Colonial Road Improvement Project

The Colonial Road Improvement Project is one of those East Side Access "step-projects."  This project would help the passengers along the Port Washington Branch.  What it would do is extend the current Great Neck Pocket Track.  (A pocket track is a track just outside a terminus station where they can quickly turn a train to head in the other direction without tying up the station for too long).

The current Great Neck pocket track is used to turn trains that terminate/originate at Great Neck during rush hours.  How this pocket track works is like this: a eastbound trains pulls into the station, unloads all of its passengers, and then pulls slightly east into the pocket track (here's a birds eye view of the pocket track today).  The crew then changes ends, test the train's breaks like they do before every run, and pulls the train back west, across the crossover switch into the eastbound platform of the station.  Then the train can load its new westbound passengers and proceed west back to Penn Station.

But what's the need for a pocket track here?  Well east of Great Neck station, the Port Washington Branch is single tracked.  And just like the Farmingdale-Ronkonkoma stretch of single track on the mainline, single track territory can only have trains moving in one direction, and during rush hour, the maximum amount of trains that the Port Washington Branch could handle without using the pocket track could not handle the amount of people that the Port Washington Branch sees.  So the LIRR uses the Great Neck Pocket Track to split the Port Washington Branch into two "zones."  The first zone runs from Penn Station to Great Neck, where those trains make all those stops between NYP and Great Neck.  Those trains then turn at Great Neck and head back west.  The second zone runs from Penn Station and Woodside express to Great Neck, then stops at Manhassat, Plandome, and Port Washington.  This allows the LIRR to run the maximum amount of trains possible on the different segments of track.

The Great Neck pocket track today with the old Colonial
Road bridge in the background.  (Photo cerdit: MTA)

So this system works just fine now, but when East Side Access is completed, the LIRR will get to run even more trains along the Port Washington Branch.  But under current conditions, the LIRR is unable to run any more trains along the Port Washington Branch, and the main reason is they have no place to turn these trains around.

Artist rendering of what the area will look like with the
extended pocket track and new Colonial Road bridge.
(Photo credit: MTA)

So they came up with the Colonial Road Improvement Project to remedy this.  This project consists of two main aspects:

1. Extend the Great Neck pocket track to accommodate a second twelve car train, and
2. Replace the Colonial Road Bridge that currently carries Colonial Road over the LIRR tracks at this location.   This bridge is a very old bridge that is in pretty bad shape.  A new bridge will be installed in conjunction with this project that will suit the needs of the surrounding communities much better.

This project will also work to improve drainage systems in the area which will help prevent flooding from rain water runoff.

The added capacity along the Port Washington Branch will also allow for better service to Mets-Willets Point station for events.

The Capital Program Dashboard currently says that construction is set to start in June of 2013, and the whole thing is expected to be completed by 2015.  The Environmental Assessment was just recently completed, so short of a big hiccup June 2013 looks like a pretty accurate start date as of now, but we'll see.  And in 2015 when this is all done Port Washington Branch customers wouldn't have to wait for ESA to open its doors to benefit from this.  The added capacity will be used to add trains to New York Penn in the meantime. 

For more information you can visit the Colonial Road Improvement Project page on the MTA's website. The LIRR also put out a YouTube video in March 2011 describing the project:

For more East Side Access-related posts on this site, click here: East Side Access Posts