Idea regarding Main Line service in Nassau County

Living in Westbury (for now ) I am abit annoyed and confused as to why we still only receive hourly service at our station in the off peak hours.
I never quite understood why the two Huntington trains an hour do not make all stops along the Main Line, but alternate stops, as in one train serving Westbury and Merillon, and another serving Carle Place and New Hyde Park (all trains stop at Hicksville & Mineola).
We certainly don't have as many stops as the Babylon Line, yet the Babylon Line stations usually get service every 30 minutes in the off peak/weekends, and trains generally make all stops between Babylon and Rockville Centre. For the Huntington Branch, all we are talking about is two extra stops, maybe 4-5 min added to the schedule, which should be easy enough on weekends.
I have written the LIRR PCAC, and they responded that due to the lack of a proper yard facility in Huntington it allows little time in turning trains, but said on weekends it is feasible. I've also written the MTA & LIRR and complaining to local pols as well. Not much response on that front so far.
Westbury is the busiest of the 4 "local" stations, and lately I have been seeing plenty of people waiting on the platform on weekends & off peak. I certainly think if Cold Spring Harbor (which is much more lightly populated) sees a train every 30 min, so should Westbury. Yes I know Cold Spring Harbor is a busy commuter lot, but I'm talking about weekends when it is a ghost town.
Also, as Westbury tries to attract people to live in new condos and apartments downtown, the train service (among other things) remains a limiting factor.
We already saw what happened with the PW branch when service was increased from hourly to half hourly, ridership rose. Certainly having more people coming to Westbury to use the train would be a good thing.
Even in rush hours I do find gaps in peak direction service in Westbury, such as between 5:50am and 6:30am, which could easily be remedied by adding a Westbury stop to the 6:00am from Farmingdale. I know things are tight on the Main Line, which has to share it's two tracks with the Huntington, Ronkonkoma, Oyster Bay, Port Jeff, and occasional Montauk trains. Throw in all the grade crossings and the service it provides is already a challenge for those who have to rely on the LIRR for everything (I'm unable to drive, its just LIRR and "NICE" Bus). The regular schedules of the Babylon Line would be a welcome relief for me, which is again why I'm trying to move to someplace like Bellmore or Merrick (but I've got to find a place first..that's the difficult part ).
I do feel however on weekends when there's not as much of a "crunch", having all Huntington Trains stopping at Westbury every 30 minutes at least shouldn't be a big deal. The railroad seems to put us on the same page as Carle Place (which is barely a station, no lot, mainly rush hour use only), Merillon Ave & New Hyde Park (areas which are also served by the Hempstead branch).
But Westbury is a more densely populated area that has a downtown. Sure we get a few more trains in rush hour than the others, plus the 3 Ronk trains they added, but I just don't get how the LIRR decides stopping patterns. Again that would point back to station ridership, the last study I could find was in 2006, awhile ago when things were quite different.
I would appreciate some ideas, perhaps someone can get in the "mind frame" of the LIRR as to why so many trains skip Westbury and why they will not simply add a stop...it's certainly not nearly as expensive as adding additional trains. The LIRR should be trying to serve as many passengers as possible and I just get the feeling they aren't.
I still haven't forgotten how after Sandy when the Ronkonkoma Branch was restored the trains bypassed Westbury leaving us with no service for almost 2 days while trains zoomed past. And that happens too often after storms when service was restored (happened after that blizzard weeks ago too). Or that snow is removed at our station AFTER the rush hour while I saw crews of 6-8 at Bellmore keeping those platforms spotless.

Just drive to Hicksville or Mineola

onorclose7 wrote:Just drive to Hicksville or Mineola

Gosh, why didn't he think of that? Oh wait...

pineywoodsman wrote:(I'm unable to drive, its just LIRR and "NICE" Bus)

Not everyone drives to a LIRR station and parks....

Ridership at Westbury and New Hyde Park are at the point where they could support better than hourly service. Carle Place and Merillon Avenue aren't quite there yet. Having the trains that depart Huntington at :03 past the hour and New York at :51 past the hour make local stops between New Hyde Park and Huntington and then having the other trains (depart HUN at :36, NYK at :22) make only NHP/MIN/WBY/HVL/SYT/CSH/HUN.

Westbury and New Hyde Park do get an extra train per hour during the 'peak of the weekend off-peak' periods with the newish Ronkonkoma trains (the same can't be said for the south shore, which has hourly service at several of the local stops at different times during the day). Perhaps expanding those or adding additional Farmingdale trains (Bethpage and Farmingdale could likely support better than hourly service as well) would help improve service/increase ridership along the Main Line.

lirr42 wrote:Ridership at Westbury and New Hyde Park are at the point where they could support better than hourly service. Carle Place and Merillon Avenue aren't quite there yet. Having the trains that depart Huntington at :03 past the hour and New York at :51 past the hour make local stops between New Hyde Park and Huntington and then having the other trains (depart HUN at :36, NYK at :22) make only NHP/MIN/WBY/HVL/SYT/CSH/HUN.

Westbury and New Hyde Park do get an extra train per hour during the 'peak of the weekend off-peak' periods with the newish Ronkonkoma trains (the same can't be said for the south shore, which has hourly service at several of the local stops at different times during the day). Perhaps expanding those or adding additional Farmingdale trains (Bethpage and Farmingdale could likely support better than hourly service as well) would help improve service/increase ridership along the Main Line.

Problem is adding trains costs money, whereas simply adding a stop shouldn't be a big deal. I do agree though, Farmingdale and Bethpage are busy enough to have half hourly service beyond those 3 trains in each direction "weekend rush" and middays.
It seems what the LIRR is doing is waiting till they add half hourly Ronkonkoma service, and then having every other KO train serve Westbury and NHP instead of simply having both Huntington trains serve Westbury & NHP.
And 30 min KO service won't happen until double track is completed, which will be years from now.
Westbury and NHP are Huntington Line stations, and for the most part, should be served by trains from Huntington. Ronkonkoma trains should be serving only Hicksville & Mineola.
But there is an advantage to having Westbury serve BOTH branches (like Mineola does). But that would mean the LIRR will have to add extra trains, which really is doable from Farmingdale. And Farmingdale is growing with those new apt bldgs. The LIRR shouldn't be waiting till Double-track is complete, when it's completely do-able to have trains from Farmingdale every 30 min.
Of course they already do have those extra Ronkonkoma trains in those weekend "rushes", all the way from KO I might add, so they can do it right now.
But then I think they feel it would remove the "urgency" of double track. I however, disagree, as the double track project will help to improve WEEKDAY RUSH HOUR reliability, which is worth it.
Yeah some Babylon stations have only hourly service during portions of the weekend hours, but it's not for most of the day.

In my opinion, adding stops beyond what is currently on the Ronkonkoma trains is undesirable since those trains are surprisingly well traveled on weekends and the added stops do slow down what is a pretty quick and straight run between Hicksville and Hillside/Jamiaca. Adding stops to Huntington trains or trains that already make local stops west of Hicksville is less of an issue.

30-minute headways off-peak on the Ronkonkoma Branch could be implemented tomorrow morning. Their program for the US Open at Bethpage State Park demonstrated that. I am not optimistic for the peak-hour benefits of the Ronkonkoma Branch Double Track project...considering they don't have an active interest in pursuing the Third Main Line track project, the net amount of trains they will be operate along the Main Line west of Hicksville during rush hours will remain what it is today...so the only way to add trains out of Ronkonkoma would be to either reduce service to or from Oyster Bay or Huntington, or suffocate reverse peak service even more than what is currently done today. None of those are particularly attractive options.

lirr42 wrote:In my opinion, adding stops beyond what is currently on the Ronkonkoma trains is undesirable since those trains are surprisingly well traveled on weekends and the added stops do slow down what is a pretty quick and straight run between Hicksville and Hillside/Jamiaca. Adding stops to Huntington trains or trains that already make local stops west of Hicksville is less of an issue.

30-minute headways off-peak on the Ronkonkoma Branch could be implemented tomorrow morning. Their program for the US Open at Bethpage State Park demonstrated that. I am not optimistic for the peak-hour benefits of the Ronkonkoma Branch Double Track project...considering they don't have an active interest in pursuing the Third Main Line track project, the net amount of trains they will be operate along the Main Line west of Hicksville during rush hours will remain what it is today...so the only way to add trains out of Ronkonkoma would be to either reduce service to or from Oyster Bay or Huntington, or suffocate reverse peak service even more than what is currently done today. None of those are particularly attractive options.

I agree which is why I would rather just have all Huntington weekend trains serve Westbury & NHP. Like I said, since Ronkonkoma trains are already fairly busy, the straight run between Hicksville and Jamaica/Hillside makes the most sense.
Yes the Double Track will not solve most of KO's problems, what is needed is the Third Main Line track but it seems the LIRR has about given up on it, given the resistance in Nassau County, some of which comes from my own community!
The Main Line needs a third track and also needs to be completely grade seperated like the Babylon Line. This will mean more rush hour service and not as much "throating" which restricts reverse peak service. But as you can see, things are backward here. They oppose the third track & grade crossing elimination and then are trying to attract commuters to live here...well they can't have their cake & eat it too. The needs will only grow greater, for the third track, and for crossing elimination (esp in the wake of that Metro-North accident). The Babylon Line is how the Main Line should've looked by now. There is space west of Hicksville for a third track at least toward just west of the Wantagh overpass, there's just storage & freight over there. What about that track just west of Mineola, maybe they could use that as well. Just as a temporary workaround for the congestion, I dunno. For the amount of people in this area this section of the LIRR is just very antiquated.
Part of the reason I'd rather just move someplace more modern & civilized like Bellmore.

Well, the Babylon Branch not only has the most ridership of any branch and is along Jones Beach, you have to take into account that the branch is fully grade-separated which allows for more trains to run smoothly through, even express trains.

The combined ridership of the two Main Line branches is more than 16,000 riders more than the South Shore on Saturdays and more than 12,000 more than the South Shore on Sundays, so there's far more people passing New Hyde Park on trains than Rockville Centre...

Grade separation or no grade separation has a negligible impact on the ability to run trains or not run trains. Especially on the weekends when the line is not at full capacity.

Also you have to take into account that the Main Line stations like Westbury do not see as much trains stopping is because of the fact that Ronkonkoma trains (some do) do not stop and express, and if they have to switch to another track, then what happens when an Eastbound is there and it has to wait possibly holding up a Ronkonkoma and causing the grade crossings to have their gates down even longer? It would cause a bottleneck, which is why they are pushing for a third track, so they can use it as a bypass. They might as well make it 4 tracks since it is two branches coming together, and this is where grade separation comes into play. 4-track grade crossings, it would be dangerous unless they eliminate them.

What? No trains have to switch tracks just to stop at Westbury (or any stop, for that matter), and it would not "hold up" any other trains if they were scheduled properly. Any effect that any of this has on any grade crossing is trivial, and not really even worth mentioning.

lirr42 wrote:What? No trains have to switch tracks just to stop at Westbury (or any stop, for that matter), and it would not "hold up" any other trains if they were scheduled properly. Any effect that any of this has on any grade crossing is trivial, and not really even worth mentioning.

And I'm not even talking rush hours (except for that gap between 5:50 & 6:30A, and post PM rush between 8:42 & 9:42), its mainly off peak and weekends, when there is not that much congestion.
An hour is a long time to wait for the next train if you miss one, and it's further frustrating when trains skip the station but stop at the next one.
All I've been asking for (for years now) is to have both Huntington trains per hour stop at Westbury.
Of course a third Main Line track (and hopefully crossing elimination) would mean much more flexibility.
Funny how on the news they are talking about calls to electrify out to Patchogue and Port Jeff, but the point is moot if there is no third main line track. Personally this should have been the LIRR's next big project, before any further electrification, KO double track, and even East Side Access. The LIRR often points to the lack of a third track as to a limiting factor for service in Westbury and the gaps in reverse peak service.

pineywoodsman wrote:And I'm not even talking rush hours (except for that gap between 5:50 & 6:30A, and post PM rush between 8:42 & 9:42), its mainly off peak and weekends, when there is not that much congestion.

Let's try to stay focused. No trains between 8:42p and 9:42p is not a gap since off-peak service to Huntington is only hourly on weekdays...

pineywoodsman wrote:An hour is a long time to wait for the next train if you miss one, and it's further frustrating when trains skip the station but stop at the next one.

It's not an extraordinary amount of time when you consider that about 40% of people (32,870 weekday passengers at 86 different stations) who board or alight at non-western terminals during the off-peak period have an hour or more wait between trains...

lirr42 wrote:

pineywoodsman wrote:And I'm not even talking rush hours (except for that gap between 5:50 & 6:30A, and post PM rush between 8:42 & 9:42), its mainly off peak and weekends, when there is not that much congestion.

Let's try to stay focused. No trains between 8:42p and 9:42p is not a gap since off-peak service to Huntington is only hourly on weekdays...

pineywoodsman wrote:An hour is a long time to wait for the next train if you miss one, and it's further frustrating when trains skip the station but stop at the next one.

It's not an extraordinary amount of time when you consider that about 40% of people (32,870 weekday passengers at 86 different stations) who board or alight at non-western terminals during the off-peak period have an hour or more wait between trains...

Yeah...I know that there is only a 9:15pm to Ronkonkoma other than those 2 Huntington trains.
Yes, plenty of folks on smaller branch lines like Hempstead, Long Beach,etc have hourly service off peak, but considering Westbury's situation along a branch that has 30 minute service off peak, having both weekend Huntington trains stop here shouldn't be a big deal.
Huntington Branch off peak trains & weekends should always make a stop in Westbury & NHP.
As far as that Post-rush, the 8:42pm and 9:42pm are pretty busy, which is why I'm glad they at least added that 8:22pm to Hicksville to take the stress off the 8:42pm.
The ridership #s dont lie, half hourly service attracts new passengers.
When the weather is nice I often take the Carle Place train and walk to Westbury instead of waiting for the next one. It takes 20-25 minutes. I'm 10-15 minutes away from the Westbury train station, so it does save me abit of time. And Penn station isn't exactly a place I enjoy spending time in.

I agree that service should be improved to Westbury. I work in Carle Place, within walking distance of the train station there. While a few rush hour trains stop at Westbury and not Carle Place, usually they get the same stops. If I need to go to Manhattan in the afternoon, I will often drive home first to get a Babylon branch train just because the service is that much better. I also give strong preference to taking the train from home in the morning rather than heading to the office first. Even during rush hour the Main Line service isn't all that great. I know they need the third track, but for now we need to make the most of what's there. A few added stops in Westbury might make a big difference. I can even walk from Westbury back to my office-- that would still be better than having to wait almost an hour because I just missed the train. The other thing that has me puzzled is why the midday trains are almost on top of one another at :17 and :29 instead of being more evenly spaced.