Big Changes to This Year's Cannonball

The Cannonball of years past, heading east through Bay Shore

In an announcement made last Thursday, the LIRR joyfully announced that it would be switching the western terminal Cannonball, the LIRR's supreme summer Hampton's express train, from Hunterspoint Avenue, a station in Queens where the train has been departing since its inception, to Penn Station in New York.

The Cannonball heading east through Woodside

Up until this year, the Cannonball would depart Hunterspoint Avenue in Queens at 4:06 pm every Friday, make a stop at Jamaica to collect connecting passengers from Penn Station and Atlantic Terminal, then sprint ov
er 55 miles all the way to Westhampton without making a single stop along the way.  It was the LIRR's single-longest revenue express run on the railroad.

But this year, the Cannonball will begin its trip in New York Penn Station from track 19 instead of its traditional Hunterspoint Avenue origin.  After leaving Penn Station it will go 75 miles without making a single stop!  The doors will close at Penn
Station at 4:07pm and they won't open again until the train platforms at Westhampton at 5:41 pm, 94 minutes later.

Politicans and LIRR higher-ups standing next to a dual-mode test
train for this year's Cannonball, gumming up train operations
while posing for photos.  Silly, silly, politicians.  (Photo credit: MTA)

A 12-car Dual Mode on Penn Station track 19, seen on a test run
for this year's Cannonball on April 18th.
(Photo credit: Steve Lynch/TrainsAreFun)

This new move will provide non-stop service to the Hamptons for the first time in LIRR History.  Presently, only one one-seat ride from Manhattan to the Hamptons currently exisits, that being the 5:09 pm dual-mode to Speonk that is extended all the way to Montauk on Fridays.  That train makes every stop after Babylon, so the Cannonball's nonstop run all the way to Westhampton will be measurably faster.

The abolition of the stop at Jamaica will not only simplify matters as far as connecting passengers goes, but it will also

The new drumhead for this year's Cannonball
(Photo Credit: Steve Lynch/TrainsAreFun)

save lots of travel time.  Ever New York commuter loves those non-Jamica trains and wishes their line had more, and now the Montauk Branch has one too.

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Now in my opinion, while a move like this is all well and good, it does have some drawbacks.

First of all, with the abolition of the Jamica stop and the adjustment of departure time, the LIRR has sneakily made this a peak-hour train.  Last year, even thorugh the Cannonball departed Hunterspoint Avenue, the Penn Station and Atlantic Terminal connections didn't depart until 3:56 pm and 3:58 pm, so by the tarrif regulations, the Cannonball was considered an off-peak train.

This year's Cannonball departs at 4:07 pm (after 4pm) and doesn't have any Brooklyn or Hunterspoint Avenue connections to care about, so it is most definitely considered a peak-hour train this year.

And with peak-hour train honors comes peak fares.  A trip on the Cannonball this year will run you a whopping $27.

And that's a big price jump when you consider the shift from off-peak to peak and the March fare increase.  Last year, a trip on the Cannonball cost $18.25, this year, it'll run you $27.  That's an one-shot increase of $8.75!

Now, don't get me wrong, people will certainly pay the $27 (along with the $20 extra Hamptons Reserve fee if you wanted to go that route).  My main concern is that if you're trying to keep this affordable to everybody and all markets to compete with Hampton Jitney or the like, making trains even more expensive isn't the way to do it.

Secondly, by dumping the Jamiaca stop, your alienating connecting markets.  Anyone who used to come from Woodside, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Long Island City/HPA, or any of the Brooklyn stops now have a choice, they can spend the extra time and money and go all the way into Manhattan to catch the train from NYP, they can crowd the remaining over-crowded Montauk trains, or they can drive.

Again, not the worst thing, people will still be taking it from Penn Station, no doubt, but you want to create more options, not less.

Yet another problem arises when you take into account that Penn Station is going to be the solitary place where people can board a train for 75 miles.

New York Penn is crazy on any given night.  It's even more crazy on a Firday night.  It's even more crazy on a Summer Friday, and it's even more crazy when the Cannonball's Penn connection left, and now it's going to be even more crazy when its the only place people can board the thing!

I got up to bold, italics, and underline on that last one!  Just think, come this summer, we are going to have well over 12 bi-levels worth of people cramming the concourses and platforms of New York Penn Station.  It's going to be a madhouse!

Part of the reason why so many people boarded the Cannonball at Hunterspoint Avenue in years past is that HPA is a much more civilized place to board.  The train is there will in advance of departure time, there's no track changes, there's no swarm of people crowding departure boards, there's no mad rush down the stairs with hundreds of other people, and there's no climbing over little old ladies in the doorway to find a seat on the bloody train.  This year you're going to have all that and much more taking place in the minutes leading up to 4:07 pm on Fridays.  Yikes!

And fourthly, the LIRR better cross its fingers and pray that the train doesn't crap out someplace.   For this dual-mode service to work, the engines are going to have to switch from electric to diesel power at some point before Babylon.  And sometimes, the temperamental little dual-modes don't like to change modes.  And normally, when a dual-mode going east doesn't change modes, the powers at be are alerted and a replacement deskill set will be waiting for the train upon its arrival at Jamaica. 

Normally, that wouldn't be too big of a problem.  The only thing is that with the Cannonball, throwing everybody off at Jamaica and having them get on another train would be a nightmare!  Imagine taking twelve standing-room only bi-levels and making the people get off, walk across the platform, or dare I say, walk upstairs and down to another platform(!), all of them with large amounts of luggage, children, and the kitchen sink.  It would be a real mess.

That's not to mention that a replacement set for the Cannonball would be really hard to come by.  Every single one of the LIRR's other diesel trains calls for a consist that is eight cars or less, so it is doubtful that the LIRR would have a twelve-car set sitting around ready to go.  And the diesel and C3 fleets are stretched incredibly thin already, especially on summer Fridays, so that replacement of equipment would likely result in other train cancellations.  And when that replacement train shows up, you can't realistically expect it to have more than eight cars.  So you send a 8 car replacement train for a train that has 16-18 cars worth of people in it.  That would certainly not be pretty.  (Yikes! Again!)

So all in all, this is a big move for the LIRR.  Weather it is a good move is yet to be seen.  There are a lot of big downsides to a move of this kind.  But we'll just have to wait and see.