Long Island Railroad Expansion

"I say end all east end LIRR service and take the 5 east end towns out of the MTA district !


Ken"

Ken,

I don’t think you really want to end all service out there. The logical thing to do is to demand better service – and more of it. Quite possibly the reason ridership east of Ronkonkama is so light is because the service is too skimpy. There just aren’t enough trains for people when they want to go. If they could just manage to provide the same level of service that Metro North provides on their Danbury, Wassaic or Port Jervis branches, I would venture to guess that ridership on the line to Greenport would soar. But they can’t even manage to do that.

On the Jitney, I can make a prediction for you based on transportation history in America. If the east end LIRR service goes away, it won’t be long before the Jitney service deteriorates as well. It seems as if those things tend to feed on each other.

Fred M. Cain

EXPANSION ! It's amaizing that in 2011 you still can't get off an AmTrak at Penn walk across the platform and get a train directly to JFK. Most big cities have trains directly to their airports, not NYC, you can't get there from here.

Most big cities are 1/4 the size of Greater New York.

jacksons wrote:EXPANSION ! It's amaizing that in 2011 you still can't get off an AmTrak at Penn walk across the platform and get a train directly to JFK. Most big cities have trains directly to their airports, not NYC, you can't get there from here.

Well, remember there was a proposal to operate service Penn Station to JFK using the old Rockaway Beach Branch, which hadn't seen a train since June 1962. But the NIMBY crowd wouldn't hear of it. That's part of the reason you can't get anything done here, and why there is no direct rail service, NY to JFK. So we got the less-convenient Airtrain instead.

Had nothing to do with the nimby crowd since the right of way is still there. It had to do with costs and lack of return.
The train to the plane NYC transit ran was a dismal failure, hardly anyone used it, thats why it was discontinued.
With that service one could get on an express subway train at many locations in manhattan, then run express to howard beach.
The rockaway beach branch would have used the same tracks, there would still have been the change at howard beach, because thats old LIRR . Why build a second route, ending up at the same place, spending billions when hardly anyone used The train to the plane?
The air train is not that bad a solution.. Penn to Jamaica in 20 minutes, (less on an express)go upstairs ( with escalators and elevators on every platform, to the air train right to the terminals.
People in manhattan can get from there to the terminals at JFK by rail.
I had writen that not many use the air train.. i am wrong.. over 5 million used it last year.

I only become annoyed with this subject when I have the need to go to JFK. But, with all of the "Transportation Expansion" projects going on, i.e. the "East Side Access" and the "Downtown Manhattan"Transportation Hub". wouldn't you think that someone would have connected the dots and thought, "gee, wouldn't it be a good idea to reconnect the Rockaway Branch to the Main Line and then maybe, reconnect the LIRR Atlantic Avenue branch at Woodhaven and provide people access from Downtown Manhattan, Penn and GCT and to JFK and vise versa ?". Although the Air Train is fine if you're coming from the east, it's no bargain coming west. (Is it true that the Air Train tracks are a different gauge than a regular train ? whose idea was that?) It's a shame that Steve Jobs doesn't run railroads, we need an iTrain

wilsonpooch wrote:Had nothing to do with the nimby crowd since the right of way is still there. It had to do with costs and lack of return.
The train to the plane NYC transit ran was a dismal failure, hardly anyone used it, thats why it was discontinued.
With that service one could get on an express subway train at many locations in manhattan, then run express to howard beach.
The rockaway beach branch would have used the same tracks, there would still have been the change at howard beach, because thats old LIRR . Why build a second route, ending up at the same place, spending billions when hardly anyone used The train to the plane?
The air train is not that bad a solution.. Penn to Jamaica in 20 minutes, (less on an express)go upstairs ( with escalators and elevators on every platform, to the air train right to the terminals.
People in manhattan can get from there to the terminals at JFK by rail.
I had writen that not many use the air train.. i am wrong.. over 5 million used it last year.

It is a sad fact of modern transportation life, that the people who are responsible (read politicians) for authorizing and funding modern transit systems and rail lines often know little to nothing about railroading. Since they hold the purse strings, they get to call all the shots and get their way *BUT* do they really know what they’re doing?

I think that might be part of the reason the remnant of the LIRR Far Rockaway Beach Branch to JFK was overlooked. Actually, the ORIGINAL plan of many, many years ago called for using that right of way. What happened? Did politics get in the way?

As for the “Air Train”, wouldn’t it have been “brilliant” if they had chosen to operate it with equipment that could have also been able to operate over the LIRR into Penn Station or Flatbush Ave? Maybe I’m not looking at the issue right but that would seem like a no-brainer to me.

My personal, honest and humble opinion as to why the “Plane to the Train” (as I liked to call it) failed is that it did not enter the airport terminal making it too darn inconvenient. Just as some NYW&B commuters were loath to change to the Third Ave El in the South Bronx for their long ride downtown, “Plane to the Train” riders were loath to change to that bus. Funny, isn’t it? Some lessons are learned hard.

As a fairly frequent rider to the Plane to the Train in the 1980’s, I just *HATED* that bus! I had one of the worst train experiences of my lifetime with it.

I landed at JFK from California about 9:00p.m.late one summer night and encountered a delay getting may baggage. Then I went out to the bus for the “Plane to the Train” and waited. And waited and waited and waited. No bus. I tried to ask some people if the bus was running at all but only got snippy answers. It got later and later and later. Finally the bus came and I got on. It was probably around 9:45 by this time.

After the bus dropped me off at the Howard Beach stop, I went in the station only to encounter an angry mob in there. The “Plane to the Train” service had been suspended indefinitely. You should have seen the long lines of angry people waiting to get on the pay phones! (Remember, this was before cell phones).

I didn’t know what to do so in my utter confusion, I decided to board the regular “A” train – all stops. It was a long, long, long ride to the George Washington Bridge bus terminal which is were I needed to get to. I was trying to get back to Rockland County. I arrived just in the nick of time to miss the last bus by a few split seconds. I was left there standing on the curb in a cloud of diesel exhaust. To make an even longer story shorter, I finally got home without having to spend the night in the bus station (not exactly a pleasant possibility) but that was one heck of a trip!

Fred M. Cain