The LIRR's Mainline, as it stands now, is double tracked from QUEENS interlocking in Bellerose all the way to FARM interlocking east of Farmingdale, a stretch that roughly spans roughly 17 miles of railroad. While two tracks is plenty for the smaller branches like the Far Rockaway or Hempstead Branches which only see hourly service and not much better than that during the peak period, the LIRR's mainline, which sees something like 18 trains over the course of an hour in the peak of the morning peak, two tracks won't cut it.
To give you a clue at how expansive the LIRR Mainline is, you could stand on the platforms at New Hyde Park in the morning rush and see people that got on trains at fifty seven different LIRR stations earlier that morning. You would see yours truly, who gets on a train in Montauk, to people coming from Ronkonkoma, Bethpage, Syosset, Northport, Stony Brook, Glen Cove, Mineola, Hicksville, Westbury, et cetra. Doing some rough math from the LIRR's 2012 Ridership Book, you would see roughly fourty thousand LIRR commuters pass your vantage point over the course of a couple hours.
With 40,000 people coming from 57 different stations there is quite a lot at stake for those two busy segments of track. We're all familiar with the disasters that are caused when the smallest hiccups are experienced on the mainline (as recently as last week) and how the effect can last for hours and hours after the initial incident occurred.
And with East Side Access growing ever nearer the LIRR is going to look to significantly expand the amount of trains it would like to run on the mainline. Lots and lots of new people will hopefully be flocking to the trains, and there will need to be plenty of train service to get those people where they need to go. Therefore, the LIRR will logically need a lot more capacity on the mainline.
But where can that capacity come from? You're not going to squeeze any further capacity out of the existing infrastructure, I assure you that. The Mainline is already "throated" during a big chunk of the morning rush and for a part of the evening rush too. Throating is a concept that is employed by the LIRR on the mainline during both rush hours and on the Babylon Branch for a period of time in the morning rush. When a line is "throated" both tracks are used in one direction and trains are pounded down the stretch at headways of six minutes or less. This almost doubles capacity, but it also has some negative side-effects as no counter-current flow traffic can get back in the opposite direction. You could try to throat the Mainline longer, giving some extra capacity, but think of the concept of "throating" as the LIRR literally placing a choke hold on the mainline. The longer you keep up the throating and the longer you maintain that chokehold the paler and paler the line gets as its yards and sidings start to get depleted. Pretty soon there will not be a single train left in Ronkonkoma Yard and unless the throating can be let up to allow trains to get back east to replenish the yards, you're not going to get very far with that additional capacity.
Since it is very likely that we are not going to get too much more space out of the mainline as it is, the only real solution here is to add more physical capacity, and that capacity could be added in the form of a third track.
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| Map of where the Third Mainline Track would have to run. (Credit: Regional Planning Association) |
The LIRR has enough capacity east of Hicksville and enough capacity west of Floral Park, but the huge problem is that 10 mile stretch of railway in the middle with only two tracks. We can quintuple-track the Ronkonkoma and Port Jefferson branches, but if there are only two tracks going from QUEENS to DIVIDE, we are still going to be severely limited in the amount of trains run on those tracks.
The prospect is pretty grim: when East Side Access opens, the LIRR will not be able to add a single train for riders boarding at Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson, Ronkonkoma, and Montauk Branches. There will simply be no room on the mainline for anything else. So basically, the well-being of passengers at 57 different stations hinge on the addition of capacity on the mainline.
And it's not like we can just stuff passengers onto existing trains. The trains are as long as they are going to get and the Mainline trains (especailly the Ronkonkoma Branch) have the highest loads on the system already. So if something does not get done the LIRR will be offering pretty much the same amount of seats to support all of the existing commuters, plus many more.
A third mainline track is the only possible solution. There really is no way around it. The only way to possibly dream of increased service on the mainline during the rush hour would be to construct this track. It's that simple. No third track, no additional service. It can't physically be done.
The logical person might ask, well, if this project is so critically important, how come they're not out there laying track as we speak!?
The sad answer to that question is NIMBYism. The NIMBY's in New Hyde Park and Floral Park do not want a third track and more trains going through their precious neighborhoods.
And just like that a bunch of NIMBYs could single-highhandedly stifle service at 57 other stations on the LIRR.
For the most part, the LIRR's existing right-of-way from Hicksville to around the Carle Place/Mineola area is wide enough already for a third track. In the past couple years, every new bridge or gantry or structure that has been put into place has been placed carefully with a possible third track in mind. When the Rosyln Road Crossing was eliminated, the bridge that was put in its place was made wide enough to accommodate a third track. When the Mineola Intermodal Center was built it was kept far enough away from the tracks that when a third track would be added through Mineola the garage would not have to be touched.
The biggest problem exists west of Merillon Avenue. West of Merillon Avenue the right of way is not quite wide enough to support a full third track. There also exists three grade crossings in New Hyde Park that there stands a 95% chance they would have to be eliminated.
Those three crossings would have to either be closed off, bridged over, or the roads would have to dive under. This is an idea that the village of New Hyde Park is not very happy about. They do not want the construction or the large overpasses this project would have to bring ruining the alleged character of their town.
Apparently, residents of the village of New Hyde Park would rather sit at a grade crossing for an average of 47 minutes out of every hour during the morning rush in their cars guzzling gas before they let their beloved grade crossings get eliminated.
There is also the fact that property would need to be obtained to allow this project to become a reality. The existing ROW is not wide enough as it is to support the third track, so to make room for the rails, the LIRR would need to obtain small pieces of land from the backyards of homeowners lining the ROW. And these homeowners, as can be reasonably expected, are not happy with this idea. I don't like seeing people getting portions of their property taken away from them, but chances are, the rail tracks were there looong before they were, and they should have known when they bought their houses that the LIRR might come knocking one day looking for a couple feet of land out of their backyards. Even the most cunning of realtors couldn't possibly hide the busy set of railroad tracks in the backyard from you during the open house... Y sympathy for these people is almost non-existent. The idea of a third mainline track is nothing new, you should certainly have known.
And don't get the mistaken impression that the LIRR is looking to bulldoze thousands of houses here...it's a couple hundred feet from the backyards of houses lining the ROW. The entire village of New Hyde Park isn't going to be crushed by the work. The LIRR has said that there would be no complete seizures of property. Also, the LIRR would only need to take five feet or less from 52 of the 94 properties that stand in the project's way.
But yet there is something about these NIMBYs that are making everything uncomfortable for everyone.
We all probably remember the press conferences from the lowly elected officials that represent these areas celebrating that they intend to a stop to the third track project...well, they are also going to stifle any possible service expansions on the mainline while they are at it.
I don't even want to start getting into the absurd arguments the politicians have put forward. One is as ludicrous and false as the next. You can Google around and see how thin some of the arguments they put forward are. They are putting their petty excuses and 'concerns' before the well-being of 40,000 other LIRR riders at 57 stations. For goodness sake, live in Kansas if you don't want anything to do with railroads. The LIRR is older than every last one of us. Nobody forced you to live within a five mile radius of the nearest train horn, you chose it.
But as usual, the politicians have to throw a tantrum and whine and scream for their loyal constituents and go at the MTA and further delay this critically needed project.
There is no workaround for this. Without the third track there will simply not be enough capacity on the LIRR Mainline and there will not be enough seats for the commuters once East Side Access opens. The Babylon, Long Beach, Far Rocakaway, and West Hempstead branches are going to get all those nice shiny slots in Grand Central because the LIRR is not going to be able to get anything else out of the mainline.
The lack of a third track on the mainline also basically renders whatever capacity expansion programs that go on east of Hicksville useless. What good is the second Ronkonkoma Branch track going to do if they can't add any trains in? They can expand off-peak service a little, but during the peak there is little more they can do. Also, there would be no new trains out of a Yaphank electric yard since there would be no space on the mainline for them.
Do whatever you'd like, without that third mainline track, the LIRR's Mainline (and everyone who depends on it) is screwed.
So where do we stand now? Well, the lowly NIMBYs have managed to put a pretty tight stranglehold on the project. Disconcertingly, the third mainline track was mysteriously left out of the MTA's 20-year capital needs assessment report issued not too long ago. It seems like the LIRR is being forced to keep this under the sheets until they can actually come up with some concrete funding for this.
The LIRR needs to tighten up its hold on a lot of things on this railroad--fast. Over the last couple decades or so, things have begun to get out of hand--they bend to easily and avoid firmly standing their ground. It looks like they are taking a step in the right direction with the ongoing negotiations with the unions, and I only hope that the LIRR turns its tough-fisted efforts to get the LIRR back in shape to the NIMBYs next. They have been complaining far to senselessly for far too long. It's time we started laying some track and expanding some yards. As much as it stinks for those standing in the paths, to hell with the locals.
