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To be fair with how empty trains to GCM are I think the current service alone could handle it. There are plenty of people who use GCM too all that would happen is you get a different group of riders complaining. But now having made a couple of trips from both terminals, many more adjustments need to be made. For one thing trains out of Penn are beyond crowded, riding the LIRR out tonight and yesterday night out of Penn, these trains were as overcrowded as rush hour trains with people standing. When it comes to my opinion of what could be done to help (off-peak) For lines like Babylon, I think for the most part it's ok, it just needs to adjust the times a bit so that the Penn station trains are arriving and departing roughly every 30 min. Also going eastbound maybe the express train can be timed to come right before or hold for the local train from GCM so people can easily switch if needed. When it comes to Far Rockaway and Long Beach idk why they switch terminals on weekends but they should just stick to one full-time? Switch the Hempstead branch to a Penn line branch with Huntington trains to GCM making local stops west of Floral Park. For the mainline branch, I think it could help if both the Ronkonkoma and Huntington branches were retimed. When a Huntington train leaves GCM and Ronkonkoma train leaves Penn or vice versa they could meet at Jamaica. With trains holding for each other in Jamaica before departing. For the mainline from Jamaica westwards trains need to stop only making one stop, either all or nothing. I feel like that should apply to other sections of other lines as well. For example, when a train stopping only at Forest Hills is running late the train stopping at Kew Gardens is either forced to wait at Jamaica or the Forest Hills train gets delayed even more for being out of order. Trains should make all 3 stops between Jamaica and Manhattan or run express skipping all of them. Babylon, Huntington, and Ronkonkoma should run express to Jamaica. Far Rockaway, Long Beach, and Hempstead trains should make all stops. If needed trains could be timed so the locals are scheduled to leave a couple of mins after the express. That would also enable side-by-side running of two express trains from GCM and Penn to meet at Jamaica. Additionally back to back trains to the same destination in Manhattan need to be eliminated. There are 20 min gaps followed by 2 min gaps that don't make sense. With Port Washington, I'm really not sure what to do ideally this line would need to run 3 trains an hour so that Penn station trains don't get overcrowded but that would require more staff. Port Washington to GCT really only greatly benefits passengers west of Bayside. Especially since having to wait an hour for a train, it becomes easier and faster for a lot of people to just take a nearby bus and the to GC. GCM service outside of peak hours is debatable as to how useful it is. Excluding what I want to happen to the PW branch, this is what I think the service pattern could look like. For staggered connections at Woodside the train on the main line would be scheduled to come in a couple of mins before the PW train and the PW train would only hold an extra min or 2 if the main line train is late. (No more 10-15 min connections.) ------------------------------------------------------------------- |Time| GCM | Penn | Notes | |----|-------|--------|-------------------------------------------| | :00| RK | PJ | Hold at JAM | | :05| | HM | Hold at JAM (Connect with WH) | | :10| | | | | :15| | BB | Hold at JAM (Connect with OB or MN trains)| | :20| FR | PW | Staggered 3-4 min at Woodside FR -> PW | | :25| | | | | :30| PJ | RK | Hold at JAM | | :35| | | | | :40| | | | | :45| BB | BB(EXP)| Hold at JAM | | :50| PW | LB | Staggered 3-4 min at Woodside LB -> PW | | :55| | | | |----|-------|--------|-------------------------------------------| | | 5TPH | 7TPH | ~ 40:60 Split | -------------------------------------------------------------------

Stadler is flexible if they really want to bid on the order they can come up with individual push-pull cars based on the design. That being said there's been a big debate over this on the Amtrak forums. What it basically boils down to is if a manufacturer can figure out how to make a double-decker train that is accessible to all areas of the train ie diners, coach cars, sleepers, and observation cars. I'm not sure if the entire train needs to be accessible but at the bare minimum, a wheelchair passenger is able to get between at least one portion of one car to another.

My guess is they probably thought people who went to Atlantic or Hunterspoint Av and took the Subway to Manhattan would swap over, but even that seems disingenuous even if going to the Eastside or Lower Manhattan is faster via GCM under the current system some people are just too stubborn to change their habits. Otherwise, I can't see how they justified gutting so much service to Penn and Atlantic.

That makes a lot more sense, I didn't know ENY worked on 5 car sets. The thing is I was never sure if the MTA could order trains with closed gangways as they do on mainline railroads. Some LIRR junctions have nasty turns where the cars don't align but that never stopped them. That same argument is also being made against the open gangways by many since it makes it easier for a bad actor to target more people. But thanks for the explanations.

Is it 2 Island or a single one in the middle? If it's 2 my guess is for added flexibility, if it's 1 that seems like a cost-saving measure. Yeah, where is this survey, me a and a lot of other people in my area are pissed that our service is effectively hourly now.

I'm not sure why people are saying the 75' trains can't work out. That whole argument for shorter cars for full-length trains when only the lines 8-car trains are the ones that need the restrictions. The way I see it there is no need for regular B division trains to run on the eastern division in the first place. the 5-car R160s Probably won't ever see service on the Eastern Division just like the 4-car R46/68s. The only real concern should be if the Eastern Division is compatible with the rest of the system. If the MTA ever makes a new order of full-length trains only there is no need for them to be 60'. The only places in the system with restrictions for longer rail cars are the same places with restrictions for the length of the train.

I felt like that was because a lot of people are transferring at Woodside. Basically, before then they would rather not check and after that, they might not have enough time depending on the train. I rarely see a conductor check before a major transfer point.

I feel like for peak hours they have a valid case for why it's too difficult, but when it comes to off-peak I'm not sure. But honestly, I believe it comes from laziness, they don't want to have different standards for peak and off-peak service. It's more of less the same issue Queens Express buses have been dealing with for years. There's no good reason they can't have cross-platform transfers and connect during off peak hours but because it takes more work to plan that out they'd rather not do it.

I just saw this but at 45th St there is a fairly hidden staircase to the 100-level tracks. At 47th St there is a second escalator staircase that goes to the upper-level Metro North tracks. They're not at obvious as they could be but it saves a lot of time. At this point, it seems the conductors are spread so thin I'm riding into Manhattan again without getting my ticket checked even on empty off-peak trains. The last time that was frequently happening to me was during the pandemic. I think the trains from West Hempstead do board on track 3 but the rest are delegated to the shuttle platform.

The conductor came after and I just showed him my itinerary and the time it was activated and he was like ok.

Compared to the XD40's, LFS, and 3G's that were delivered around the same time, the C40LF's have been holding up a lot better.

I didn't have an issue with conductors going either way but my eTix expired after 3 hours on my way back even though the trip planner put the trip as longer than 3 hours. It expired right as I was leaving GCM 😎.

I'm going to make a trip tomorrow but the conductor did confirm with me to buy 2 especially if it's cheaper at your origin. They should be accepted both ways.

Aside from the PW express trains I don't think any other changes were really made. There were complaints across the board. There was also an expectation that the MTA would make more changes from the draft but it never did. Now after this, I don't even trust them with the Queen's redesign and I will be ready to raise hell once their final draft is released. The problem isn't really GCT having the station and the connection there is good we've needed this for a long time, the issue is the service levels and patterns. Many riders had one-seat rides and 30-minute service, and when they did have to change they could guarantee a cross-platform connection. Now it's an hourly service for most people and without guaranteed connections meaning you have to come earlier to ensure you make your connection now because if your train is late the connecting train will not wait for you. On top of that with service spread between 3 platforms and not waiting for each other, it puts a lot of strain on the 2 overpasses that exist as they don't offer much throughput. Jamaica needs to be upgraded as a part of this expansion. Ie a 3rd overpass and more sheltered waiting areas. I've seen less busy stations on the Metro North with better waiting areas. Also, that western overpass needs to be connected to the Airtrain somehow it manages to feel so useless somehow even though people are finally starting to use it.

It doesn't help now all eastbound trains are constantly rotating from tracks 4-8 depending on which terminal the train comes from and while I was there today I saw a Babylon train pull into track 5 with the following Babylon train on track 8. Not only are the connections not guaranteed you need to know which track your train is going to come to in advance and it's constantly changing. Today I saw 2 trains pull in at the same time one on track 6 and the other on track 8 meaning they couldn't make the cross-platform transfer even though there was no train on track 7. A bunch of people ran up the overpass with only a lucky handful making it in time. The LIRR needs to really look at the ability of passengers to cross over, there are only 2 overpasses for passengers to use with only the main one with a narrow escalator. Jamaica's design was overbuilt for its old schedule system, but it's underbuilt for the current one. Also, the Woodside transfer to PW is awful, with 10-15 waits for your connection. At that point, the train can become faster for me than having to transfer.

While we can't know for sure until the system is implemented, I'm fairly confident that the system would be a tap-on-and-off system where the conductor just checks to see you tapped on. It would probably be something similar to what agencies like SEPTA, and Go Transit currently do.

So they changed the wording on the app to

Combo Tickets are live and kind of how I expected there is a price disparity between the direction you travel. But also it's now cheaper to start at a city zone and then transfer to the other railroad for longer trips. But oddly they use location to enforce what ticket you can and cannot buy. I was wondering why they have updated their privacy policy lately. The $10 difference between which direction you go is huge. Also, I do not see the RT combo ticket online.

We can It seems you can't buy it yet, so I \was unsure. The way around it would always be to be buying it for the next trip, not the current one, that way you can use it on your return and then the following trip to the destination. If it's 2 one way tickets that could be another way around it, do they have to be activated in order?

I'm pretty sure it's so they can go back to the depo right after. As opposed to why not Flushing over Whitestone, I believe it might have to do with the schools in the area.

So it doesn't seem like tickets are available on train time yet, but I'm definitely curious The way it's worded, it would be more beneficial to buy RT from a cheaper zone and go to a more expensive zone. ie. Great Neck to New Haven would $17.25 each way but New Haven to Great Neck $25.75 each way. (oddly that's the same cost from GCT) In that case, if you're starting from New Haven it'd be cheaper to buy a paper RT from Great Neck (I'm not sure how the app would allow you to reverse the order.)

https://new.mta.info/fares/combo-ticket

I'm not sure how their system works but it shouldn't be that hard, it's not 90-era computers and technology they're working with. Just a couple extra if/else conditions in the code are needed to differentiate what type of card/device is being used. I'm pretty sure somewhere in the metadata it identifies what type of card is being used.

NICE has been redesigning its network since before redesigns became a thing. They've constantly been making changes every couple of months. The current network looks nothing like it did when they first inherited it, and sadly it's not for the better.

I've noticed this as well it's only certain trips too, I went as far as reading the entire MTA tariffs doc to find nothing on it either. I'd also add the amount on the card for those using reloadable OMNY cards, it could just be on the bottom or top.