LIRR Mainline Third Track Project

After this third track completion project is finished, it would be nice to see more faster trains from Pt. Jefferson to NYC. I agree that the travel times are too long from many of the Pt. Jefferson Line stations to NYP. On weekends, the trip takes anywhere between two hours and three minutes to two hours and five minutes. You have to change at Huntington for every trip that continues east of Huntington. On weekdays, there are several super Main Line express trains that don't require you to change at Huntington but you still have to change at Jamaica. From Penn Station to Pt. Jefferson, your ride on those is about an hour and forty five minutes, counting the change at Jamaica. In the morning there is a direct train from Pt. Jefferson to Penn Station that takes an hour and thirty five minutes. After the third track project is completed, it would be nice to have all of the trains that begin and end their runs in Pt. Jefferson continue onto Jamaica. After Huntington, many only a few stops-Hicksville and Mineola are the best ones.

After the third track project is completed, we also have to see if more trains to the Montauk Line will use the Main to the Central. I could probably see that happening as the Babylon is already a very busy two track railroad in many spots which will probably remain two tracks permanently. Maybe after this third track project is finished and if LIRR decides to route the Montalk trains over the Main to the Central, we also have to wonder if more of those trains will stop at Mineola and Hicksville. In my opinion, some of them should as they would enable people who live on the North Shore in Nassau County to travel to the Hamptons. Plus there are people who live along the Montauk Line who work in Mineola.

Everyone: This is the September 2021 report from 3TC:
https://lirrexpansion.com/2021/09/01/up ... mber-2021/

There are Main Line weekend trackwork outages scheduled for September 11-12 and 18-19.
Alternate service will be operated in the usual manner as previous track work programs.

I have been notified that Nassau Tower in Mineola is slated to be removed or demolished
September 18-19. If anyone would like to take a last look or take pictures NOW is the time...
There are now 14 days and counting left for Nassau Tower as of this post...

H-E: Answering your previous question about Floral Park track changes:
ML2 - or what will be the center express track will be on the north side of Platform B.
ML1 - connecting with Hempstead Branch Track H1 with a new switch at the east end of FPK Station.

Buff: Trains running on the Main Line that operate nonstop Jamaica-Greenlawn are considered to be
Port Jefferson Branch trains. There are Ronkonkoma Branch trains that make their first stop east of
Hicksville. There may be even more emphasis on the Central Branch with the flexibility of service.

With the major schedule changes that are going to be implemented with the completion of the Third Track
Project and opening of East Side Access 2022 is shaping up to be a interesting year in the long history of the
LIRR...A happy Labor Day 2021 to all...MACTRAXX

I wonder if ANY schedules will get shorter. For instance, a train around 6:30PM out of NYP connecting to PJ trains at Hicksville takes (the combination) about 90 minutes to make the 40 or so miles to East Northport.

MACTRAXX: I believe you have the Main-Line track numbers at Floral Park reversed. As I understand it (and said in my July 22nd post) the ML tracks will be numbered from North to South as 3-1-2. So it will be ML-2 that will connect to H1 at the east end of Floral Park and ML-1 that will run on the north side of the center platform and will be the center track.

But as always, if anyone knows different for sure, please correct me.

That's interesting about the new track numbering system on the Main Line. It will interesting to see how many trains that are coming from the Pt. Jefferson and Ronkonkoma Lines stop at the stations that the Hempstead Branch trains normally only stop at. A person who lives in Queens Village and works in Hicksville would really benefit from being able to take a direct train. Something tells me that during the off peak hours and on weekends, maybe there will be at least one pair of train to and from Huntington that will stop at the brand new Elmont Station. I would love to see all the trains that run to and from Pt. Jeff to run mainly express once on the third trail territory while making a few stops like Hicksville, Mineola, and Jamaica. Yes, taking 90 minutes to travel 40 miles, as demonstrated in the case from NYP-Northport is absurd. Hopefully the 3rd track will help enable more direct trains to run from the Pt. Jeff Line to at least Jamaica. I hope to see some more trains added to the Ronkonkoma Line schedule as well. Those passengers were promised half hourly service during off peak hours before covid hit.

Faster trains and shorter runs were abruptly erased from LIRR after the elected officials went on a rampage ordering massive slow downs after the the few roll overs a couple
Of years ago.
PTC should solve this issue but it’s got problems of its own.
For example a train with failed PTC will have a 59mph max speed limit providing the ASC is functional.
Port Jeff needs electrification. Period. End of story.
Every other Huntington train would under that plan be extended to port Jeff, w/o local
Stops West of Hicksville
(Ex. Jam,Hil, Fpk, Min, Hvl-All to Port Jeff)
The transfer at Huntington is poorly effected as Huntington is not designed for that type of operation.

Fast trains, No. “I can’t”
Shorter run times, No. “I can’t”
Slower trains! Ah yes!! “I can”
Have a laugh guys.

Even if Pt. Jeff doesn’t get electrification, it would be a great route for LIRR to run battery powered trains over. Yes, I agree that the transfer layout at Huntington Station is poorly designed. I just hope the new 3rd track would help enable more trains coming to and from Pt. Jeff to continue onto Jamaica, even if select ones stop at Cold Spring Harbor and Syosset. Hopefully the PTC issues get straightened out. In MNRland, I believe that they are working on the PTC issues so that way the travel times can come down to what they were before the derailments in Spuyten Duyvil and Bridgeport.

Looking east along 3rd track construction in Mineola - September 9, 2021.

Nassau Tower in its last days.

The pedestrian crossing has no gate now so it's official. There are no more crossings on the main line between Jamaica and Hicksville.

Did everyone see the Newsday story on pp. 24-26 in today's edition about the Village of Garden City trying to extort 10 million dollars out of the MTA re: the steel poles on the south side of Merillon Ave. Station and alleged issues re: the Denton Ave. bridge?

News12 reporter Virginia Huie also did a report from Merillon Ave. today about this.

Today I confirmed what we'd been told a while back about the new signals on the Main-Line. LIRR is in fact installing those dopey reduced-aspect signals on the Third-Track Project. You can see the first set of them from the north side of the Herricks Rd. overpass at Nassau-1 Interlocking.

They are a poor design re: the green-over-white aspect. Competent signal engineers will tell you there should be one (if not two) unlighted lamps between any two lighted lamps. But not on LIRR. The green and white light are so close together that from a short distance away they look like a blur. You can see this for yourself by looking at the one at the east end of Farmingdale station.

Indeed! They were a very poor design by people who don’t operate trains.
And red historically was always on the bottom of the head, never on the top.
This was done or so I read, to prevent the red bulb from being obscured by snow build up on the lens hood below it.

This is just a foolish signal system. Frankly I’m not sure what the benefits of this system is compared to traditional speed signaling?
They give absolutely No information to the engineer.
Can someone in the know educated me on what the benefits of The RAS is?

As for Garden City, 1) LIRR needs to just use eminent domain an finish the project, the town can bitch and moan,
And then if they continue to complain.
Why not simply discontinue service to all garden city stations, the same as some
Roads did a century ago elsewhere. The neighbors Tune will change quickly.
(don’t get all bent out of shape guys)

That said, there is a peaceful mediation. And it’s it in the way of the now abandoned wading-river extension.
Take the bridge stones and footings form there, relocate it to Denton avenue, and duplicate the existing span, but 3 tracks wide, get creative and maybe bring the arch top back (if this one had it) in the 1840s.

Workextra, I would assume the only benefit to Reduced-Aspect Signals is that they save the MTA money. And if they're concerned about snow build-up, they should use a full-size signal like SEPTA does in Phila. Their "proceed-cab" aspect is flashing-green over red and their "stop signal" is red-over-red. All using G-heads on full-size signal masts.

Why in the world couldn't they simply have adopted the system used on Metro-North? It has none of the disadvantages mentioned by Head-end View and workextra. Is there a not-invented-here phobia within MTA?

The way that was previously explained to us on these boards is that Metro-North is a simpler railroad than LIRR. And so they don't need as many signal aspects as LIRR does. MN only has two main aspects, basically stop and go. Whereas LIRR apparently needed six aspects to satisfy their operating requirements. Even if that's true, I'm sure they could have come up with a better design for the signal heads.