Why so s-l-o-w into Huntington?

[PatPend]

Why is it that eastbound trains into Huntington literally crawl the last mile into that station? Unlike at other stations, where the train decelerates from speed just prior to and using the length of the platform, at Huntington it slows down somewhere near Oakwood Road and does maybe 12 mph all the way into the station. Riding the train is fun but being forced to sit through a five minute approach to the platform, at the end of a long day, does take some of the shine off.

[DutchRailnut]

if the train terminates at Huntington its possibly coming in ar decending cab /atc speeds.
so from track spped you go to 45 or so then to 30 or so and last two blocks your going 15 mph up to stopsignal or end of track.

[Head-end View]

Same thing happens for trains terminating at Ronkonkoma, and eastbound Oyster Bay trains coming into Mineola. Signal at end of Mineola platform displays a "slow-approach", so preceeding signal is probably an "approach" or "approach-slow", requiring reduced speed through that last block.

It does seem weird that they can't come into the station at normal speeds, but that's the way the signal systems operate. Train speed is reduced in logical steps.

[M1 9147]

Oyster Bay trains heading east off Mineola onto the Oyster Bay Branch always have a slow approach because of the speed restrictions placed on the curve right off the Main Line. Also when a train enters a terminal such as Jamaica, Ronkonkoma, Huntington, etc. have speed restrictions due to safety with the amounts of passengers that might be on the platforms.

[rbenko]

I've always hated the Huntington crawl - it seems like every train does it, not just ones that are terminating. Back in the early 90's I commuted from Kings Park, and had the pleasure of catching the 5:35 from Penn (changing at Jamaica, of course) - this train didn't stop in Huntington, but it always approached Huntington at a snail's pace. I usually didn't mind too much, especially when I was riding the 'obs' car (the end vestibule on the last coach) with a couple of beers from the bar car. What a rip it was, riding the vestibule at 70+ MPH, trying not to spill my beer or lose my balance as the 50 year old coach bounced over switch points! But I digress...

[John 61]

The speed limit drops off in this area. From "Hunt " 1 to "Hunt" 2 it drops to 30 mph and from "Hunt" 2 to "Hunt"3 it's down to 15mph.

[PatPend]

I guess the question is why the low speed limit in that area? It's a straight shot into the station, through an industrial area, so it's not as if there are a lot of tricky curves to negotiate or schoolkids playing on the tracks .

[bingdude]

Safety.

It seems all the "terminal" stations have restricting speed approaches.

The stopping distance probably would be too much if mainline speed was allowed right up to the platform.

Now it might seem like: "Duhhh...doesn't the engineer know he's near the station?" Well, think of what happened Monday Morning-- A 15 mph train going up a slight grade still couldn't stop in time.

Those restrictions are factored into the schedule anyway, so if your train is late it isn't because of that.

[LIengineerBob]

As was stated above, approaching Huntington, the train is coming up on either a stop signal at the east end of the station or a restricting signal. In either case, you cannot operate at MAS up to either signal aspect due to the speed control system. It just don't allow it. Why the reason for the stop or restricting signal?? Once the train reaches Huntington, it will either "turn" for it's next westbound trip right there in the station, and the signal on the east end is not normally displayed. Or it may be going into the south side extension, to either lay-up or to get out of the way for a Port Jeff connection, in which case a restricting signal would be displayed for that move.