"Heavy Travel" on the Ronkonkoma Branch

Why were there extra trains on the Ronkonkoma Branch today (Thursday Dec 29)? There were extra trains departing as follows (making all local stops):

Central Islip at 10:13, 11:13, 12:13, 1:13, 2:13
Brentwood at 4:17
Hicksville at 10:17, 12:17, 1:17, 2:17

These trains traveled approx. 5 minutes ahead of the regularly scheduled trains.

This was included in an odd day for the LIRR, there was a broken rail in Wantagh, a Greenport train getting canceled, a power outage in Lynbrook, and a water main break near Garden City, and signal trouble on the mainline.

It's been an interesting week or two for sure. Yesterday being no exception. I think I heard that train 777 from Hempstead continued through making all stops to Brooklyn, instead of terminating in Jamaica at 11:40. Anyone know if there were actually any passengers on that train, and whether they ran the train back as equipment, or as a passenger extra?

There was also an extra that ran east to Ronkonkoma, around midnight out of Penn. This train ended up getting delayed behind a freight at Hicksville, and then held in Hicksville for a few minutes for police activity. The regular ended up getting run around and running ahead of the extra at Hicksville. Interesting night on the main between Hicksville and Bethpage lol

Ridership on many midday trains resembled rush hour loads. Some of the extras were DM's. Saw an 8 car and a 3 car heading east through Mineola and the 3 car heading west.

Yet when Ronk line riders ask for more trains midday on a regular basis, we get there is no track space for them. Obviously not.

These extras are running 5 minutes ahead of regular service, so the amount of extra capacity needed in terms of occupancy time is limited. Half-hourly service, especially bidirectionally, wouldn't be possible due to track limitations.

geico wrote:Yet when Ronk line riders ask for more trains midday on a regular basis, we get there is no track space for them. Obviously not.

There needs to be more capacity for that to happen and in order for there to be more capacity there needs to be a 3rd Main Line track installed, in addition to double tracking the line through to Ronkonkoma. Those two projects will allow for service improvement on that branch ( money permitting of course ).

If you and your fellow riders want to see these improvement come to fruition I suggest writing to your political leaders, a flood of thousands of letters will not be ignored.

On the topic of holiday extras, I feel bad for the crew who has to run that unreliable DM set full of NYE revelers making all stops from Rockville Centre to Speonk!

22 stops from RVC to Speonk that will drive you crazy and with only 8 bilevels standing room only from Penn Station to probably to at least Merrick.I see free ride with that train.

Could they leave the engines in electric to Babylon? The acceleration is better in the electric mode and it would save on fuel. Or are the components only for the short distance through the tunnels and can't handle the hour plus of hard acceleration and braking?

Happy New Year!

dedm30junk wrote:22 stops from RVC to Speonk that will drive you crazy and with only 8 bilevels standing room only from Penn Station to probably to at least Merrick.I see free ride with that train.

I feel bad for the engineer/conductors on that train, will they have to bring it all the way back to Babylon/Jamaica that morning as well, or will they leave the train in Speonk for a Sunday/Monday run?

This is bizzarre.

While the timetables show the extra as being a local, Train Time shows it as an NYP-Jamaica-Babylon express, then all stops to Speonk. Which is actually happening?

Haha, I was the brakeman on that NYP, Jam, RVC then all local to Speonk. It wasn't that crowded. Me and the conductor easily got through every car. It did feel like the never ending train though.

Were there a lot of customers on that train destined for local stops RVC-Lindenhurst?

I wouldn't say a lot. People got off at every stop but maybe like 10-15 people at each stop. There was only one car (out of 8) that had a seated load, the car that platformed next to the main staircase on 19 track. Rest of the cars were pretty light and the rear 2 were almost empty.

NYR99 wrote:I wouldn't say a lot. People got off at every stop but maybe like 10-15 people at each stop. There was only one car (out of 8) that had a seated load, the car that platformed next to the main staircase on 19 track. Rest of the cars were pretty light and the rear 2 were almost empty.

Wow. Not what I expected for an NYE extra train to a destination where it's the only option!!! (unless people took 8700 instead)