Mending the Montauk Branch Delay Mess

So it is no secret that the Montauk Branch has had a couple rough days lately. The Fourth of July weekend brought large flocks of people to the trains and the LIRR was no where near ready to handle them. Yesterday was particularly bad.

So I ask, what can the LIRR do to remedy the situation? Speonk to Montauk signalization is on the horizon and that might help a bit. Turning WH, ND, SN, BH, AG, MY and maybe even MO into real interlockings with switches and all might speed things up (plus bumping the speeds back up to 65 might help a tad)

Or should the LIRR be lengthening platforms? Building a second platform at WH, ND, SN, and/or BH? Putting two engines on the shorter trains and three on the longer ones?

The lack of equipment is a big problem too. If a C5 purchase is what the LIRR is ultimately going to have to do they better get working on it soon, equipment purchases take lots of time. But what can they do in the short-term? There isn't much lease-able equipment out there. So now what? Cut weekend Oyster Bay branch trains back to Mineola to save equipment? Maybe they can cut out 8711 (one of the worst offenders) and cannibalize that equipment for 8709 and 8715?

The LIRR has got to do something about this...the amount of passengers wanting to take the train to the Hamptons is only going up, and weekends like what we've just seen is not what the LIRR needs.

Any ideas?

LEASE NJT EQUIPMENT!!!


oh wait.....

Yesterday (Sunday), we noticed chartered buses with LIRR in their indicator sign waiting at the Hampton Bays Station.

Another way to move people on these peak weekends would be to use the buses to bring people to Riverhead (it's a quick ride from Hamptons Bays and Westhampton to Riverhead), and run a special train, or two, express, from there to Jamaica, or even Penn). That would take some traffic off the Montauk line and utilize the way under-utilized east of KO row.

The weekend Greenport service is only (2) trains each way, so there are slots for other trains, and these Greenport trains are only 2 C-3's.

Ken

peconicstation wrote:Yesterday (Sunday), we noticed chartered buses with LIRR in their indicator sign waiting at the Hampton Bays Station.

Another way to move people on these peak weekends would be to use the buses to bring people to Riverhead (it's a quick ride from Hamptons Bays and Westhampton to Riverhead), and run a special train, or two, express, from there to Jamaica, or even Penn). That would take some traffic off the Montauk line and utilize the way under-utilized east of KO row.

The weekend Greenport service is only (2) trains each way, so there are slots for other trains, and these Greenport trains are only 2 C-3's.

Ken

But I think the lack of equipment is one of the biggest problems. Running extra trains out of LD to Jamaica or New York will require equipment--equipment that they don't have enough of already.

I been saying this for years now that the LIRR should lease equipment for the diesel fleet since they did not order at least 200 C-3 cars back in the early 90s. Remember Pendergast was the President of the railroad than before he left for the new job in London or china correct me if I was wrong when he left the LIRR. But certain management people don't this that leasing is a good idea.This is what I heard in the early 2000s that there was a problem with demand for the summer months.This overcrowding seems not to make anyone in upper levels to do something and its only gonna get worse until someone is either injured or killed in an overcrowded train.Train 2708 on Wednesday had 6 cars and could have used maybe 2 more cars because they left a lot of people in jamacia and they had to get a four car extra train to take the remaining people out to Montauk 38 minutes later.And later that evening Train 2718 had only 3 cars and no room for more people. This happens every year and nothing new happen. So they add more service on sundays from Montauk but still the early Montauk trains could not handle the heavy crowds going back to jamacia. Maybe newsday or local TV stations should do a report on this serious conditions and maybe the Gov Coumo can do something. Hope they wont wait until an accident happens.Thats my 2 cents worth............. add more if I forgot anything else.

2708 has become very unreliable of late. In previous years 2708 was great because it could get me home ahead of the storm of delays that come later in the evening. Lately I've been unhappily resorting to taking 2716 or 2718 because of it (or just staying home all together).

For equipment, press anything into service that's sitting in a layover yard (if any, both coaches and engines). To make it as simple as possible to prepare for the Monday morning rush hour, don't break sets apart. Just deadhead them back to their home terminals Sunday evening (its the afternoon that needs more service not the evening). If needed, cut the extra Oyster Bay set on Sundays, making the branch run bi-hourly the entire day.

Other hypothetical ideas:

-Cancel 8710 to avoid nasty meets on historically busy days. Attach its equipment to an earlier eastbound if its needed for westbound service.
-Station protect engines (MP15's if necessary) at Speonk and Southampton (in siding adjacent to platform, not passing siding) to push/pull disabled trains off the mainline
-Drop stops west of Westhampton and provide a bus at WH for intermediate passengers
-Move 8709 ahead of 8707 and have it express from Southampton to Jamaica
-If equipment can be found, split 8705 as above.
-Mandatory reservations?

Don't get my wrong we need more equipment..or do we? There are yards in Oyster Bay, speonk and that set that idles the weekend away on track 9 in Jamaica. The RR needs to get more efficent and moving all this equipment around requires more track space and crews..and then getting them back to their respective yards in time for Monday means more crews..and cleaning them..and fuel...and Money!

Or just buy more stuff which is more glamourous and will give politicans votes, the railroad fat and foamers foaming.

Speonk yard is use to the limited everything is moving and nothing sits idle in speonk yard on sundays.

Can't say nobody saw this happening. The Jitney has nothing to worry about

Let me offer an opinion from someone who has been part of this situation when I still worked as a supervisor for the LIRR. The whole thing revolves around money, money to be paid to train crews in yards, outlying points and on in-service trains changing ends at terminals. If a crew ends up making a "claim" for doing a task outside of their assignment to make things better somewhere else in the end for the RR to move equipment for use outside the designated cycle that is mandated by the Equipment Coordinator, that becomes an event under scrutiny by office dweebs who don't care about proper train use. It results in the claims being denied automatically and the union then challenging the denial. Hence, once the whole process is complete and the employees get paid, then the RR crows that its being raped by the employees.
There is no longer any proper management of the weekend tourist service. That died when all of us "dinosaurs" retired to make way for the necessary diversification and "decade of change" mindset shoved in our face as part of MTA protocol. Those of us that clinged to the "old school" practice were eventually run out of town politically or when time came for ones' pension.
Don't think common sense would involve the decision-making process in the title of this thread. In addition, I can assure all of you that when I sat in the procurement meetings for the C3s, we were limited by the Capital Improvement pen pushers as to how many cars were to be acquired. Then, M of E caved and agreed to a pre-determined amount that was insufficient based on the passenger load tests. The Transportation side objected and was ignored. Why? Of course-to save money!
So now, down the road it has come what I told those with me at the meetings- pay now up front once in good decision, or pay later tenfold by poor choice.
The DE and DM claims also stink of this same political problem, but that is another thread.

Insideman wrote:LEASE NJT EQUIPMENT!!!


oh wait.....

They've got plenty of F40s that and stored comet llls laying around! Sorry, Inner buff exposed moment.

452 card, It seems the RR is always making decisions based on politics . Penny wise and pound foolish.

"They've got plenty of F40s that and stored comet llls laying around! Sorry, Inner buff exposed moment."

NJ Transit has rebuilt one of the industrial tracks east of it's Garwood station, and it does have a number of coaches and engines stored there.
IF they are in working order, they could be good candidates for a lease to the LIRR.
Provided that the coaches are not the comet 1 series (purchased by NJ-DOT for the Erie-Lackawanna commuter service in the early 70's) as these cars do not mate with high level platforms.

Ken

peconicstation wrote:"They've got plenty of F40s that and stored comet llls laying around! Sorry, Inner buff exposed moment."

NJ Transit has rebuilt one of the industrial tracks east of it's Garwood station, and it does have a number of coaches and engines stored there.
IF they are in working order, they could be good candidates for a lease to the LIRR.
Provided that the coaches are not the comet 1 series (purchased by NJ-DOT for the Erie-Lackawanna commuter service in the early 70's) as these cars do not mate with high level platforms.

Ken

MBTA's going to have lots of surplus going on the re-sale market soon. 17 F40PH's are going to be retired next year, plus an indeterminate number of GP40MC's being retired in 2015 (all of which recently gone through a top-deck overhaul). MPI is taking all of the T loco dispersals and putting them through their re-sale program. Same as they did with MARC's retired GP40WH-2's. They're offering rehabs to interested buyers who want to pay extra. The F40's don't have cab signal units, but that's moot because any secondhand units LIRR buys would have to be outfitted for their extra signal aspects the rest of the northeast doesn't use.

T's re also retiring 32 MBB single-level blind coaches and 33 MBB single-level control cabs. All with bathrooms. They're in lousy condition and wouldn't be anyone's idea of a rebuildable fleet, but a buyer could sift through the 'best of the rest' and get some very stopgap cheapies. I doubt LIRR would be interested. However, if the T (likely) exercises the option order on their new bi-levels, the considerably better-condition Bombardier single-levels would be the next fleet to get pared back. Those things are almost identical to the Comet II's and Shoreliner I/II's, and do have enough life in them to merit a re-sale + rehab to stretch their useful service lives.