New rail service and restoration

The Newsday article mentioned that infrastructure improvements would have to be made at Hicksville for more service to Port Jeff. What improvements might those be? Sounds like it's something they want to do in the near future

There has long been talk of the LIRR doing some sort of reconfiguration of DIVIDE interlocking to make trains flow through the area more smoothly, but there has been nothing concrete from the MTA as of late.

I've always thought the switches just east of Hicksville station were badly arranged. PJ Track-1 should go directly into station track-1 instead of merging into Mainline track-1. This would enable 2 westbounds to enter Hicksville station simultaneously instead of one having to wait for the other as it is now. I guess the existing set-up looked reasonable 50+ years ago when it was designed, but it's inadequate today.

The timeline for the service enhancements is listed on traintalk:

9/3/13 timetable:

Extension of 6 weekend Farmingdale trains to/from KO
Extension of greenport scoot weekend service from April to November

11/11/13 timetable:

Half hourly port Washington weekend service returns
New 4:09PM Penn-Farmingdale and 7 pm Farmingdale-Penn weekday trains
New 8:22 PM Penn-Hicksville weekday train

March 2014:

4:37 Penn-wantagh and 5:03 Penn-Freeport weekday trains restored

RestrictOnTheHanger wrote:9/3/13 timetable:

Extension of 6 weekend Farmingdale trains to/from KO
Extension of greenport scoot weekend service from April to November

The 9/13/13 timetable has the extension of the Farmingdale trains but does not indicate that KO-GY service is being extended...