This post was published in 2014 and was a discussion on a series of concept timetables for East Side Access developed by The LIRR Today. The LIRR published a proposed service plan and draft timetables in 2022. Read about the proposed East Side Access service plan here.
It was Tuesday when we saw how the Hempstead Branch fit in to my "master plan" of how the LIRR could setup service patterns following the eventual completion of East Side Access. In that post, I mentioned that Hempstead trains would no longer be stopping at Hollis and Queens Village, but those stops would instead be served by a new "Belmont Park Branch." I have long held that the LIRR could be using Belmont Park much more than they are doing so today (four trains on days where events are held at the racetrack, and a handful more on the day of the Belmont Stakes), and leaving Belmont Park out of any future thinking about the LIRR is short sighted. It's location lies at the junction of the incredibly busy Cross Island Expressway and the nearly as crowded Route 24. It's the perfect location for a Park-and-Ride and the potential to attract car-loving commuters is high. (And, considering a soccer venue might be coming to Belmont Park in the near future, the LIRR shouldn't totally forget about Belmont Park just yet.)
Belmont Park is also a key part of the intra-city travel equation, and it has great potential to serve as the eastern anchor for lots of intra-city trains and intra-city ridership. It is not far out on the Mainline, and it would serve many communities that are currently far away from the nearest subway station.
The track structures at Belmont Park station set it up to work very well as a terminal, as there are lots of possible places to put trains and turning them would be pretty easily. The platform itself is not designed for speedy boarding, as it is the one and only low-level station in the system. At some point in the future scope of the MTA's thinking, putting in one or two high-level platforms and elevators at this station might be beneficial, but it is not a pressing need by any stretch, and the mere fact that passengers have to climb up a couple steps to hop on the train should not preclude service expansions here. Being that it is a terminal, passengers can take their time going up and down the steps and there are plenty of tracks, so they don't have to rush to get out of the way.
Additionally, the tracks leading into the station are not in the best of shape, but they are not unsafe (they are used multiple times on most days by both passenger and freight trains), and that should also be no reason to hold back on expanding service there. But, if the funds become available, some concrete ties and a little work on the track geometry would be nice, but again, not urgent.
I originally had the Belmont Park trains just built into the Hempstead Branch Timetable, but I thought it began to be a bit too confusing and opted to split it out to its own separate timetable. The linked .pdf file below is a sample weekday and weekend set of that Belmont Park Branch timetable that include service to Grand Central Terminal. Peak, off-peak, reverse-peak, and special/event trains are all included.
The timetables only show revenue trains, not equipment or deadhead moves. I have planned out each deadhead move, equipment rotation, etc., as I was doing this project, and I have most of those moves handwritten down on paper, but I have yet to insert all of them into the actual excel timetables. Nonetheless, I tried whenever possible to minimize the amount of deadheading, since it is essentially wasted crew and equipment hours, but in some cases, it was unavoidable.
Just like the other timetable posts, here are some "Key Assumptions" and "Service Guidelines" which I built the timetables on:
Key Assumptions
- The current infrastructure on the spur will remain the same or similar to what it is now.
- While not urgent, some basic rehabilitation of they wye and overpass into the station would be beneficial, in addition to the installation of [at a minimum] two high-level platforms to replace the current low-level trains.
- During peak hours, service is provided on a clockface schedule with 15-minute headways. Train service is provided to Penn Station, Grand Central, Atlantic Terminal, and Hunterspoint Avenue on a rotary schedule.
- The Belmont Park trains will bear the load of intra-city travelers, making all local stops West of Jamaica when possible (trains to Hunterspoint Avenue traditionally do not make local stops on the Mainline due to the way they are usually routed in HAROLD interlocking).
- Hollis and Queens Village stations will be served almost exclusively by Belmont Park trains. During late night hours, when trains to/from Belmont Park do not run, these stations will be served by Hempstead Branch trains.
- During the off-peak hours, service is provided once an hour from Belmont Park to Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.
- During the weekday reverse-peak period, additional trains are run in the reverse-peak direction from Brooklyn to provide service on 30-minute headways during reverse-peak times. These trains are extensions of existing West of Jamaica trains that would otherwise begin/end their run at Jamaica. This also helps cut down on the number of non-revenue moves needed to maintain the 15-minute headways.
- Train service is increased during the busiest travel periods on weekends to provide service twice an hour. Due to some unforeseen scheduling conflicts and the Belmont Park Branch "drawing the short straw" these additional trains operate to Brooklyn in the morning, but from Grand Central in the afternoon.
- On days where racing events are held at Belmont Park, two additional round-trips will operate between Penn Station and Grand Central to Belmont Park and back. The final departure to Penn Station in the afternoons is subject to delay, and will leave approximately 30 minutes after the conclusion of the last race.
- Train service to Belmont Park will run with 8-car M7's during peak and reverse-peak times and will run with 6-car M7's during all other times (including all day weekends).
My original vision for Belmont Park centered closely on the idea of operating it as a park-and-ride with very little off-peak service (basically, only the trains that would be required to deadhead in the reverse-peak periods would run during the off-peaks). After thinking about it more, I implemented the hourly off-peak service on weekdays while Hempstead Branch trains would make the stops at Queens Village and Hollis on weekends. I eventually caved and dove full on into Belmont Park, expanding weekend service to operate to Belmont Park on weekends.
Like the Hempstead Branch, all trains to/from Belmont Park will run via 4 track (the eastbound local) on the Mainline between QUEENS and HALL. This removes any potential conflicts with other Mainline services as well as put the trains within easy reach of the new platform F at Jamaica (which is why these trains are scheduled to primarily operate to/from Brooklyn in the off-peak periods). This also means that, with a few exceptions during rush hour, all trains will board at the eastbound platform at Queens Village and Hollis.
More on the methodology behind the single-tracking and operation of the Mainline was discussed in the Hempstead Branch post, but this plan would essentially take the trains the LIRR has planned on scooting back and forth between Jamaica and Brooklyn and extend them a couple miles east to Belmont Park to better serve the populations east of there.
The hourly Hempstead, Belmont Park, Far Rockaway, (and one additional train from an eastern terminal not yet covered), are not intentioned to replace the LIRR's current plan to operate frequent scoot service between Jamaica and Brooklyn. Rather, the four Long Island-Brooklyn trains per hour merely serve as the anchor for Brooklyn service, with 'x' number of extra West of Jamaica trains being added in between Jamaica and Brooklyn to achieve whatever headway desired.
So I have yet to drastically go against something the railroad has planned up until this point, I am merely taking a step outside the box and making the planned intra-city trains between Jamaica and Brooklyn cover a little more of the "-city" in intra-city by going out to Belmont Park.
I have also put the responsibility of serving the Hillside and Boland's Landing employee stops on the Belmont Park trains, with the times for those also indicated at the bottom of the Belmont Park timetable. I have been asked recently weather or not it would be a good idea to turn Belmont Park into a regular passenger station instead of wasting two, 12-car, high-level platforms on just the employees that use the station daily (and there are a number of them that do so. Not 12-cars worth, but a lot.) Not being from the area, I can't really say weather that would be a good idea or not. Looking at a map, I can see Hollis is a very short distance away, not more than a mile, but I don't know if Hollis is in a particularly inconvenient location or the Hillside station is easier to get to for certain people. I would imagine there wouldn't be too many obstacles to having revenue passengers board here, it would merely require a staircase or two down to the surrounding streets (though dropping a staircase form the eastbound platform (the platform where 95% of the trains will be stopping at) might be tight, so passengers might have to climb up and over to get to where they want to go. I'm open to any input from people who are familiar with the area more than I am.
In addition to the input welcomed on the Hillside station, any other comments, suggestions, or corrections on the rest of the timetable or service plan are also very welcome and much appreciated. You can leave a comment by accessing the comment form below (by signing in with a username or just leaving your name and e-mail), or e-mail me at mail@thelirrtoday.com. Your feedback is appreciated!
View an index of all of the other sample timetables, the posts about those timetables, and revision history, right here.
Using Belmont Park station in regular service without constructing an ADA-compliant ramp or platform may be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
ReplyDeleteAs long as no major modifications are made to the station structure itself, the ADA regulations won't be triggered. Belmont Park is used in regular passenger service today, tough not as frequent and daily as this would propose.
ReplyDeleteI do think it was interesting what you proposed for this "Belmont Branch" and I like how you are putting to use already existing infrastructure. A Park and Ride station from here would probably be great and could be useful.
ReplyDeleteHowever, is it really necessary to create a whole new branch for really only 2 stations? From my opinion, leaving Hollis and Queens Village on Hempstead bound trains is fine. I'm not too convinced that if more service is provided, will people actually take advantage of it?
Also, I thought these timetables were supposed to demonstrate what service would be like after ESA? The LIRR really has given no indication of building out Belmont or using Hunterspoint Avenue as much as you plan. These timetables seem not to be realistic in terms of what we can expect but rather a fanboy's dream of how he would schedule trains if he could do whatever he wanted? Can you explain more?
They could modify the southernmost stairs to ADA compliant ramps. Then add sidewalks, crosswalks, and traffic signals for the pedestrians to cross to the grandstands.
ReplyDeleteStructures built before 1990 are exempt from the requirements until they go through a major overhaul of some sort. Until the LIRR goes messing around with the rest of the station running more trains usually won't trigger the ADA stuff.
ReplyDeleteMost of the stuff posted here so far seems pretty practical so far. The RR hasn't said they are going to use Belmont as a P&R, but then again they haven't said they are going to close it outright or just keep the current 4x/day race day service. They have kept lots of things close to the chest (something I'm not all that happy about), but who knows, maybe they're still figuring all this stuff out now themselves!
ReplyDeleteThis station was opened before the law was passed in 1990, so it can technically be grandfathered in. Though it would be pretty easy and inexpensive for the LIRR to build some mini-high platforms at the south ends of the station (a couple thousand dollars at most).
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, some trains from Hempstead could perhaps short-turn at Belmont Park, to free up track spots west of Hollis and Queens Village.
ReplyDelete