lirr42

They've been thinking about it as a replacement to the M3's. They're going to get either that or M9's. Nothing official yet, however.

There was a time when only the railroads around here were stupid enough to try and over paint stainless steel (remember those blue stripes on the M1/M3's?). It costs a lot more to maintain than you might think.

They're making their way to points east as equipment runs to make up trains later on in the rush hours. They are either going to Huntington or Ronkonkoma, judging by what you said.

Nobody's being misled...that is still correct. As of now the M9 order is exclusively for the LIRR and if Metro-North were to get in on the fun it would only be as options. However, if MNCR did get some piece of the action, they would be getting the same exact car that the LIRR gets, just slightly different paint and logos. They would not get a different variant like in orders past. If the LIRR continued with their M9A procurement after the M9 order, it would be pretty much the same car, just procured slightly differently since they would be using federal funds that went in part to ESA, etc., etc.,

Back in September I sent an e-mail to the MTA about the differences in the M9 vs. M9A order. I finally got an official response earlier this evening: So as it looks now, there will be one version of the M9 car for both Metro-North and the LIRR and then there will be a separate M9A procurement that will go slightly differently just for the LIRR later on down the line.

I am seeing on my end of the portal that 2 is the answer that is accepted, and if you put 2 it would be marked right. Do you see something different?

There is only one train from Huntington that terminates at HPA during the morning rush. That, along with the train to Ronkonkoma during the PM rush leaves 2 electric trains serving HPA, which is the correct answer. There's no place that has everything, unfortunately. However, there are train numbers printed at the bottom of every column in the timetables that can be used to compare to other branch's schedules (note the patterns that come out as certain branches always have certain numbered trains). That can be used to line up stops.

If you haven't seen them yet, you can view your scores here: http://www.thelirrtoday.com/2013/11/late-friday-links-1122.html

While you're distracted from doing the things you're supposed to be doing and poking around NYCTransit forums, try your hand at answering 10 quick LIRR Trivia questions: So far nobody has gotten a perfect score, but you can give it a shot for yourself right here: http://www.thelirrtoday.com/2013/11/think-you-know-your-lirr-stuff-1120.html I'll post the results sometime after 4:00pm tomorrow.

Interesting observations, Mr. Trainmaster. Some remarks: There is still some freight traffic along the mainline. There's a couple near New Hyde Park and a couple near Hicksville. This map has most of them. I think they've been single tracking between Jamaica and ENY for the last little while as they're replacing the half-ties in the tunnel there. The single tracking was probably why your original connection departed without delay, since they usually hold connections at Jamaica if trains aren't too late. The right of way you saw going south used to connect down to Country Life Press and the West Hempstead Branch. It would be nice to have such a connection today! Both of my usual trains used the Central Branch every day. Even though going via the Babylon Branch is shorter and faster, it is still pretty neat to go rocking down the mainline past all those stations! Let's see, to name the three stations, I'm going to say the old Brentwood before electrification hit the Ronkonkoma Branch, the current Brentwood and either Pineaire or Pilgrim Hospital (since those are technically located in West Brentwood, IIRC). I think Thompson, Modern Times, and Suffok were all long gone before you came around!

Senator Blabbermouth Schumer has allegedly "struck a deal" between the LIRR and Amtrak in regards to maintenance in and around New York Penn Station. From a Newsday article: Part of my response:

LIRR and MNCR have each wrapped a couple trainsets in New York State's new "Get Outta Town" campaign, which promotes tourism within New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley. The LIRR wrapped a couple sets of M7's (photos of which you can see here) and MNCR wrapped a bunch of M3's (photos of which you can see here). I think the full exterior wrap on the M7's looks pretty good. Much better than those small little banner ads they tried out not too long ago. Those looked awful.

Yeah, but what difference does it make? As long as the train is scheduled to run, then they don't have to make any adjustments. The train can leave at 5am and it wouldn't make any difference, once they know this train is supposed to run, then we just wait until the x number of trains depart GCT. It's only on the LIRR they actually have to subtract trains from the schedule in the spring and add two trains to the schedule in the fall because of the time change, on MNCR they just run the normally scheduled amount of trains then call it it a day, weather they do that at 1:56, 2:01, or 1:01 EST. It's not like if that train is 4 minutes and one second late it falls into a time warp and doesn't get to run. I think we're overthinking this just a tad.

Perhaps you can help me understand, then... On the LIRR, at least, when they account for daylight saving time, they always used the scheduled initial terminal departure time (or in the cases for eastbound trains that originate at Jamaica or Valley Stream, the latest possible NYP connection) to determine which trains will or will not run. In the spring, trains that are scheduled to depart in the 2:00am hour (which is skipped when DST begins) are annulled and in the fall trains run in the 1:00am Eastern Daylight hour but not the 1:00am Eastern Standard hour (though there are two extra trains added in to fill the gap that are not on any schedule). Since all Metro-North trains are scheduled to leave their initial terminals before the time change goes into effect, MNCR doesn't have to add or subtract any trains from the schedule to account for this. Service disruptions are another story, as each event would have its own resolution, but on the normal run in the mill night, MNCR would have little trouble, no?

There are train en route when the time change happens, but we only use scheduled initial terminal departure times when we have to start worrying about canceling or adding extra trains.

Daylight Saving Time ends tomorrow morning at 2:00am, here's what the LIRR does to manage the time change: http://thelirrtoday.blogspot.com/2013/11/daylight-saving-time-and-lirr-fall-2013.html (Metro-North isn't adversely affected since they don't have any trains that depart their initial terminals after 2:00am anyways)

I never compared them. I simply stated that Amtrak has a similar policy, so it's not likely the concept of stop-overs is something completely and totally unique to the LIRR.

I have personally never done it, as I almost always travel on a monthly. I have told other people about the idea, but I don't know if they tried it or if it worked out. I know the stopover would definitely works Amtrak, so there's definitely precedent for it, we just have to see if the conductors and collectors recognize the procedure.

On the LIRR, you can "stopover" at a station along your trip, so long as you complete the trip in the same day. So you could go from New York to Mineola, then Mineola to Ronkonkoma all for the price of a New York-Ronkonkoma ticket.

Take a guess as to what the next person got as change....

The siding track was in use at some point, I'm sure. It wouldn't make much sense for them to construct the track then immediately deem it OOS. What probably happened was at some point in LIRR history was someone deemed that they could get along just fine without the siding, so why bother maintaining the whole second track? Restoring the second track to service probably wouldn't do that much good. HUNT and DUKE are fairly close, and it's not like they can just randomly increase service, they do not have the equipment to do that. The small amount of added flexibility would not be worth the expense. And using it to expand 'legroom' at Huntington wouldn't help much either, because there is no way to layup electric trains at Greenlawn.

On LIRR trains alcohol is allowed on all trains at all times except those that arrive or depart their terminals between 12:01am and 5am Saturday and Sunday mornings and other announced days (i.e. St. Patrick's Day, big parting weekends, etc.)

Except that today's disruption didn't amount to anything... At the height of the supposed "chaos" there were only two trains late, and both of them six minutes behind. No trains canceled, not a single train >10 minutes late the entire night. But don't tell the news agencies that.

Like I said, 604 would have had to wait until 613 came west at 7:45, so that would be the earliest that train would have been able to start east. The passing siding at Greenlawn is OOS and fixing it up so some reverse-commute trains can run during occasional service disruptions isn't in the budget. While it may have stunk to have gotten left on the platform at UN it happens to all of us at times, and there's nothing we can do about it. Your insistence that the LIRR should have taken care of the minority while in the process messing things up for so many more people doesn't make much sense. It was never interlocked back when they were doing the other ones since COREY and DUKE were so close anyways. I think the passing track is completely OOS and unusable now and there are derails on either end of it.

Yeah, some people is better than no people at all. I hate to break it to you, but I'm not saying that train 604 doesn't carry people, it's that train 604 had to depart UN on or close to schedule to avoid messing things up. If they chose to hold 604 until whenever the its connection arrived, it would not be able to leave Huntington until 613 came through at 7:45 or else it would risk running into 611. At that point, the buses probably would have gotten people to their destinations faster. And even after waiting until 7:45 the train would be further delayed because it would have to meet 615 someplace else now (probably at DUKE). And I don't have the timetable in front of me, but I think 604 turns for 617 at Port Jefferson, so now that that turn is thrown out of whack too (and subsequently 617's relatively tight turn for 608 at HN). 623 and 650 might even get screwed up too depending on how things go. So you're saying that they should have held 604 for its connection at UN while in the process delaying 611, 613, 615, 617, 608, and possibly 623 and 650. The entire student population at SUNY Stony Brook must be on that train to make it have more riders and more importance than seven other ones. I don't like to see when connections get let go and the people are put on buses, however, sometimes it's the only option.