A Look at What the Babylon Branch Timetable Could Look Like

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. 

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Before we begin, you will have to forgive me. Throughout this post I will occasionally use the term "Babylon Branch" when no such branch actually exists.  The LIRR has 11 branches, and none of them are called the "Babylon Branch," but during this term I will be using the term "Babylon Branch" to refer to trains that begin or end their runs at Babylon, and run as electric trains from Babylon to/from points west.  This territory is technically still the Montauk Branch (as the entire thing from Long Island City to Montauk is the Montauk Branch), but for convenience sake, we'll split the Montauk Branch into two different posts, the Montauk Branch one that we saw last week, and today's post about the "Babylon Branch."  I naturally use the terms "Montauk Branch" or the "west of Babylon trains" to refer to these trains in everyday conversation, so those might accidentally slip in.  For all intents and purposes, this post will be about what train service at stations Rockville Centre through Babylon will look like.


The LIRR's Babylon Branch is the railroad's busiest branch and one of the most versatile.  Electrification was completed from Valley Stream to Babylon on May 20, 1925 (almost 90 years ago!).  In the 1950's through the 1970's, the LIRR undertook a massive grade crossing elimination project, which, voted one of the ten best decisions the LIRR ever made, completely elevated the Branch and substantially reduced the amount of grade crossing and trespasser incidents.

The Babylon Branch is one of the few runs that is double tracked for its entire length.  Trains on most branches have to get funneled down into one track just before it gets to the final terminal (just in electric territory, Port Washington, Ronkonkoma, Hempstead, West Hempstead, Far Rockaway, and Long Beach are all like this).  While it's not a major hardship in most of those locations, it is something that has to be kept in mind when scheduling trains.  The Babylon Branch has the ability for eastbound and westbound service to run completely independent of each other, making it very easy to schedule trains.

Just past the fictitious branch's eastern terminal lies Babylon Yard, which is a substantial train storage yard (as seen in this interlocking walkthrough).   This means you can start a large amount of trains here in the morning, and when the western terminals are full, you can run lots of trains here to be yarded (and thus relieve stress elsewhere on the system). 

The branch also has a number of small interlockings along its length, namely ROCKY, PORT, WANTAGH, and AMITYVILLE, (in addition to whatever the new Massapequa interlocking will be called, but trains will be unable to crossover between tracks at that location) which gives the railroad an enormous amount of flexibility.

All of these factors, along with the Massapequa pocket track now going in, gives the LIRR the opportunity to run a lot of trains west of Babylon, which is great since there are a lot of riders that need to be transported.  The timetables included below show sample service patterns for weekday and weekend Montauk Branch service, west of Babylon.  Substantial service to both Grand Central and New York Penn is shown, as the way the Babylon Branch is set up will afford them the ability to run a substantial number of trains to both of those terminals.

The timetables only show revenue trains, not equipment or deadhead moves.  Due this branch's convenient layout, there are a number of non-revenue trains that operate along the branch, but the massive number of stops would prevent them from getting out of the way in a timely manner. Here are some Key Assumptions and basic Service Guidelines:

Key Assumptions

• The LIRR will complete the Massapequa Pocket Track that will allow them to turn trains easily at Massapequa.
• Babylon and Port Yards will have the same or similar capacity than they do today.

Service Guidelines

• The days of the 15-stop Babylon Local are gone!  There's nothing more unpleasant than riding along the Babylon Branch making more than a dozen stops at closely-packed stations the entire time.  I have long held that the single worst station to use in electric territory during the off-peak period is Lindenhurst, because you have no choice to sit on a Babylon Local and endue 13, 14, 15, or more stops to get to your destination.  With the exception of late-night trains and the handful of Brooklyn locals during the rush hour, the long and painful Babylon locals are gone.
• During the off-peak period, the Babylon Branch is split into two zones: Rockville Centre-Massapequa and Wantagh-Babylon.  Every station gets half-hourly service, much like they do today.  Trains operate once every half hour from Grand Central to Massapequa, making local stops between Rockville Centre and Wantagh, before proceeding to Massapequa and turning on the new pocket track there.  Two more trains per hour run between New York Penn, Jamaica, and Wantagh before making local stops to Babylon.  This offers passengers going east past Wantagh a time savings of several minutes, in addition to a more comfortable ride.
• During rush hours, trains operate every 3-6 minutes along the branch, making stops all over the place.  All trains will originate at either Babylon, Massapequa, or Freeport, but the stopping patterns are wildly varied throughout the rush hour.  These days, the LIRR uses a zone spacing system on the Babylon Branch where clusters of stops in threes get served by the same train (so the one train will serve Massapequa Park, Massapequa, and Seaford all at once and another for Wantagh, Bellmore, and Merrick).  I have developed a new zone spacing system that groups stations along the lines of ridership instead of proximity.  So a train will originate at Massapequa, pickup passengers at three or four big stations, then proceed west.  Another train would then originate at Babylon and make more stops at the stations with lesser ridership.  This balances loads more efficiently, and no one train is overrun (as a Freeport-Baldwin-Rockville Centre train serves a lot more people than a Lindenhurst-Copiague-Amityville one, despite the number of stations being the same).
• In the AM rush, there are sporadic periods where the two track line is throated, allowing trains to run in westbound direction on both tracks.  In the evening rush, there are only a small number of cases where both tracks are used in the eastbound direction, and that is only between Valley Stream and Freeport, not the entire length of the branch.  Today, all eastbound Babylon trains are kept on track 2, and no trains run against the current, and that is kept more or less today.
• Half-hourly reverse peak service is sustained throughout both rush hours.  There is no decrease or adjustment in train times during the off-peak hours, another perk of the Babylon Branch's flexibility.
• During the peak of the peak periods, I tried to provide as many Flyers (trains that skip Jamaica) to keep loads balanced between the terminals.  This limits transfers at Jamaica, but I tried to keep service even across both New York terminals.
• With very few exceptions on the weekends, trains to/from Babylon no longer stop at either Lynbrook or St. Albans.  I have never seen anyone get on a Babylon train at either of those stations (it doesn't mean that nobody does, it's just that there are very few people, not worth wasting the time on the heavily traveled west of Babylon trains).
• Montauk branch trains that make local stops on the Babylon Branch or stop at Babylon in general are shown on the weekday panels only.  I have yet to include the weekend Montauk Branch trains on the Babylon Branch timetable because I keep making changes to those particular trains.  The main reason I put the Patchogue/Speonk/Montauk trains on the west of Babylon timetable in the first place was so I could keep track of track slots on this portion of the branch.  There also might be slight discrepancies between the Montauk Branch train times in this timetable versus the ones in the Montauk Branch timetable, but in all cases, the times shown in the sample Montauk Branch timetable are correct.

Link to Babylon Branch Timetable

Due to the sheer number of trains that the Babylon Branch sees, it would be difficult to explain every little quirk and nuance that went into the creation of this branch's timetable.  I have tried to make things as simple as possible, or at least as self-explanatory as possible, and I added in notes where things might otherwise be confusing.

One thing I do want to briefly talk about is the Brooklyn locals.  Today, the trains from New York Penn make express stops along the Babylon Branch, often skipping Jamaica, and a couple times during the rush there are these Brooklyn locals, which originate at Atlantic Terminal, run to Jamaica, then make every local stop to Babylon.  These trains carry connecting loads at Jamaica, people who want to come from Brooklyn, as well as intra-island travelers along the branch.  They're a great idea, and it would be nice to see it happen on the Mainline, but the capacity just isn't there for it to happen.  The future of through-trains to Atlantic Terminal from Long Island are still up in the air (much to my displeasure), so we will have to see what will become of these locals.  I love the concept, and I'd like to see it carried over to whatever schedules the LIRR uses after East Side Access is completed, but these locals could simply not originate at Grand Central or Penn Station, the loads that would swarm them would be huge and it would never make it to Babylon alive.  They will have to come from an alternate terminal, preferably Atlantic Terminal, but if that is to be made impossible, Hunterspoint Avenue or just originating them at Jamaica would have to happen.

I described much of the core of the service patterns above, and I think it would be easier to address individual questions/oddities that may come up in the comments or by e-mail (mail@thelirrtoday.com), rather than have 30-paragraph long post detailing each and every train (and nobody wants to read that!).  It's very lazy of me, but I hope you'll understand. 

Comments, e-mails, etc., are very important and strongly encouraged! If anything seems funny or you would like to know why I did a particular thing, please don't hesitate to write in.

View an index of all of the other sample timetables, the posts about those timetables, and revision history, right here.