Summer Only East End Service?

[quote="peconicstation"]Preface: As a year round, North Fork resident, I say to the MTA/LIRR, GOOD, AND GET LOST, we RARELY if ever, use the LIRR, a we have far more frequent, year round, Hampton Jitney service.
That said, do even think of running this line "summer only", we will fight this plan tooth and nail, as we are not going to pay the extra MTA taxes for something that becomes even more limited than it is already.




The last time i checked the north fork was in Suffolk County, so yes you do still have to pay the MTA taxes, i don't think you have much of a case by saying "my part of suffolk county doesn't have good service". for example look at Northern Dutchess County, they don't have hardly any Metro-North service but they still have to pay MTA Taxes since part of Dutches county does have Metro-North service.

if you rarely if ever use the LIRR why are you so upset about the plans to discontinue service out there?? maybe if you used the train more often they would keep it around.
but in all honesty, if they have to cut trains east of KO in order to keep more trains operating between Penn and Huntington / Babylon / Ronkonkoma i dont really see what is wrong with that.

I honestly can't blame the north fork residents for not being pleased with the LIRR's effort out there. It's obvious that with the amount of ridership the Jitney gets out there, that there is a market for good transportation. Honestly, would you rely on the LIRR's service in your area if it was as limited as the KO to Greenport service is? I still think that before the LIRR cuts service out there, that it should increase the service out there temporarily to see how much more ridership it would get if the service was more available out there.

ADL6009 wrote:if you rarely if ever use the LIRR why are you so upset about the plans to discontinue service out there?? maybe if you used the train more often they would keep it around.
but in all honesty, if they have to cut trains east of KO in order to keep more trains operating between Penn and Huntington / Babylon / Ronkonkoma i dont really see what is wrong with that.

I'm not upset about loosing the service, I am upset about the prospect of continuing to pay the extra taxes for a service we won't have.

To answer another question about whether I still use the service to Jersey, NO, I don't have to anymore. I still go in 2x per week, but I only use the Jitney now.

Prior to the Jitney taking over our service, when it was Sunrise Express, there was no early AM trip (except for Summer/Fall Mondays). Today we have an early AM trip that runs
Monday to Friday, year round, and rendered the early AM LIRR trip from Greenport obsolete. HJ also runs an even earlier trip on Mondays, also year round.

The fact that the LIRR still talks about "summer service" shows how poorly they know this market.

Maybe we can have a party to rip out the first spike !!

Ken

The biggest issue between KO2 and GY isn't the track, but the timing for the grade crossings. Right now, there is no reason that service coudn't be operated at 60mph between KO2 and LD instead of the current 40mph. I believe at one time, the entire branch had these speeds, but somewhere in the 1980's (I think) the downgrading began. Speeding up these train times would be a good start (but is it cost effective?)

I don't know if there is intestinal fortitude to do this, but the "Napa" wine train concept could work, but the MTA needs to sell the line between LD and GY. Expect at least $10 million between purchase and capitalization of equipment and refurbishment. Who has this type of scratch on the North Fork?

As for current service: The unions bent over backwards to make the GY service work, with a conductor only on all trains (and sometimes a collector for a round trip only weekdays). I guess the "marketing" department at the LIRR missed the boat with scheduling these trains, as anyone who travels Rte 25 can see the caravan of traffic at all hours. If North Forkers do use trains, they either go to KO for service, or swing down to the Montauk line at Speonk.

So much for the LIRR concentrating on their "core business".

ADL6009 wrote:

peconicstation wrote:Preface: As a year round, North Fork resident, I say to the MTA/LIRR, GOOD, AND GET LOST, we RARELY if ever, use the LIRR, a we have far more frequent, year round, Hampton Jitney service.
That said, do even think of running this line "summer only", we will fight this plan tooth and nail, as we are not going to pay the extra MTA taxes for something that becomes even more limited than it is already.




The last time i checked the north fork was in Suffolk County, so yes you do still have to pay the MTA taxes, i don't think you have much of a case by saying "my part of suffolk county doesn't have good service". for example look at Northern Dutchess County, they don't have hardly any Metro-North service but they still have to pay MTA Taxes since part of Dutches county does have Metro-North service.

This topic is supposed to be about the Long Island Rail Road and not about Hampton Jitney. If you want to puse for bus
service, I suggest you go elsewhere, I do not care to read about bus service to Long Island.
Noel Weaver

Noel Weaver wrote:This topic is supposed to be about the Long Island Rail Road and not about Hampton Jitney. If you want to puse for bus
service, I suggest you go elsewhere, I do not care to read about bus service to Long Island.
Noel Weaver

God forbid we have a discussion of which Noel Weaver doesn't approve. How about you get off your high horse and read the whole discussion?

The point the original poster is making is that the MTA has screwed the north shore so much that it has become an impractical mode of transportation to/from the City. If you had any other interest in the LIRR than bitching about topics from your perch in Florida, you might realize that these cuts are detrimental not only to commuters, but to businesses near the ROW and especially the employees who staff all of these services that are being eliminated. This second "doomsday" budget is precisely why the LIRR will furlough employees: if there's significantly less trains to run, less employees are necessary.

The bus service is a legitimate component of this discussion. The lack of LIRR service for the majority of the year will force people to use the Jitney and, quite frankly, will leave them little reason to return to the rails when the summer rolls around. If the LIRR is serious about this plan, they had best find a way to draw back that bus crowd.

2behind1 wrote:The biggest issue between KO2 and GY isn't the track, but the timing for the grade crossings. Right now, there is no reason that service coudn't be operated at 60mph between KO2 and LD instead of the current 40mph.

What's wrong with the crossings?

The timing is set too short for approaching trains activating the grade crossings; They're set for 40mph operation where the crossing gates coming down are enabled to only give ample warning before a 40mph moving train hits the crossing, if the railroad ran trains at 65mph through there, there would likely only be a few seconds after the gates lowered all the way down before the train passed.

If the line becomes a summer weekend only thing, what does this do for the much talk about rehab of the spur to the old Grumman plant in Claverton? I can't see there being enough business to keep the line open year round.

ADL6009 wrote:if you rarely if ever use the LIRR why are you so upset about the plans to discontinue service out there?? maybe if you used the train more often they would keep it around.
but in all honesty, if they have to cut trains east of KO in order to keep more trains operating between Penn and Huntington / Babylon / Ronkonkoma i dont really see what is wrong with that.

The link to the LIRR's president's memo lays out all the service cuts system wide. Cutting service past KO doesn't increase service anywhere else. In fact several trains from KO to Penn will be shortened.

2behind1,
Sometime back, several winery owners had an interest in the "wine train" thing. As you can see nothing came of it. Too many obstacles for it to be practical. In the early '90's when I was a culinary student at Johnson & Wales, I did a term project on developing a dinner train which would run from Riverhead to Greenport. I look at every possibility, had all the demographics, looked at available equipment and restoration, planned a menu which had things like New Haven's Lobster Thermidor Merchant's Limited Style and NYC's Pork Scallopine in Reisling Sauce, I even had linens, sliverware and dishes , crew uniforms and all the other small details picked. The cost then to start up was figured at $15-20 million with purchase of the line and building a commissary. I can't even imagine the cost now.
Someone would need very deep pockets not to mention political clout to get this done. Sadly it will remain a dream.
Oh, BTW, I got an A+ and the project is now part of J&W's collection.

The purpose of the announcement of cuts is to rally the public to beg for a higher MTA payroll tax and bigger MTA budget.

I've been looking for but haven't found 1920's era timetables for Greenport. I suspect running times were about the same as they are today. That's a statement as to LIRR's interest.

RRChef wrote:http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nass ... -1.1719360

Is there a way I can see the full article?

The link is to the full article. When I read it I thought there was more too because it seemed to end in the middle of another thought. Just not a well written article I guess.

ddruby wrote:I've been looking for but haven't found 1920's era timetables for Greenport. I suspect running times were about the same as they are today. That's a statement as to LIRR's interest.

I don't have my old LIRR TT's available as we are in the middle of renovating and everything is packed. But I do know that a steam era train leaving long Island City for Greenport would do the trip in just under 2 hours.
The trip now from Penn to Greenport now takes close to 3 hours.