The demand might not be there to run re-extend the Harlem Line up to Chatham. The MTA has other priorities to take care of much much closer to NYC. It's not in the MTA contract to provide service to Columbia County where Chatham is located. Almost everyone has a car up there and are willing to travel a distance to drive to a train station. I think while there are a lot of people who might live in and around Chatham who drive to Wassaic, there are many others who will drive to Hudson to take a more expensive but faster and a little more scenic ride to NYC on Amtrak. In fact, if you book your Amtrak tickets well in advance from Hudson to NYC and back, then you probably aren't paying that much greater than if you take MNR from GCT-Wassaic.
The LIRR Ronkonkoma-Greenport route is very slow and I am very surprised that year round weekend service was reinstated. Plenty of people who live way out east toward Greenport take the Hampton Jitney when heading to NYC. If they want more to drive to a station with more frequent train service, then Ronkonkoma is the answer. You have a million times more rail options there. The train ride west of there, minus the number of stops that it makes, is fast. There is a one seat ride to Manhattan. I don't know the ridership figures on those very short KO-Yaphank trains. There are trains that run between Ronkonkoma and Riverhead and back. I took one of those and I think the ridership was ok but many of those people weren't traveling to the city.
Ronkonkoma and Yaphank are about 12 miles apart from each other while it's 46 miles from Chatham to the Wassaic Train Station so that is a huge difference.
The LIRR Ronkonkoma-Greenport route is very slow and I am very surprised that year round weekend service was reinstated. Plenty of people who live way out east toward Greenport take the Hampton Jitney when heading to NYC. If they want more to drive to a station with more frequent train service, then Ronkonkoma is the answer. You have a million times more rail options there. The train ride west of there, minus the number of stops that it makes, is fast. There is a one seat ride to Manhattan. I don't know the ridership figures on those very short KO-Yaphank trains. There are trains that run between Ronkonkoma and Riverhead and back. I took one of those and I think the ridership was ok but many of those people weren't traveling to the city.
Ronkonkoma and Yaphank are about 12 miles apart from each other while it's 46 miles from Chatham to the Wassaic Train Station so that is a huge difference.