Least frequent scheduled passenger rail services in North America

How about the Denver-Winter Park ski train? One RT per day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in the winter. When it's running, it has a bigger gap between trains (4 days) than the Cardinal.

It's not any more of a "train ride" than the CZ over the same route. It goes up in the morning and down in the late afternoon with around seven hours in between. People use it to get to Winter Park to skiing.

checkmatechamp13 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 2:20 am

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 9:43 am Agreed - The LIRR Ronkonkoma-Greenport "Scoot" is the LIRR's least-run service.
More For the Record: The LIRR line with the lowest ridership in the system is the West Hempstead Branch...
MACTRAXX

I would imagine the Greenport Scoot has lower total ridership than the West Hempstead Branch (It's just that it's likely lumped in with the Ronkonkoma Branch statistics)

They should really revamp the Greenport Scoot schedule so that alternating trains terminate at Riverhead and the span is longer. This will be easier once East Side Access opens since there will be more frequent electric service to connect it to. Using the proposed Ronkonkoma Branch schedule as a baseline, a good connecting service could be as follows:

Weekday

Leaves Ronkonkoma 3:41am, arrives Riverhead 4:25am, arrives Greenport 5:05am

Leaves Greenport 5:24am, arrives Riverhead 6:02am, arrives Ronkonkoma 6:48am

Leaves Ronkonkoma 7:25am, arrives Riverhead 8:09am, arrives Greenport 8:49am

Leaves Greenport 9:27am, arrives Riverhead 10:05am, arrives Ronkonkoma 10:51am

Leaves Ronkonkoma 11:28am, arrives Riverhead 12:12pm

Leaves Riverhead 12:34pm, arrives Ronkonkoma 1:20pm

Leaves Ronkonkoma 1:58pm, arrives Riverhead 2:42pm, arrives Greenport 3:22pm

Leaves Greenport 3:59pm, arrives Riverhead 4:37pm, arrives Ronkonkoma 5:23pm

Leaves Ronkonkoma 5:54pm, arrives Riverhead 6:38pm

Leaves Riverhead 7:05pm, arrives Ronkonkoma 7:51pm

Leaves Ronkonkoma 8:14pm, arrives Riverhead 8:58pm, arrives Greenport 9:38pm

Leaves Greenport 9:54pm, arrives Riverhead 10:32pm, arrives Ronkonkoma 11:18pm

Alternatively, the 11:28am out of Ronkonkoma can run to Greenport, arriving at 12:52pm, then turning for a 1:27pm to Ronkonkoma (arriving 2:51pm). Then turn for a 3:28pm to Riverhead (arriving 4:12pm) and then a 4:37pm to Ronkonkoma (arriving at 5:23pm and contining the rest of the PM rush schedule as above)

Weekends, the full summer schedule should be 4:58am, 8:58am, 3:28pm, and 7:28pm out of Ronkonkoma to Greenport (with a 12:58pm Ronkonkoma-Riverhead)

Going back should be 6:54am, 10:54am, 5:27pm, and 9:27pm out of Greenport to Ronkonkoma, with a 2:05pm out of Riverhead to Ronkonkoma.

Riders on the Riverhead short-turn have the option of using the S92 to connect to/from Greenport.

CMC: This post took me a while to find having to remember exactly where this was...

Discussing possible increases of Ronkonkoma-Riverhead-Greenport "Scoot" services should be posted in
the LIRR Forum as a new topic - especially in light of the major service changes effective on 2/27/2023.
The new topic title can be "Ronkonkoma-Greenport Scoot Service 2023 Improvement Thoughts"

I mentioned the West Hempstead Branch as the LIRR's lowest-ridership branch just in case the OP
was seeking that information - WH Branch service is going to change considerably with the upcoming
LIRR 2/27/2023 schedule with (on average) hourly through trains daily to Atlantic Terminal-Brooklyn.

The OP of this topic is in Europe wanting to know about routes with the fewest daily trains each day
outside of intercity services from Amtrak and Via Rail Canada...I offered the September 2022 LIRR
Greenport Scoot schedule and mention as an example with the two train weekend off-season TT.

Let's place this LIRR service subject where it properly belongs...MACTRAXX

I once saw a transit advocate grumble in a YouTube video about the infrequent service in some urban-rail systems. Such grumbling may or may not be justified - there is no point in a lot of service without a lot of riders. Nevertheless, I decided to check on frequency of service in US commuter-rail systems.

ACE Transit (San Jose - Fremont - Livermore - Stockton) has four commute-time trains and no others: (4 trains/direction/dday). That is pretty much the rock bottom of commuter-rail service.

Caltrain: for San Francisco - San Jose, full service, and for San Jose - Gilroy, commute-time only (3 t/d/d). Caltrain SF-SJ off-peak headways: 1/2 hour on weekdays, 1 hour on weekends

Los Angeles Metrolink: mostly full but infrequent service. The most frequent train is the San Bernardino Line (18 t/d/d on weekdays, 8 t/d/d on weekends) and the least frequent train the Riverside Line (6 t/d/d weekdays only mostly peak time). The San Bernardino - Redlands line is more frequent, even if relatively short (headways: 1/2 - 1 hour on weekdays, 1 hour on weekends).

Chicago Metra:

• weekdays, weekends: Milwaukee, UP North, UP Northwest, Electric (the most frequent?), Rock Island, BNSF, Milwaukee West, UP West
• weekdays only: North Central (6c, 1r), Heritage (3c), Southwest (all day)

c = commute, r = reverse commute
No success with the South Shore Line, however.

DC:

• Virginia Railway Express: peak times only
• MARC:
  • weekdays, weekends: Penn Line
  • peak times only: Camden, Brunswick Lines

Philadelphia: SEPTA Regional Rail

• weekdays, weekends: all but Cynwyd
• weekdays only: Cynwyd (6 t/d/d)

Service headways are weekdays 1h, weekends 1h or 2h.

NYC and nearby:

• New Jersey Transit: weekdays, weekends: all, though the outer part of the Montclair-Boonton line seems to have the least frequent schedules
• Long Island RR: all weekdays, weekends: all, though the outer parts of the Montauk and Port Jefferson Lines are infrequent
• Metro-North: all weekdays, weekends: all
• Shore Line East: weekdays, weekends

Boston (MBTA): weekdays, weekends: all

I looked in GO Transit's site for schedules, without any success.

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 4:56 am The OP of this topic is in Europe wanting to know about routes with the fewest daily trains each day
outside of intercity services from Amtrak and Via Rail Canada...I offered the September 2022 LIRR
Greenport Scoot schedule and mention as an example with the two train weekend off-season TT

What makes you think I am in Europe?