Today marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, which is technically a federal holiday, despite countless employers who think otherwise. For the people who actually have to go to work on Monday, the LIRR is offering a "modified weekend schedule" for its valued customers.
The "modified weekend schedule" consists of your standard weekend schedule with a handful of extra trains sprinkled in. In all, there will be a total of 32 additional trains on the Babylon, Montauk, Port Jefferson, Port Washington and Ronkonkoma Branches. There are also four Dual Modes added into the schedules for this holiday, with one round trip from Port Jefferson and one round trip from Speonk.
The Babylon Branch will see 12 additional westbound trains in the morning, departing between 5:08am and 9:16am. Everything is local, however, an oversight in my mind, but we'll live with what we got. 5 extra eastbound trains leaving New York between 3:40pm and 6:40pm for local Babylon Branch stations will help distribute the loads coming home. There are still the handful of local-expresses which are nice if you are going to those stations, so perhaps you can hop on one of those.
On the Montauk Branch, the extra Speonk DM will leave at 6:45am and will get you into New York roughly two hours later at 8:47am. Coming home, it's an early end to the day for many as the early departure time of 2:51pm seems to have stuck for quite a number of years now.
Port Jefferson Branch riders will be treated to two additional Huntington locals and a Port Jeff Dual Mode that arrives Penn Station at 10:18am (a late start for these folks, I guess). There are two eastbound Huntington Locals leaving New York at 5:07pm and 6:06pm and the Port Jefferson Dual Mode extra leaves at 4:00pm and that train makes all local stops New Hyde Park to Port Jeff (17 stops!).
The Ronkonkoma Branch will see four additional Ronkonkoma trains and one start from Farmingdale. There will also be two additional westbounds, a 3:32pm train to Ronkonkoma and a 3:54pm train to Farmingdale. Since the LIRR will be operating on a weekend schedule, there will be no service east of Ronkonkoma.
Two westbound and three eastbound Great Neck trains will also add some seats on the Port Washington Branch.
The solitary weekend West Hempstead Branch train did not run this morning, so there is no weekend service along that branch either.
Off-peak fares will be in effect all day Monday. The LIRR will be back on a regular schedule tomorrow. Anyways, I'll be back later on with another post about Penn Station's platforms, so be on the lookout for that. Otherwise, enjoy the day off if you have it!
On the topic of the early 2:51pm Speonk DM on MLK day...I was passing through the station around 2:45pm and I figured I'd stick around to see it's departure. At a quick cursory glance, the 8 car DM train, which had the last two cars closed off, had about a 50% load in the six open cars or about a 41% load all together. Not terrible.
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