interlocking walkthrough takes us through Garden City- located deep into the heart of Nassau County. GARDEN interlocking, which is located 18.7 miles away from Long Island City, hosts both the Hempstead Branch and the Garden City- Mitchell Field Secondary, which the ladder merges off of. Here’s a bird eye view of the location:

GARDEN interlocking is just east of Garden City station, so basically, once the train leaves the station, it soon after encounters GARDEN interlocking, before entering single-track territory the rest of the way east to Hempstead.

Switches

After leaving the station on its way east, track 2 of the Hempstead Branch merges into Hempstead branch track 1.

A couple hundred feet later, there is another switch that splits the Hempstead Branch from the Central Branch, allowing it to head east towards Country Life Press and Hempstead. 

Going off to the right, the interlocking ends right before entering Country Life Press. Note that there’s a grade crossing just east of the switch, while going onto the secondary, the interlocking ends just before the third rail does. I plan to make a post on the Garden City-Mitchell Field secondary in the future, outlining its current role in the thick of LIRR operations along with my proposed role for it, so stay tuned for that but for today, I’ll tell you that the secondary goes back to two tracks shortly after Washington Avenue.

Also located in the general area is no other than the former Hempstead crossing, the former Hempstead branch crossing. While there’s no tracks anymore, many years back, the West Hempstead Branch used to continue north from its current terminal in West Hempstead, up the relatively short distance through Garden City into Mineola, where it would rejoin the mainline basically forming a loop. If you take a look on Google Earth, you can see where the tracks used to be.

Signals

GARDEN Interlocking has the standard old Pensy style position-light signals.

Neighbors

GARDEN is neighbored by QUEENS interlocking to the west, and is the easternmost interlocking on the Hempstead Branch.

As for the speed limit, it’s 70 mph west of here, however it’s restricted to 30 mph east of here before the 15 mph restriction on the curve at Country Life Press and the even lower 10 mph restriction coming into Hempstead.

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.

LIRR ridership increasing since start of Congestion Pricing

Somehow, it’s officially been one month since the MTA introduced its new congestion pricing program- which, if you don’t know, essentially tolls anyone entering Manhattan below 60th St a small fee, similar to EZpass. Data shows that 30,000 fewer vehicles on an average weekday enter the toll zone.

Long Island Rail Road commuters have noticed more people on trains, particularly at certain stations. While Metropolitan Transit Authority officials hoped and expected for these new tolls to push more commuters out of their car and onto the trains, however the overall 13% systemwide ridership increase didn’t beat December’s 15% increase, suggesting Congestion Pricing isn’t the only thing to credit.

LIRR president Rob Free said this: “I think it’s too early to make any direct correlation as to ridership gains being specific to congestion relief”. While he believes the tolling plan could be one of several factors, it seams he thinks it’s a mix of factors.

MTA officials have pointed to the fact that there’s plenty of room in the transit system for that increased ridership, noting that many LIRR trains operate well-below there capacity.

An interesting point of this is where these ridership jumps are located, with the largest jumps being located at the New Hyde Park and Garden City stations in Nassau County, and the Ronkonkoma station in Suffolk. MTA figures show that ridership at New Hyde Park has climbed 22% since January, and that Garden City has climbed 19 percent, compared to December’s increase of only 3%. Other stations across the network have also seen ridership gains including more western stations such as Douglaston and Woodmere.

Credit: Metropolitan Transit Authority

According to Newsday, who interviewed passengers at New Hyde Park station recently, passengers noted that they saw more passengers out on the platform, and on the train in recent weeks. 

Another factor that could be putting more people onto LIRR trains is the ongoing A train shutdown that offers Far Rockaway riders a $2.75 discounted faire into Manhattan during the four-month shutdown for repairs.

Personally, I’ve noticed additional crowding, especially on the Hempstead Branch.

Now, I know the 5:00pm rush hour isn’t known for undercrowding, however, the fact that the branches hit hardest this month seam to be the Hempstead, Long Beach, and Oyster Bay branches, branches not known to be too crowded.

‘Room for everybody’

Not only have the railroads experienced ridership surges though, as many subway lines and express bus routes have also experienced congestion-pricing related ridership increases. Addressing concerns about toll-related potential for overcrowding, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber has said “there’s room for everybody”. He also told reporters that “if every one of the 130,000 commuters who drive into Manhattan everyday took the Subway, bus, or Long Island Rail Road or whatever, instead, it would be a drop in the bucket”.

But, still, it’s not like LIRR riders have experienced this level of ridership recently, though. After plummeting substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, LIRR ridership was able to rebound to about 86% of what it was in 2019– a year in which the LIRR carried 91 million riders, the most in 70 years. A lot of the credit for ridership not rebounding to its full potential can be given to the fact that many people started working from home.

LIRR President Robert Free, with the goal of extinguishing concerns about potential overcrowding, said that since the opening of Grand Central Madison, the LIRR dramatically increased the amount of trains. Free also noted that during peak periods, the LIRR operates at about 60% capacity. However, in January, a small handful of peak trains operated at 90% or above. While many believe these ridership increases are mainly thanks to congestion pricing, Rob Free believes it’s also important to factor in the testament to the LIRR’s increased performance, which includes growing customer satisfaction scores and a 95.6% on-time performance (OTP) in 2024. 

Apparently, despite so much criticism, the MTA’s congestion pricing plan has been so successful that they have begun hearing from officials off other cities that they are interested in implementing their own plan. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean New York’s plan is here to stay, as it faces huge backlash and opposition, including more lawsuits. Even our US president, Donald Trump, has even vocally opposed the plan.

Now that we are less then a month away from the new timetables, my hope is that the LIRR will analyze this data, and try to make the best improvements to the new timetables. At this point, only time will tell. 

The LIRR's Darkest Day

Today, December 7, marks the 31st anniversary of one of the LIRR’s darkest days. On December 7, 1993, the 5:33pm LIRR mainline train from Penn Station bound for Hicksville was soon to be making its routine station stop at Merillon Avenue when Colin Ferguson opened fire on the train’s passengers. By the time he was stopped by the other passengers, six people were dead and nineteen were injured. When the train made it to Merillon Avenue, passengers began to spill out (many people in the adjacent cars didn’t know what was going on until Merillon Avenue). 

Luckily, an off-duty police officer who was picking up his wife apprehended Ferguson when the train reached Merillon Avenue. The incident occurred on M3 pair #9891 and #9892, and after the incident these cars were held out of service for years, before re-entering service and these cars are still roaming the rails these days, despite the M3s thinning out.

Traditionally, wreaths are placed at Merillon Av
around this time of year in memory of those who 
died.

As of recently, all of the train's crew is still alive, but all but the engineer have retired.

Legend has it that Ferguson, after boarding the train at Jamaica, waited until the train crossed over the border into Nassau County out of respect for then-outgoing Mayor David Dinkins and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. During his trial, Ferguson insisted on defending himself and he cross-examined the very victims he injured himself. Luckily however, at the end of the trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to 315 years and 8 months to life in prison, and he's not eligible for parol until August 6, 2309, so most likely he'll never see the light of day again.

If you'd like to learn more about this terrible tragedy, the wikipedia article is an excellent source of information.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of this event, a documentary has also been made telling the story of the victims and families. If you'd like to see it, they have released it recently opposed to a DVD, so you can see it here

In conclusion, I think it's important to remember this event due to it's significance and for those Long Islanders, it's the worst crime on Long Island. Rest in peace to all that died on that terrible day.