LIRR is PLanning more East of KO service

I got a chance to spend some time with a senior boss on the RR, and just talk about RR Things. (Which is always fun)
Among the things I asked was what are they going to do with service east of Ronkonkoma.
The response was they are planning to increase service east of Ronkonkoma.
They are aware of the increasing passenger loads east of KO, and are in the planning stages of adding service.
It seems that one summer evening, they cancelled train 254, and sent only 1 bus to carry the load. When the bus got there, it found over 250 people waiting.
Right now, in the short term, they are looking at a RDC type solution, and the company they are talking with is Bombardier.
Again, none of this is written in stone, just in the planning stages. I guess people like Nimby are right!

So the plans to electrify to Yaphank are off the shelf?

electrification is more of a long term thing, we just talked about more short term solutions, so I dont really know. This was a top level person, so I did not want to try and control the conversation, if you know what I mean

LC, is there enough equipment now to warrant the service if there is a need? And would there possibly be one train that would run lets say from either Jamaica, or Hunterspoint like in the old days before the Main Line was electrified in 1987 to KO?

From his post, it seems that all that is really being looked at is primarily additional scoot service. While it would be nice to see a DE from Greenport to Jamaica or LIC, I highly doubt we will see that, atleast not until the next diesel generation. Notice how he said they are looking at an RDC type solution. Right there shows that the existing diesel fleet is stretched to the point that to add any service at such a remote location(RR wise, not population wise) requires newly purchased equipment. Nonetheless, this is excellent news. Glad to see the RR is looking into additional service on the scoot.

LC, did this higher-up mention to what point on the line the extra service would operate to, or are we just assuming for now it is to Greenport?

He specificaly said greenport, and that they were caught off guard with the passenger loads this summer. You are right, the current diesel fleet is stretched to the limit. They regularly cancelled the extra greenport train this past summer.
I mentioned some of car companys that make RDC's, and he said they are discussing what he called a "Hybrid" car that could be used in diesel territory as well as electric, that will be manufactured by Bombardier. What he meant by hybrid I dont know. There are a few different configurations.

FINALLY!, and allow me to add I will believe it when I see it.

Just to give you an example, in September the "scoot" was cut to single car the weekend of the Greenport Maritime Festival. The 6:17 PM out of Greenport was SRO at Southold, not good and not acceptable.
The reason given was there were a number of C-3's knocked out of service that weeekend.

Clearly the LIRR did not buy enough Diesel Equipment when the Bi-Levels were ordered (and that process took what seemed like forever to happen).

Further the profile of the North Fork continues to rise, and as one of those often silly lifestyle guides in the NY Times said, Southold is the new
Southampton. Factor is as well the buy out of Sunrise Express by the Hampton Jitney, the simple fact that HJ now serves the North Fork made the area even more en vougue.

However it's not just Greenport, look at Medford, how can the LIRR continue to serve a populated area like that with such poor service??
As an example when the morning train from Greenport gets into to KO at 6:52, it then lays over until it's next trip east at 9:06. It could easily deadrun to Yaphank, and then return to KO with a revenue trip, and still be ready for it's 9:06 run east. After all there is an extra KO to Yaphank scoot run the afternoon, but none in the morning.

RDC or DMU type equipment is a natural for the scoots, and unlike the 60's when there was the tragic RDC accident, all public crossings from KO to Greenport now have full crossing gates.

One "olive branch" that the LIRR could offer is to run the Friday extra train to Greenport, Fridays YEAR ROUND, just like they run the Cannonball Fridays year round.


Ken

I say order up some DMUs, although I think by the way you guys complain about the looks of the DE/DMs and the C3s these would be too much for LI looks wise, but wouldn't it be cool to have panaramic windows on the Canonball or any trips out to the North or South Forks?

Florida's Tri-Rail already order some after one DMU pulled Tri-rails own bi-level cars in normal revenue passenger ops.

“Pulling two bi-levels on the 144-mile round trip, the DMU used 128 gallons of fuel. Our locomotives use about 325 gallons,” observed Barkman. “We ran the sound test about 100 feet from the track, and the DMU was 20 decibels quieter than the Tri-Rail locomotive-hauled train set, which came by five minutes later.

These are suppose to be cleaner and easier on fuel consumpation than regular diesel engines, so imagine one with 3rd rail capabilities.




http://www.coloradorailcar.com/trirailtest.htm
http://www.coloradorailcar.com/dmuproposed.htm

Funny how that Colorado Railcar is painted Tuscan red with gold lettering.

Kinda fugly lookin, but at the same time, I wonder if having something like that running out east would get a sight-seeing fanbase...look at the size of those windows. Especially during the fall with the changing colors, you'd probably get a lot of people riding that to look at the leaves.

LirrConductor wrote:I got a chance to spend some time with a senior boss on the RR, and just talk about RR Things. (Which is always fun)
Among the things I asked was what are they going to do with service east of Ronkonkoma.
The response was they are planning to increase service east of Ronkonkoma.
They are aware of the increasing passenger loads east of KO, and are in the planning stages of adding service.
It seems that one summer evening, they cancelled train 254, and sent only 1 bus to carry the load. When the bus got there, it found over 250 people waiting.
Right now, in the short term, they are looking at a RDC type solution, and the company they are talking with is Bombardier.
Again, none of this is written in stone, just in the planning stages. I guess people like Nimby are right!

Why am I skeptical about this?

Well, if skeptical, please don't be skeptical about me being told it was going to happen, I was. Be skeptical about how the RR goes about actually doing it.

Well we'll wait until 2016 to see if this happens.

I'm guessing it's more like the fact that there's a growing intertia behind forming an east end transit agency, and the LIRR's starting realize that KO to Greenport will not be theirs if such a thing happens...

Hey I got an idea, let's build dual mode MUs with gas turbine engines. It worked so well the last few times the LIRR tried it....

CRC was the first thing that came to my mind when LC mentioned RDC type equipment. Tri-Rail was very pleased with how they tested(I believe they also tested CRCs bi-level DMU). Last I heard however, was that for some reason, Tri-Rail canceled the order.

This hybrid idea sounds very interesting though. This is purely hypothetical, but say this hybrid idea is a serious one, could someone at the LIRR be planning to push for direct NYP service to GCT? That would require a bit larger of a fleet, but the potential would certainly exist. I'd be more than satisfied though with just extra scoot service.