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  • The East Side Access Project Discussion (ESA)

  • Discussion of the past and present operations of the Long Island Rail Road.
Discussion of the past and present operations of the Long Island Rail Road.

Moderator: Liquidcamphor

 #1614358  by lpetrich
 
LIRR service to Grand Central Madison - "The new station, located below Grand Central Terminal, is now open. Try our shuttle service between Jamaica and Manhattan and explore the new terminal."

TV news clips: The governor was on the first train, and in her speech, she said that the project was worked on during the terms of eight of her predecessors.

I fact-checked her assertion with the help of List of governors of New York - Wikipedia and East Side Access - Wikipedia and 63rd Street Tunnel - Wikipedia
From the ESA article, "The first proposals to bring LIRR service to a terminal in eastern Midtown Manhattan arose in 1963", then discussing how the 63rd-Street Tunnel got two tracks for the LIRR in addition to two tracks for city subway trains. Construction of that tunnel started in 1969. All that took place under Nelson Rockefeller's governorship, and he was indeed the eighth governor before KH.

That tunnel was completed in 1976, connecting subway-train tunnels to Manhattan were opened in 1989, and to Queens in 2001.

For the ESA itself, construction started in 2007, with the delivery of two tunnel boring machines for the Manhattan tunnels. Those machines started their work that year. On the Queens side, two TBM's were delivered there also, and they started their work in 2011.
 #1614359  by lpetrich
 
Grand Central Madison: Hours, LIRR service & more - including pictures of some of the station's artwork.

Floor plan: Grand Central Madison Wayfinding Map December 2022.pdf

Grand Central Direct Service to Grand Central
noting
GCM Direct beginning January 26 - GO101.pdf - schedules and fares

Four peak-time trains, once an hour, stopping at Woodside for the convenience of Port Washington Line passengers. That station is just east of where the line to Penn Station diverges from the ESA line. They are Jamaica-GCT in the morning and GCT-Jamaica in the evening: no reverse-commute trains.

Off-peak trains are once every half-hour and alternate between all-stops and no-stops running. The all-stops ones stop at Woodside, Forest Hills, and Kew Gardens.

Weekdays:
The first trains depart from Jamaica at 6:17 am (peak), and from GCT at 9:15 am (off-peak). The last trains depart from Jamaica at 4:47 pm (off-peak) and GCT at 8:04 pm (off-peak, just after peak).

Weekend service is between 7 am and 11 pm.
 #1614361  by HalMallon
 
RandallW wrote:Any sense of why peak services are hourly and non-peak are every 1/2 hour? (I'd guess Jamaica is simply that busy during peak travel that they can't run 1/2 hourly shuttles.)
Since LIRR is still running the regular schedule for now into Penn, I don’t believe they have the train sets for more peak service yet…LIRR is still awaiting more M-9 deliveries…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 #1614374  by Kelly&Kelly
 
We had the privilege of riding the first revenue train.

The Long Island Rail Road has changed. We've been retired for many years now and here's the first part of the Railroad we're not qualified on. We have no idea where those rails go. We never walked them, never before rode them. And all those people working there. We may have recognized a handful of them. There was a time when we would have known each and every one by name.

For an old railroader, it's sobering to say "they did it without me".

Yes they did. It's a beautiful place. And the Railroad has truly changed. When we came aboard several decades ago, the LIRR didn't have a dime. The Superintendent scoured the Railway Equipment Journal for other road's junk rolling stock to buy so we could run summer service. We'd buy it, paint the inside and send it to Montauk with Pullman chairs we bought for $50 each. And we were converting old MUs to run a diesel fleet.

The railroad had a sign shop with one WWII sign painter working in a Johnson Avenue shack painting station signs. A print shop on the Jamaica Mail Dock. We cashed our paychecks at the bar or got paid in cash from the pay truck. A few trainmen remembered running on the Rockaway Beach Branch.

When the Railroad got new funding it painted the inside of Penn Station with blue enamel paint. There was a barber shop in Jamaica Station and a switchboard on the second floor. Our rule book was the Standard Code from 1919. Block operators on third trick had friends drop by to help them stay awake.

The new Grand Central Station's art budget is bigger than the equipment budget for the World's Fair Zip Cars.

The Railroad has changed alright and now I watch from the outside.

The relentless hand of time waits for no one.
 #1614378  by lpetrich
 
Weekend service: first trains start at GCT 7:17 am, Jamaica 7:06 am, last trains start at GCT 10:44 pm, Jamaica 10:38 pm.

My own theory as to why only 1 train per hour at peak times is that there are already lots of peak-time trains between Jamaica and Woodside, meaning that it might be hard to schedule any more than those.

East River Tunnels - Wikipedia - those four single-track tunnels were opened in 1910, 112 years ago.

OP-ED: New York Penn Station East River tunnel repairs update | Mass Transit - they plan to take the tunnels out of service for repairs, one at a time. With East Side Access now open, this loss of capacity will be much more tolerable.
 #1614385  by workextra
 
Just my two cents, but now the hoopla is over and the dream abs fantasy became a reality.

Should this discuss continue on under his thread as “ESA project”

Or should this be reserved for discussion regarding the project, construction and testing.
And a new topic created for the “grand central branch” and all
Matters relating to it?
 #1614461  by frankie
 
With countless YouTube clips of front window viewing of trips all over the LIRR, I wonder when we'll get to see our first one to (or from) Grand Central?
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