The LIRR’s Spring Trackwork Program

It’s a Friday afternoon, your waiting on the platform at Hunterspoint Avenue for an eastbound train towards the Hamptons (cuz, let’s face it who doesn’t take a train to the Hamptons in April) and you hear on the PA an announcement stating that tie replacement on [affected branch] will [cause this to happen]. 

Yep, that’s right we’re now approaching the busiest portion of the LIRR’s Spring Trackwork program, massive program

Here’s a general overview of what will be going on on the railroad this spring, please note that some of these have already finished, I decided to include everything that’s going on: 

• Valley Stream - Switch Rehabilitation & West Hempstead Crossing Rehabilitation 

On the weekends of March 29-30, April 5th and 6th, and April 12th and 13th, one of the two main tracks on the Montauk Branch (Babylon Branch) will be closed between Jamaica and Rockville Centre to support a series of switch rehabilitations in or near Valley Stream, along with a grade crossing rehabilitation on the West Hempstead Branch, which will take the West Hempstead Branch fully OOS on those weekends. 

Due to this, Babylon Branch service will be reduced in both directions between Penn and Babylon during the majority of these 48-hour periods. Also except Montauk Branch schedules to be changed with some trains being extended to/from Jamaica. Limited semi-express service will continue to operate between Penn Station and Babylon for the majority of these 48-hour periods. Additionally, bus service will replace train service on the West Hempstead Branch for this 48-hour period. LIRR customers should expect adjusted schedules on trains on these affected branches while switch work is being performed. Additional service will be provided to/from Montauk on Sunday, March 30th for the Montauk St.Patrick’s Day Parade. 

• Montauk Branch - Crossing Replacement and Maintenance Activities 

On Saturday, April 19th, all tracks between Babylon and Montauk will be out of service for a period of 30 hours while the Snake Hollow Road crossing in Bridgehampton is replaced Tut hull Creek Bridge timber rehabilitation occurs between Sayville and Patchogue, and other track/structural maintenance is performed between Babylon and Montauk. 

With all main tracks out of service between Babylon and Montauk, the Montauk Branch will bustitute train service during a period of 30 hours.

• ADA Station Rehabilitation - Hollis

The ADA project at Hollis is excepted to resume construction on March 24th.

While construction is performed to support the ADA Rehabilitation Project at Hollis, select trains will bypass stops at Elmont-UBS Arena, Hollis, and Queens Village during the midday/weekday period. 

• ADA Station Rehabilitation Project - Forest Hills

The ADA Station Rehabilitation Project at Forest Hills is slated to resume construction in April.

While construction is performed to support the ADA Rehabilitation Project at Forest Hills, select trains will bypass stops at Kew Gardens, Forest Hills; and Woodside during the weekend period. 

With all the construction projects going on, and add that to all the extra trains the LIRR has been running for the St.Patrick’s Day Parades in New York and Montauk, it will be difficult for the railroad to hold up, but I’m sure they’ll manage it as they always do.

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.

Fixing The LIRR’s Intra-City Problem

A question I always asked myself back years ago was why are there so many LIRR stations in Queens? Why just why are there so many when few get close to enough ridership to warrant their existence? Well, at that point I was on the mindset that the sole and only purpose of the LIRR is to bring LIRR commuters to and from Manhattan and Brooklyn, and that intra-island and reverse-peak customers didn’t matter. I didn’t understand enough about how the LIRR works to really understand, but it’s a good question. Anyways, obviously the LIRR prioritizes getting people between their home on Long Island and Manhattan, and Intra-island, intra-city, reverse-peak, off-peak riders, you get the idea, get the backseat over the Manhattan commuters. 

And while that makes sense to a decent extent, since this isn’t the New York City Subway system, this means that intra-island, intra-city, reverse-peak, off-peak riders, whatever, all take a back seat to the Manhattan commuters. And, that isn’t fair to them.

Many countries in other parts of the world (specifically Europe) have successfully managed to integrate their suburban commuter systems into their urban transit systems. While I don’t expect the LIRR to run trains via the subway tracks as hilarious as that is, it would be nice to see them do something to treat the inter-city riders, possibly even introducing a new fare system. There are many people in the city who would love to have to have a direct rail link locally, specifically something the subway couldn’t do. 

A good example of this is the many Queens communities that live past the final terminal of the Subways and many of them would love to have “some sort of connection” to the Subway that didn’t involve a long subway ride or a even more grueling bus ride. Many of them could take the LIRR from places such as Bayside, Douglaston, Queens Village, Hollis, or Locust Manor, but they chose not to because the price versus service provided isn’t worth it. Currently, if you live in Queens Village, for example, to get to Midtown you can hop on the LIRR, 

The common response to discussion about possible intra-city travel in the LIRR is that passengers coming in from Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and I quote from The LIRR Today, who mentioned a very valid point, don’t want to be overrun by the cities “riff-raff” who would like on and take up all their seats once they cross the city line. And while this is a valid point to some degree, I mean imagine an entire (F) trains load worth of people trying to cram onto the already standee-filled #1056 to Ronkonkoma at Jamaica. It would be complete chaos. You can’t exactly charge $2.59 for travel on the LIRR since if you did, all hell would brake loose, and really since the LIRR is a capacity-restricted system with limits. I personally don’t have to worry about this nonsense as I take the Montauk Branch, a branch that rarely makes city stops, however, if I took the Ronkonkoma Branch for example more often, I’m sure I’d notice quite a crowd piling on At Queens Village, especially during the reverse-peak.

I think the LIRR should come up with a way to encourage and incentivize intra-city travel, without going to the expense of longer-distance travelers.

In an attempt to find that workable solution, I have worked on looking after intra-city riders in my sample reworked timetables project I’ve been working on. 

First, to address the issue of service levels not meeting ideal conditions, I have worked to provide more service to stations within the city limits by having more trains terminate/originate at Great Neck and Valley Stream for example. While not directly in city limits themselves, both of them are close to the border and are convenient places to turn trains. I’ve been able to establish manageable headways by providing additional trains from these locations during both the peak and reverse-peak periods, along with expanded service during busier travel times on weekends. Additional service will also be provided to Queens Village and Hollis, which will be handed over to the brand new Belmont Park Branch which will specifically target these riders, and I’ll talk more about this in future posts! 

These trains, while not running with 12-car consists, will run as a manageable alternative to the subway, providing decent headways all day long.

On the topic of fares, while I’m not an expert on railroad fares, and don’t think I have a workable solution worth talking too much about, I’d propose an advanced version of the City Ticket, except it would be valid during all off-peak times. When I end up throwing together the final book and finalize things in this project, I may talk more about a proposed City Fare, however, for now, know that intra-city riders are well taken care of!