Possible Reactivation of the Wading River Branch?

If you know the Port Jefferson Branch, then, chances are you know that it ends in Port Jefferson. But, did you know it actually originally ran to Wading River? Yes, you heard that correctly, originally Port Jefferson was an intermediate point along a very little-used branch line along the North Shore into Wading River. 

The branch originally opened in 1893 as a short 10-mile extension of the "North Shore Branch" to Wading River, with intermediate stops in Miller Place, Rocky Point, and Shoreham. It was originally supposed to eventually continue and rejoin the Main Line at either Riverhead or Calverton, but eventually closed in 1938 instead due to a hurricane and ridership dropped off significantly after it.

Map of the old Wading River Branch

Rocky Point station (Photo: Trains Are Fun)

I believe that once the LIRR eventually electrifies out to Port Jefferson, they should study reopening the line back out to Wading River. It would require them to pretty much rebuild the line from scratch, as all of the tracks are gone, but most of the right-of-way had been sold to LIPA (Long Island Power Authority) to run their powerlines so they could in theory reopen it.  There's also a rail trail there but they could restore a two-track line while keeping the bikepath.

The line would continue to have intermediate stations in Shoreham, Rocky Point, and Miller Place, along with an added stop in Mount Sinai.  I firmly believe an added station in Mount Sinai would be worthwhile, as Mount Sinai has pretty much the same population as Miller Place does, and I see a lot of intra-island/reverse-peak service opportunities as there's quite a bit of medical employment centers out in this area. In fact, I wrote the first part of this post while at my annual eye-doctor appointment in Miller Place! The area has grown quite a bit since when it was abandoned and many believe it could definitely support rail service again.

Miller Place Station (Photo: Trains Are Fun)

If they were to reopen the line, I think a 2-car shuttle (like they do currently on the Greenport line) every hour or so between Wading River and Port Jeff would be sufficient. It takes about 20 minutes for a train to complete the trip and since the line is so short that if they double-tracked, delays would be infrequent so they could probably only need two sets to run hourly-off-peak service with maybe some thru-service to Hicksville, Jamaica, and Hunterspoint Ave during peak times.

And, I've had this odd dream that seams to have taken place 20-25 years from now when C3s have been replaced and Alstom multilevels are the norm in which I'm on a train, headed towards Wading River, at around 8am and I'm travelling on a C3. I think once the LIRR gets the new equipment, instead of retiring the C3s they could run a couple sets of them on this line to live out the last couple of years before real retirement. This would save the newer equipment for the busy Montauk Branch and for the East of Ronkonkoma and Oyster Bay lines and would allow the C3s to run a very easy short slow branch line before full retirement.

Wading River station

In conclusion, while I doubt the Wading River Branch will ever see the light of day again, at least not any time, now you know it did exist, and that they could possibly study it to bring it back one day.

Addressing the LIRR's summer beach services, especially off the South Fork

Through this year's summer schedule changes, the LIRR continues the trend of bringing little to feed summer ridership, something which has been growing rapidly in the last several years.

When they opened East Side Access, instead of looking for ways to improve off-peak travel options for the average traveler they continued to provide the same old hourly headways on the "minor" branches. Instead of looking to improve the single most growing area of ridership on the railroad, they instead continued to overlook the diesel branches, and not try to find ways to rework the schedule to benefit more commuters and leisure travelers alike.

If you've been a regular reader of the site, then you'll know that I talk a lot about summer service on the South Fork and all the improvements that can be made. And while I'll be honest and say the LIRR does provide a pretty good selection on the South Fork, there's still a lot that can be done with existing equipment to help with the extreme South Fork crowding. However, in today's post, I want to focus on the LIRR's disapointing summer service, specifically out on the North Fork and Long Beach, areas that both can see much more improvement then what can be seen on the South Fork, but continued to be pretty much ignored outright. In a future post, I'll be detailing exactly what improvements can be made to summer service on the South Fork, as well.

Long Beach

One of the more aggravating parts that have been continued in this year's summer schedules is summer service on the Long Beach Branch. 

This year, they once again changed the departure times of westbound Long Beach Branch trains on weekends, this time they changed it to :38 past the hour. Then, they made the move to have the only westbound express train to serve Long Beach depart at 4:28pm, which makes no sense since there's only a 10 minute gap between trains.

And, to be honest, this is one area the LIRR can actually do a lot to improve. Summer conditions on the Montauk Branch are kinda set in stone until the LIRR receives more equipment, and while I don't mean they can't make any improvements, it's very limited in what they can do. However, the same can't be said with the Long Beach Branch as there's a surplus of electric equipment that just sits around in yards on weekends, and during the middays when people are most traveling to the beach.

 Example of seasonal Long Beach service

And Long Beach ridership is really at the point where it could sustain half-hourly service. Far Rockaway Branch ridership is roughly half of what Long Beach sees, yet it receives the same plain-old hourly service. It’s almost at the point where the Long Beach Branch could warrant an upgrade to half-hourly service, at least during the summer months and during the winter for winter shopping from May to September. To be honest, the LIRR really should think of investinf

The LIRR likes to use the excuse that they can’t provide any more trains into Penn Station, forgetting that they just built an over $11 billion dollar new terminal, also located in the heart of Manhattan. While Grand Central may not be located in downtown, it's still a busy area and I'm pretty sure with all those subway and bus connections it would be well-used. 

I’ve heard many people who’d prefer to use Grand Central in order to get out to the beach, and I think it could be a popular service in both directions. I think hourly Long Beach-GCT trains during the peak direction on summer weekends could actually be a decently popular service and they could try that for a summer. They have enough equipment to do it, why not give it a try?

North Fork

Similarly overlooked, the new schedules continue bring very little to the North Fork. Stuck with the long forgotten and overlooked scoot, the non-electrified Main Line receives less service than it did 40 years ago. While I can't blame the railroad for not adding too many more trains, considering they have failed to install PTC, therefore, they have to run very limited schedules on it, I do blame them for getting out of installing PTC in the first place and I believe they can still make some improvements to at least make this branch "workable" until further improvements can be made along the branch.

In it's current state, this line literally has no potential to grow. Stuck with one lousy AM peak train, that departs Greenport before even the rooster wakes up at 5:21am, running even earlier than the first peak train from Montauk, and it's already a bad start considering if they shift this train back another 25 minutes or so, it'll be of at least some use to people, getting into Penn slightly later. 

In order to make use of the little equipment and space we have, I believe after arriving at Ronkonkoma, it should immediately turn around and head out to Yaphank, and then represent another peak run back to Ronkonkoma, to at least provide a later option for people. It would then head out, once again, a bit later, as the normal morning train to Greenport. This will make the early train to Greenport a bit later, hopefully of slightly more use to summer travelers. While none of this is ideal, until we install PTC, get more equipment, this will at least make use of the little infrastructure we have. We should also convert the early, early morning equipment train out to Greenport to revenue service, as while I believe few would use it, it would be a zero-cost improvement and we should not ever be deadheading on this line, zero excuses, and hey, it could be considered a fisherman's train. Who knows!

And not to mention that if you want to spend a daytrip out in Greenport on a weekday, the options are extremely limited. You could either take a 5:40am out of Penn, and connect with the 7:25am out of Greenport, getting you there around 9am. And while I'm not doubting that train is useful for certain reverse-peak customers, with the limited equipment we have, it should be geared more towards summer crowds on weekdays and it should be really shifted back about an hour and a half in order to provide a better option. And while it would deny an early reverse-peak option, reverse-peak travel out there is so limited anyway that it would do much more good than it would do harm to run it later. 

I was planning on taking a daytrip out to Greenport today, Juneteenth, but since the options are so limited with a 7:25am departure out of Ronkonkoma, which is way to early! I'm just going to go this weekend instead since there's more options. It sometimes feels like the LIRR is almost sabotaging summer service altogether on this branch.

(Photo: MTA)

I mean look it's getting to the point where it was easier to get to/from Greenport 62 years ago then it is now. And if in railroad, service now is worse than 62 years ago, then that should mean there's a huge problem. Take a look at how service was provided in the 1980s and compare it to today, service then was much better structured and convenient, and that's with true busses to supplement it! 

Summer Fridays

Continuing the trend that they've done for years, the LIRR continues to provide a second eastbound train to Greenport on Friday afternoons in the summer (extending the train that would otherwise turn at Riverhead), and use that opportunity to swap out the equipment. When the second eastbound train gets out there, the crews swap equipment with the old set going back to Jamaica Storage Yard to be refueled, serviced, while the new set begins it's run on the Scoot. 

(Photo: The LIRR Today)

There's nothing wrong with that. However, the LIRR runs that second set of equipment all the way from Jamaica Storage Yard to Ronkonkoma, empty. The LIRR could easily take this opportunity to provide an express run out to Greenport, for zero cost, and not only would this for the first time in years provide a direct express train out to the North Fork, but it would also most likely take some load off the Ronkonkoma Branch, which it's trains are quite busy on Fridays at this time of day. 

The truth is... they should've done that years ago when they first ran that second equipment out but instead they continued to do it this way. Of all the times they could provide a direct ride out there, this is one of the best and most popular times of the week to provide time savings to these travelers. 

I mean look, I think we can all agree Montauk is better, but how come Montauk gets hourly service out to there, yet, Greenport, on the other hand, doesn't even a direct train, when it could using already available equipment. 

With a branch like this that has so little service opportunities, the LIRR should jump at any idea to improve service, especially at no-cost to riders. This would give people a faster ride and would take stress of busy Ronkonkoma trains on summer Fridays, and would at least make it look like they tried to improve service.

Now, I will be showing off what I believe the LIRR can do with the North Fork more long-term in a future post, but, for now, I think there's a lot the LIRR can do to improve service just a bit.

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.