“Transfer at Jamaica”

“Change” or “Transfer” at Jamaica is a very common phrase on Long Island. Chances are, if you live on Long Island, you’ve heard this phrase at least once before in your life. The phrase refers to the concept of getting off one train at Jamaica and transferring to another one at Jamaica.

As many of you know, Jamaica Station is the convergence of all but one of the LIRR’s branches (specifically the 3 major “trunklines”). At this point, the Atlantic Branch, Montauk Branch, and Main Line all converge into one giant station. Trains on all but one of the LIRR’s branches (The Port Washington) pass through this station at one point of the day.

The LIRR goes to four western terminals; Penn Station in Midtown, Grand Central on the East Side, Hunterspoint Av in Queens, and Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn. Let’s pretend you wanted to go to Atlantic Terminal. You could stand on the platform at Ronkonkoma and wait all day for a train to Atlantic Terminal but unless you’re there at 5:30am on a weekday, you’re going to be waiting a long, long, long time. Changing trains at Jamaica allows you to cut that wait time in half in many instances, and makes it an easy way to get to those terminals and anywhere on the island.

Let’s pretend you live in diesel territory but you’d like to go to Nostrand Av, for example, diesel trains cannot go onto the Atlantic Branch, therefore, the LIRR gives you the only option of getting on a train that is stopping at Jamaica, then at Jamaica changing to the proper train. 

This means that a weekend Ronkonkoma Branch traveller who wants to go to Brooklyn won’t have to wait until 5:30am monday morning.

The LIRR used to have “timed transfers”, which essentially meant that a Far Rockaway-Brooklyn train had a particular connection to a particular train going to Penn Station as shown on TrainTime and the schedules. Essentially, if the Far Rockaway-Brooklyn train was late, the Huntington-Penn Station train that was it’s connection would wait until that train arrived in order to pick up those passengers. However, with the opening of East Side Access, the LIRR abolished timed-transfers, meaning that the Huntington-Penn Station train would no longer wait. Therefore, if the wait time for Penn Station was 20 minutes, so be it, you’d be stuck for 20 minutes.

Changing trains at Jamaica is a concept only really found on the Long Island Rail Road. The LIRR’s sister, Metro-North, doesn’t really have that situation as all trains end or begin in Grand Central Terminal. Therefore, there’s no need to change. You may think of transferring at Harlem - 125 St, but since all trains begin in Grand Central, there’s no need. The LIRR’s other neighbor, NJTransit, specifically constructed a transfer station in Secaucus for seamless transfer between NJTransit’s former Erie lines (the Main, Bergen, and Pascack Valley lines) to trains to/from New York. NJTransit, however, doesn’t have timed connections at Secaucus, nor anywhere else. Therefore, if your train from New York is late, you can probably forget about catching your connection at Secaucus. They’re actually better about connections at their Newark stations.

Jamaica station, and it’s HALL and JAY interlockings, have been designed specifically to make transfers as easy as possible for passengers. The interlockings were designed so well that trains going in opposite directions never have to cross paths. This involves the use of “flyover tracks” where the tracks “flyover” the ones there and then come down into the interlocking.

HALL Interlocking (Photo: Trains Are Fun)

Essentially, it’s possible for a train from Long Beach-Grand Central, a train from Speonk-Long Island City, and a train from Huntington-Penn Station to all approach the station, stop at Jamaica, and then leave on their merry way without ever having cross in front of each other. This can also be seen in the other direction. This is thanks to the builders at Jamaica which specifically designed it for this purpose. During peak and sometimes off-peak periods, it’s not uncommon to see bunches of trains run “neck-to-neck” through the interlockings and onto the platform.

Jamaica Station is designed so well that the LIRR can operate 6 trains through the complex at one time without ever having to cross-paths with another train. Despite the slow speeds as these trains navigate the never-ending mindfield of switches, signals, and flyovers, the movement of trains through Jamaica is actually very fluid. The system, however, isn’t perfect, and neither are the signals, since a signal malfunction or switch problems can cripple the rest of the rush hour if not attended to quickly.

Jamaica station consists of 8 station tracks (not including the two without platforms), and 5 different platforms. The tracks aren’t exactly configured in a way that consists of a platform and 2 tracks next to it, and then another. Instead, it’s a slightly different configuration is that much easier to understand when shown graphically. I was planning on making my own diagram, but I'm short on time so I'm going to borrow the one made by The LIRR Today:

Credit to Patrick from The LIRR Today for this image!

Jamaica station can effectively be split in half as there’s mainly two sets of platforms with the first being the westbound set and the second being the eastbound set. The westbound platforms.

The two westbound platforms house tracks 1, 2, and 3, while the three eastbound platforms house the tracks 6, 7, and 8. During rush hours, trains from three different terminals can arrive on tracks 1,2 and 3, and those passengers can transfer between trains by walking across the platform. If passengers would like to access track 3 from track 1, or vice versa, the position of track 2 allows them to open the doors on both platforms allowing people to walk through the open doors of a train on track 2.

Therefore, during a rush hour, a westbound train to Hunterspoint Av can pull in on track 1, a Penn Station train on track 2, all the while an Atlantic Terminal train pulls in on track 3. This is great, especially during rush hours as passengers can easily switch trains. At other stations such as Secaucus and Newark Penn for instance, it’s much more difficult as you have to go over flights of stairs. Therefore, less complaining about a single transfer at Jamaica!

Anyways, track assignments at Jamaica are pretty consistent. Generally, from what I’ve seen, terminating trains/Hunterspoint Av trains generally arrive on track 1 while New York trains arrive on track 2 and Brooklyn trains on track 3. Coming eastbound, trains bound for the Atlantic Branch (Far Rockaway and Long Beach) generally arrive on track 6 while trains bound for the Montauk Branch (Babylon and West Hempstead) generally arrive on track 7 and trains for the Mainline and diesel trains originating at Jamaica typically depart from track 8.

Meanwhile, tracks 4 and 5 are like the “multi-purpose rooms” of the railroad. They are in the middle of everything and can be used in either direction. Generally speaking, the railroad typically sends flyers down these tracks. I’ve believe I remeber off-peak Long Beach trains arriving on that track, but it’s generally only used a bit during peak periods.

The Misconceptions

When many people hear the the phrase, “Change at Jamaica”, people normally associate it as something that is annoying and painful, and don’t think about the fact that all they have to walk either across the platform or up and over.

Changing trains at Jamaica isn’t all that difficult. The transfer experience is slightly better at Babylon as all you have to do is walk across the platform and the train’s already there, but it’s also much better then the transfer experience at Huntington. Also, before you complain about safety issues or getting mugged and what not, Jamaica station itself is a very safe station.

However, with that being said, there’s one thing you can get out of this article: people absolutely despise transfers. Some people despise it so much that they’ll go out of their way for a train to New York (even on the diesel branches), even if there’s an earlier train that can get them their either much closer to when they need to be or much faster. For many, their destination is New York Penn, therefore, people will cram onto trains to New York Penn leaving the perfectly fine trains to Grand Central and Atlantic Terminal unused. If they cannot get a train to their destination on their branch, they’ll drive to a station that does. Even those who go to Grand Central will still go out of their way for a direct train, even when they could just get on an Atlantic Terminal train and get to their destination faster.

Since the majority of people want to go to the New York terminals, the LIRR schedules most of the trains to go there. However, there’s a lot of people that go to the NY terminals since it’s easiest to get to. There’s many people who would likely get to their destinations faster by utlizing Atlantic Terminal or Hunterspoint Av instead, but they choose to just go via New York because that’s where most of the trains on their branch are going. For example, a Inwood-Hunterspoint Av commuter may want to take a train to Hunterspoint Av, but may choose to go to Penn Station instead due to the necessity for a transfer since no trains on their branch go there.

Therefore, this increases loads on the New York trains, and as a result, those who actually want to get to New York Penn essentially can’t. By adding trains to Hunterspoint Av and Atlantic Terminal, not only will it free up seats on those New York trains for those who actually want to go to NY-Penn Station and NY-Grand Central, but it’ll also provide additional service that anyone can use, no matter their terminal. A way to encourage those who might get to their destinations faster by utilizing Atlantic Terminal and/or Hunterspoint Av is reminding them about the time difference. They could even attempt to create a map showing which areas can be served fastest by one particular terminal. You could likely convince some to switch over if you explain the benefits.

(Photo: The LIRR Today)

I believe the LIRR should also bring back timed-transfers. With the completion of East Side Access and all the scheduling drama came one of the biggest scheduling mistakes the LIRR has made: abolishing timed-transfers.

In conclusion, the phrase “Change at Jamaica” has been a tradition that has aged quite well. In the future, I believe the LIRR needs to be more flexible as a railroad, but I also believe the transferring system at Jamaica makes so many of the LIRR’s trips possible!

What The Port Washington Branch Timetable Could Look Like

Today I’ll unveil the first of the 14 timetables that is part of the LIRR Reworked Timetables project. Our first post will begin with The Port Washington Branch. The Port Washington is known by the railroad and railfans for being the only branch that doesn’t pass through Jamaica, instead it merges into the Main Line at Woodside. The Port Washington Branch is definitely not the easiest as far as scheduling nor service patterns, but it’s a lot easier in the sense that you don’t have to worry about Jamaica. Since I’m aware of this, when making these timetables, I did my very best to evenly distribute the trains between New York Penn and Grand Central, and I will try to have easy transfers available to the other terminal at Woodside.

Included in the linked PDF file below is the Full Sample Weekday and Weekend Port Washington Branch Timetable. Peak, off-peak, extra, and special event 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 what was said on the introduction page yesterday, “Key Assumptions” needs to be taken care of and mentioned before this project can become totally feasible. I’ve tried my best to design the schedules and trains in a way that makes these schedules able to be used whether or not these projects are completed but in same cases that’s not possible.

Key Assumptions:

• I’ve added in Corona & Elmhurst stations to the excel timetables, because I think the LIRR will bring them back into service, as Elmhurst Station was featured in the MTA’s 2025-2044 20-Year Needs Assessment to relieve crowding and congestion on the IRT Flushing Line. I also feel that if Elmhurst Station was revived, Corona could go along with it. This also makes the schedules more adaptable, however, it is very important to note that there is absolutely no time difference for WB and EB trains alike to stop there due to the fact that these stations are very small.
• While this can probably be worked around, a second track between Manhasset and Port Washington would really help build capacity up on this portion of the line.

Service Guidelines:

• At a minimum, service will be provided half-hourly to all stations along the branch (with the only exception being late-nights). During the off-peak periods, trains will alternate between New York Penn and New York Grand Central Terminal for the most part, allowing for hourly direct rides to both terminals.
• During the weekday peak period, service consists of 20-minute headways branchwide (there are a couple of exceptions). The branch is split between two main halves: trains that operate east of Great Neck and trains that begin their runs at Great Neck, turning via the Great Neck Pocket Track. To increase service during the peak of the peak, additional trains have been run from Little Neck, Bayside, and Douglaston.
• During the reverse-peak period, some equipment trains that operate against-the-flow from Great Neck to/from western terminals will now accept revenue passengers for all or part of their runs alternating terminals when possible to allow for robust reverse-peak service, while minimizing deadheading.
• On weekends, train service is increased during the busiest times: (specifically 8:30 AM WB to 11:30am WB and 4:00 PM EB to 7:30 PM EB.) During these times, train service operates with 15-minute headways branchwide and operates on a similar model to the 6 train, with the outer-zone receiving express service while local trains start out of Great Neck.
• Additional scheduled service to support events at Mets-Willets Point/Flushing Meadows Park have been included, however, this does not include unscheduled extras that typically run following the completion of an event as those cannot be planned, but in normal cases, those trains will either turn off EB trains at Great Neck or will come fresh from the Great Neck Pocket Track.

Link to Port Washington Branch Timetable

I designed service on the Port Washington Branch to cater to those who live past the IRT Flushing Line’s namesake terminal of Flushing-Main St, while still providing acceptable service that promotes growth to those who live in Queens. 

As of now, the best I could guarantee was 20-minute headways sustained in the peak direction, however, frequencies regularly exceed that, especially on the busier portions of the branch. 

During off-peak periods, half-hourly service is provided with trains alternating terminals. 

At stations like Great Neck, I tried whenever possible in situations where two trains depart within minutes of each other to operate to different terminals. Take the AM peak period, for example, in which train 413 (the 6:47am train from Port Washington to Grand Central) stops at Great Neck at 6:57am. A couple of minutes later, train 1315 (the 7:02am local from Great Neck to Penn Station) rolls in. So, while connections aren’t guaranteed, it allows a traveller from Plandome, for example, to transfer trains at Great Neck to the local to Penn Station that follows behind the express, promoting quick intra-island travel and allowing for quick transfers. 

Like I emphasized above, the fact that the Port Washington Branch doesn’t stop at Jamaica makes traveling on the branch much more difficult, and by coordinating little “mini-transfers” at Great Neck, that makes things much easier. I tried to keep most trains stopping at Woodside, besides some of the major express trains as it allows for people to easily get to the terminal of their choice, and it also allows for someone who might want to travel to somewhere else on the island to avoid the headache of having to go all the way into Manhattan.

Reverse-peak weekday service includes a number of “revenue deadheads” that exist mainly to transport equipment for trains that turn at Great Neck, but now stop on the line just to provide supplemental service. Some of the deadheads that don’t run as revenue trains, however, have actually been kept in the schedule as Mets Extras that run when the Mets play evening games at home.  During the evening reverse-peak, there’s a notable amount of trains that begin out of Great Neck, to the point where I by accident said evening rush! I was also able to sneak an additional train out of Bayside, too.

I think I’ve now given you a good understanding of how Port Washington Branch service could look like on these new timetables. Feel free to comment if you have any questions about the scheduling or if you notice something. Time does not permit me to write an in-depth analysis of every train and probably doesn’t permit you to read it, either, so if anything is unclear or you’d like to know my reasoning behind something, please just ask. Additionally, I’ve made millions of tiny edits to the excel spreadsheet over the 11 or so months I’ve been working on this branch’s timetables so it’s likely that some tiny (or major) typos will arise, and if you catch any, please let me know of that, too. And finally, if you have any suggestions, and want to see something changed, please let me know by leaving a comment at the bottom of these posts or you leave me an email 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.

Interlocking Walkthrough: VALLEY

In today's interlocking walkthrough, we're gonna take a look at the complex and known VALLEY interlocking on the bustling South Shore. To start, a special trait about VALLEY is that of all the railroad's interlockings, at least those that lie on Long Island. It's not supsrising, as VALLEY hosts 5 of the railroads eleven branches, including the Long Beach and Far Rockaway Branches as stopping services, and the West Hempstead, Babylon, and in some cases, Montauk Branch trains pass through (one very early reverse-peak Babylon train stops there). Valley Stream marks the end of the Atlantic Branch, and the start of the aforementioned 3 branches.

Here's an arial view of the entire VALLEY interlocking (don't worry I'll explain it well):

Sorry it's so small. Anyway, starting at the westbound end of the platform, there are four tracks. The two northernmost tracks are part of the Montauk Branch (Babylon, West Hempstead, and Montauk trains usually use these tracks). Therefore, the two southern tracks make up the Atlantic Branch which is used by Long Beach and Far Rockaway trains. 

The first part of the interlocking consists of a cluster of different switches to the west of the station, there's a total of four crossovers. A train travelling eastbound from the Montauk Branch can actually switch onto any of the Atlantic Branch tracks, but not vice-versa.) The switches are designed in a way to allow Montauk Branch trains to stop at Valley Stream, though they rarely do. 

The Atlantic Branch officially ends at the eastern tip of Valley Stream's platform, this marks 15.8 miles since Atlantic Terminal. East of here, the Atlantic Branch splits into two branches-the Long Beach and Far Rockaway Branches. The Far Rockaway Branch turns south via a weird pair of crossovers just east of the station and these trains can now go on their merry way for the 20 minute stretch to Far Rockaway. If you continue straight after the Far Rockaway branch diverges, it will land you on the platforms of Lynbrook. If you don't choose to head towards Long Beach, these trains could also choose to go on the VALLEY Lead Track, which is a electrified siding that is used to layup trains, specifically the old West Hempstead - Valley Stream shuttles that ran before ESA changes. The lead track eventually merges back to the Long Beach branch, before the final crossover and the interlocking ends.

Before East Side Access, the West Hempstead branch, as some of you know, was made up of these clumsy, bi-hourly shuttles that terminated at Valley Stream during the off-peak periods. The "natural, and current" path for West Hempstead trains is for a train coming off the branch to just join the Babylon Branch and then "leap" to Jamaica. However, before ESA, these trains had to have this clumsy, inefficient crossover move that required these trains to switch over 3 tracks in order to make the platform at Valley Stream to terminate. This is why many of the peak trains on the branch would just skip Valley Stream entirely. It's not hard to imagine what would happen if these zig-zagging West Hempstead trains were mixed in with rush hours.

Meanwhile that's going on, the Babylon Branch justs "plows through" without any restriction. I mean, the Montauk Branch doesn't really have switching movements as much of that occurs later down the line. There's one early reverse-peak service (I believe it departs Penn Station at 4:30 something) for Babylon that stops there, but other than that, these trains can just carry on their merry way without having to worry about a thing.

Hiding in the corner is the small, tiny, Valley Yard, which is a 3 track yard that actually isn't electrified and will normally store MOW equipment.

There's also VALLEY Tower which controls the Babylon Branch interlockings:

VALLEY Tower. Note the Far Rockaway crossovers. (Photo: The Position Light)

Here's a nice look at the massive position light signals (Photo: The Position Light)

I feel like this video by a friend of mine really captures the spirit of VALLEY interlocking, showcasing just how crazy things can get during rush hours. It's an important interlocking, as without it, there's no South Shore service. I remember hearing that back years ago when they redid the interlocking, there was no train service to it at all and they ran special dual-modes from Babylon Branch stations via the Mainline.

What The LIRR's Future Timetables Could Look Like

It’s March 2nd, 2025, a little over two years after Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access (ESA) project opened on January 25th, 2023, and since the opening of Grand Central Madison and the Long Island Railroad’s biggest timetable refinements in history, very little has changed to improve upon the original June 2022 draft timetables, and most of the changes they have made have only been minor tweaks to times, and cuts in service. On February 27th, 2023 when full direct service to Grand Central Madison began, not only was that monumental for the railroad for getting a new station, but also it was also the first and one of the only points in history when they’ve completely redone their timetables from scratch.

With all that being emphasized, in their draft schedules, the LIRR did restart their schedules from scratch and ripped up a lot of service patterns along with creating new ones. And, the new East Side Access timetables did bring a lot of improvements to the table such as hourly West Hempstead service to Atlantic Terminal, sending off-peak Far Rockaway & Hempstead Branch trains to Manhattan opposed to Brooklyn, enhanced reverse-peak service on all branches, etc. However, the new timetables weren’t all good and have been plaguing riders (especially riders on Diesel Branches, Brooklyn, Hunterspoint Avenue & Long Island City) with many problems such as uneven gaps, very little (almost fully decimated) through service to Brooklyn, and the removal of timed-transfers (which is arguable). Not only that, but, the railroad gave no improvement to diesel territory service (with no additional dual-mode service along with very little increase in trains, almost all just time refinements), very little additional peak service to Long Island overall, and the Port Washington Branch is probably the worst of the problems with terrible distribution of trains to both city terminals and because the line doesn’t pass through Jamaica which makes things that more difficult, they’ve done little to provide connections to the other terminal at Woodside.

Now, it’s come to my plan. I've been working on a project over the last 10 months or so to revamp the LIRR's Post-ESA Timetables, and I will try my best to fix all the problems that the current schedules bare as well as commuter complaints.

First of all, I will completely start fresh and throw out the old timetables, in place of new timetables in a fresh excel workbook, (with a new & improved timetable design that greatly improves upon the LIRR’s standard design based mainly off Metro-North’s design) and in doing this I will start fresh with a set of new service patterns, along with some of the older ones from the current and prior schedules. Tomorrow I will begin with the easiest branch, The Port Washington Branch, and work my way up to the crazy Babylon Branch and Mainline.

As far as the page layout goes, each page will begin with some information on the branch, and how I plan to make the timetable service layout. The next section will be called “Key Assumptions” which will layout some basic things (such as infrastructure) that need to be in place (I tried to minimize this as much as possible) in order for these new timetables to function correctly, along with “Service Guidelines” which will list some basic information & principals for how peak & off-peak service will work.

I will try my absolute best to make these timetables as efficient as possible for everyone, but, I guarantee you it will be a challenge to make everything fit together especially at Jamaica, on the mainline, and areas W. of Jamaica, along with during the peak-of-the-peak. Before I start, I’d like to make clear to you that even if the LIRR was to take parts of this schedule and substitute/implement them it would improve service along the line in that area dramatically.

Just to make this clear, (if it’s not already), none of these timetables or this document is official LIRR (or MTA) material. I am hoping the railroad will at least look at and maybe adopt some of the service changes, if not completely implementing these schedules depending on the outcome of them. I will try my best to represent the best use of LIRR infrastructure currently, and whether or not they agree with what I think is not known, (but with the state of the railroad right now, I don’t like my chances).

While making these timetable document pages, I will try my best to explain my reasoning for things, as well as the service patterns, but time simply doesn’t permit me to explain every little tweak and oddity that occurs in the schedules. I will also try my best to not make tiny (or even major) typos while making these timetables, but due to the shear amount of edits that will need to be made to the excel spreadsheet, it’s very likely some will come up. And I’ve also tried to find and think of everything, but I’m not aware of the needs of everyone, and I cannot find every grammar mistake that comes up. but if you spot a mistake or have any questions/comments/concerns please feel free to e-mail me at gavin.s.wilcox@gmail.com.

I have set up this page on the site as the "table of contents" or "database" for the project and will list links to each of the branches (in order to when made) timetables. Also, when I publish each branch's timetable and publish it, I do not intend for that to be the end of that timetable, as I work on other branches I will most likely have to make dozens of revisions to make trains fit together. At one point, after everything is completed, I will throw together one final book that will feature all of the timetables and service explanations, however, that will be a long time from now as a million different revisons will occur before then (it's just obvious!!!). But, anyways, let us start with the Port Washington Branch!

The Great Neck Pocket Track

The Great Neck Pocket Track is an important piece of rail infrastructure (argued to be the most important infrastructure piece). The pocket track is what gives the Port Washington Branch a good boost during rush hours.

The Port Washington Branch, like most branches of the LIRR, is double-tracked for a lot of its length, however, that double tracking is reduced  to a single-track line at NECK interlocking, just east of Great Neck. This single tracked line is probably the worst bottleneck in the entire system. By substantially limiting the amount of trains that can get to Port Washington and turn back west and vice versa, the single track segment could paralyze the entire line if not for the pocket track.

The main problem here is Port Washington Yard. Basically, the LIRR doesn’t have enough room in Port Washington to store the amount of trains needed, and NIMBY’s won’t let them add any more. So basically, once the yard fills up, the LIRR has no choice but to run trains back west, but how do you do that if the line is single-tracked? Well, they have to stop eastbound service to allow enough time to let some of the pressure off the yard. If the LIRR could boost capacity to include even just an additional 2 yard tracks in Port Washington yard, it would help a lot, but they can’t, so, we’re stuck with what we have.

The pocket tracks allows the LIRR to split the line into two segments: Main St to Great Neck and Great Neck (or Bayside) to Port Washington. By running some trains express along the portion between Flushing and Bayside/Great Neck during rush hours as “outer zone” trains and having some trains terminate at Great Neck as “inner zone trains” not only does it fulfill capacity, but it also distributes the loads, and allows for smart terminal management. The thing is, without the Great Neck Pocket Track, the LIRR would have to cut 16 trains from the schedule and make all the trains local! 

As you can imagine, that wouldn’t end well. But then, The Great Neck Pocket track steps in to save the day. The pocket tracks allows the LIRR to get trains out of the way and turn them back west in order to not clog up Port Washington yard. So, the pocket track is in a great location, it allows for trains to turn without being in the way of thru-trains to Port Washington, and it allows the busier stations west-of Great Neck to get the full advantage of double tracking.

I’ll be talking much more about the Port Washington Branch soon, so stay tuned! 

The Great Port Washington Branch Terminal Mess of 2023

In today’s post, I will be telling a tale of LIRR scheduling— a story that is crazy on many levels (well, not really)

It all started when the LIRR noticed ridership feedback suggesting people wanted more express trains to Penn Station, so with the fourth round of major changes to the timetables came GO 203- which had quite a lot in store for the Port Washington Branch! The LIRR announced that based on “community feedback”, they’d be making several changes to morning rush hour service to provide more express trains from Nassau County to Penn Station.

They announced these changes on the Port Washington Branch:

• Train 415, the 6:47am from Port Washington to Grand Central would be renumbered to train 315, would depart 5 minutes earlier at 6:42am, and be rerouted to Penn Station. This train would also now run express from Great Neck to Mets-Willets Point, dropping stops at Little Neck, Douglaston, and Bayside. Riders at these local stations would either have to depart 29 minutes earlier or 5 minutes later. Riders for Grand Central would either have to depart 32 minutes earlier or arrive 42 minutes later. 
• Train 1413 (the 6:28a from Great Neck to Grand Central) would add stops in Little Neck and Douglaston to fill the gap in service. 
• Train 1315 (the 7:03a from Great Neck to Penn Station) would depart 1 minute earlier at 7:02am and add stops in Little Neck and Douglaston to the fill the gap in service. 
• Train 419, the 7:19am from Port Washington to Penn Station would be renumbered to train 319 and would run non-stop from Great Neck to Penn Station arriving there at 7:54am. This train would no longer stop at Little Neck, Douglaston, or Bayside. Riders looking to travel to Grand Central would have either have to depart 37 minutes earlier and transfer at Great Neck and Woodside or drop back at Great Neck to a local train and arrive 12 minutes later. 
• Train 1319, the 7:38am train from Little Neck to Penn Station would be renumbered to train 1419, would add a stop at Great Neck at 7:35am, and also be rerouted to Grand Central. Riders looking for Penn Station would either need to depart 33 minutes earlier or arrive 43 minutes later.

Now, chances are, after reading this, your wondering whether or not this was really a good idea. And, I can assure you, it wasn’t.

The LIRR claimed they gutted all morning rush hour service to Grand Central based on calls from riders for more fast express trains to Penn Station. But, the truth is, the LIRR still cannot understand that commuters want more trains, not the reshuffling of existing trains. And as you can see, this made riders furious.

For riders traveling via the North Shore to Penn Station during the morning rush, this new GO offered 9 PEAK trains (8 direct, 1 transfer at Woodside, and 2 useless trains with no connections). For those unlucky travelers looking to get from the North Shore to New York via Grand Central, the November service plan offered riders from the busiest part of the Port Washington Branch just 6 trains— one of which only 3 of those were direct, and 3 of those require transfers. The other 55 were useless with no viable connections.

One of the main issues of that service change was the fact that of these trains, 7 don’t even have viable connections! If your going to run more trains to one terminal, at the least almost all those trains should have viable connections to the other terminal. The fact that the Port Washington Branch doesn’t pass through Jamaica had actually been celebrated until East Side Access, when it became a big problem. Without Jamaica, Port Washington Branch riders have many less transfer opportunities. In many cases, their only options are to either drop back to an earlier train on the Port Washington Branch (i.e drop back to a local train at Great Neck or Bayside) or make a very irritating up-and-over at Woodside. The first case is normally the better option but it adds lots of travel time since not only do you have to sit through all those annoying local stops, but you also have to wait out in the cold, snow, rain, sleet, heat, etc.

Soon afterwards, the LIRR riders noticed how badly things were getting and demanded changes. A Change.org petition was started on October 26, 2023 to run more trains to Grand Central and got over 1,000 signatures. However, the LIRR ignored this and my guess for this is that they wanted to see the damage being done before they decided to correct it.

One frustrated rider recorded the nonsense and frustration onboard the 7:19am train right after the November 2023 service changes began. Feat. a trainload full of cold and pissed passengers disembarking onto the cold platform at Great Neck to wait for the local while their 12-car train that was nearly empty pulled away. If you’d like to view the video, here’s the link.

Now, for the part of the tale that will keep you on the edge of your seats (not really). The LIRR decided to schedule two express trains from Port Washington to Penn Station 5 minutes apart!!!!!! These trains, 315 and 319 would depart at 7:14 and 7:19am respectively, and only the second one had a 6-minute wait for a Great-Neck local connection. When’s the next train you ask? 36 minutes later. And yet the LIRR boasted about how it’s new schedules would make wait times more consistent across the rush hour.

To make matters worse, this second 7:19am train still ran with 12 cars and barley averaged 15-20% loads after people got off at Great Neck to transfer to other trains. And spoiler, even to this day, I still quite often see this train with barely anyone on it thanks to how close they are.

@LIRR congrats, you’re running a virtually empty 12 car westbound 7:19am express train from PW to Penn just 5 minutes after another Penn bound express departed! This as the GCM bound is packed after the GN xfer. This is absurd. Please explain your rationale. pic.twitter.com/vF5wTY4zM7

— Biz (@ebisman) November 13, 2023

After mounting pressure from local officials including one of the NYS senators, the LIRR finally reverted two of those trains to go back to Grand Central. 

Of those changes, these are the ones that have been modified or reverted:

• Train 415, the 6:47am from Port Washington to Grand Central would be renumbered to train 315, would depart 5 minutes earlier at 6:42am, and be rerouted to Penn Station. This train would also now run express from Great Neck to Mets-Willets Point, dropping stops at Little Neck, Douglaston, and Bayside. Riders at these local stations would either have to depart 29 minutes earlier or 5 minutes later. Riders for Grand Central would either have to depart 32 minutes earlier or arrive 42 minutes later. 
• Train 1413 (the 6:28a from Great Neck to Grand Central) would add stops in Little Neck and Douglaston to fill the gap in service.
• Train 1315 (the 7:03a from Great Neck to Penn Station) would depart 1 minute earlier at 7:02am and add stops in Little Neck and Douglaston to the fill the gap in service.
• Train 419, the 7:19am from Port Washington to Grand Central would be renumbered to train 319 and would run non-stop from Great Neck to Penn Station arriving there at 7:54am. This train would no longer stop at Little Neck, Douglaston, or Bayside. Riders looking to travel to Grand Central would have either have to depart 37 minutes earlier and transfer at Great Neck and Woodside or drop back at Great Neck to a local train and arrive 12 minutes later.
• Train 1319, the 7:38am train from Little Neck to Penn Station would be renumbered to train 1419, would add a stop at Great Neck at 7:35am, and also be rerouted to Grand Central. Riders looking for Penn Station would either need to depart 33 minutes earlier or arrive 43 minutes later.

In conclusion, if this was happening in 2025 it would be a huge problem, and even then, I believe it was poor service planning, but considering the LIRR was still a bit disoriented after the opening of ESA with all these changes, complaints, comments still going around, I think it should be a lesson learned. 

The rest of the posts this week will focus on the Port Washington Branch as we lead up to unveil of our first timetable!

Interlocking Walkthrough: WOOD

Up next for our Interlocking Walkthroughs is WOOD interlocking. It’s not that old anymore, but for a part of the railroad that has been around for so long, I expected it to be older. This interlocking first went into service on March 21, 1988, right around my birthday! As crazy as it may seam for an area so congested, WOOD only consists of three crossovers with two on the Port Washington Branch and one located on the Main Line.



Switches

WOOD interlocking covers the short span east in which the Port Washington and Main Line both run parallel each other. There are three crossovers. The Port Washington Branch’s crossovers, going from west to east, consist of a crossover from track 1 (the westbound track) to track 2. Not to far down the line, there’s another back from track 2.

The Mainline, however, only has one little crossover from Mainline 2 (the eastbound express track) to Mainline 4 (the eastbound local). This switch could be used for an eastbound that is bypassing Woodside but needs to make local stops in Forest Hills and Kew Gardens. However, normally I’ve noticed the LIRR will run trains stopping at Forest Hills and Kew Gardens down Mainline 4 in the first place, so these switches don’t get much use outside of a couple of peak trains.

Signals

For it’s 20th birthday present, in 2008, the LIRR gave WOOD Interlocking a nice little revamp. They installed high-speed switches which must have been the big present as high-speed switches are perfect for operations like what’s being performed on the Main Line. The signals used here are tri-color light signals arranged in a triangle pattern.

WOOD interlocking, like many Port Washington Branch interlockings, was controlled by HAROLD tower until it was closed in 1995. Nowadays, it’s remotely-controlled by Penn Station Control Center.

Neighbors

This interlocking is bordered to the west by HAROLD interlocking and is bordered to the east by JAY interlocking. Due to the LIRR typically running the majority of trains that are stopping at Kew Gardens and Forest Hills are routed down Mainline 4 in the first place, this switch isn't used too often. During rush hours, having trains slow for crossovers is nt the greatest thing when you have to operate so many trains so close together, and it's much more efficient and streamlined to not have to switch tracks.

Well, this should wrap up WOOD interlocking!