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| The Little East Neck Road Crossing in Wyandanch that will be rehabilitated this weekend. (Photo credit: Google Street View) |
Grade crossings usually consist of either concrete or wood ties that are covered over by either rubber or concrete blocks that cover the ties and allow for the smooth surface that cars usually find easier to traverse. The average railroad crossing has a life of about 20 years. After which point, either the rotting of the wooden ties, the breakdown of the concrete ties due to many winters of salting, the sagging or cracking of the rubber or concrete coverings due to years of heavy vehicle traffic and large trucks bearing down on them over the course of their life. Low-traffic grade crossings can last for a little longer, but with the high volumes of traffic on Long Island, the hundreds of different grade crossings the LIRR and vehicles traverse require replacement every 20 years or so.
Grade Crossing renewals require the track to be taken out of service for the duration of the work. In most cases, some minor schedule changes to allow trains to single track using the second track through the area is sufficient to get through the work, but on the single track Mainline, taking out one track means busing the entire line from Farmingdale to Ronkonkoma.
Something as simple as replacing a grade crossing can be somewhat complex. Back in March of 2012, the railroad rehabilitated the Sea Cliff Avenue grade crossing on the Oyster Bay Branch over the course of six shorter midday outages. Railroad.net user "hotbike" caught several short videos of the grade crossing work going on there, and I have strung them into a YouTube playlist and embedded them below for those interested in seeing parts of how something like this works:
And orchestrating busing outages for such a busy line (even on weekends) requires a lot of buses. After closely looking at the special timetable that was put up on the LIRR's All Timetables page a few days ago, it appears they are going to split the bus routes up into five different routes, Hicksville to Pinelawn/Wyandanch, to Deer Park/Brentwood, to Central Islip, to Ronkonkoma, and a local bus that makes all intermediate stops. During previous Mainline bus outages, each of the regular bus routes (not the local bus, but for the other four) each route got a minimum of two buses for each train, and Ronkonkoma got three for each train during the busy periods. And this pattern held true through the middle of the night too, so the single-digit number of Wyandanch-bound passengers have two buses to choose from to get to their destination. If my tallies are correct (and assuming eight hour shifts for buses and lots of dwell time at turnaround times), the LIRR will need to coral in from 100 to 120 or more buses to support this program (that's a lot of buses for a one-day outage!). Busing large amounts of passengers is rarely cheap and these simple-looking trackwork programs could cost a pretty penny by time everything is said and done.
In a change from previous Mainline outages, buses will leave early and connect with regular Ronkonkoma trains that terminate/originate in Farmingdale at Hicksville instead of having the passengers leave close to their regular departure times and connect to either Huntington trains or passenger extras (leaving the Bethpage and Farmingdale travelers free to themselves on the regular Ronkonkoma Branch trains).
With all hope, the LIRR will also be able to use this outage time to the fullest advantage and run the Sperry Rail Testing car over the tracks here during this time instead of having it run during a separate morning outage sometime later on. (and since they haven't announced any other outage on the Ronkonkoma Branch, they are probably going to be doing just that.)
You can check out The LIRR Today's Trackwork Calendar for details on all of the upcoming trackwork outages and schedule changes on the LIRR. I'll also be sending out updates on the trackwork program through The LIRR Today's various Social Media outlets should any plans need to be changed.
Do you know who provides the buses for the LIRR to use for these types of disruptions?
ReplyDeleteThe buses used vary from outage to outage and depend on time of day, what's available, how far they are going, who's cheap, etc. In this particular case, the buses will be provided by MTA Bus.
ReplyDelete(but for the east of Riverhead outage that's going on weekday middays, they are getting fancier motorcoaches, while there are outages that the affected passengers are tossed on yellow school buses to bounce to their destinations. It's luck of the draw.).
Here's a video of passengers switching to school buses at Speonk on Sunday afternoon June 9, 2013. Montauk to Jamaica Train 8705 was running 2 hours late because of "equipment problems", and was taken out of service at Speonk. The LIRR rounded up school buses from the local "Montauk Bus Company" to transport the passengers to Babylon. Train 8705 at Speonk
ReplyDeleteInteresting action. Be sure to take in the sounds along with the sights in full screen HD.
And here's Part 2 of the video set showing further actions with the school buses, and Train 8705 being taken into the Speonk Yard. Train 8705 at Speonk Part 2
ReplyDeleteThe action continues in a third video part that shows a LIRR work engine on the scene to haul 8705 up the Island later in the day.
On short notice during disruptions you can often find yourself stuck with school buses as often they are the only thing (or the closest thing) around and can be rallied somewhat quickly.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the time of day and day of week. If its during the 2:30-4:30 PM on school days, you might have to get transit buses as the school buses are occupied. A little later, the transit buses are occupied with pm rush and school buses are sitting in storage depots.
ReplyDeleteThere are new concrete formulations (GGBS) that withstand chloride attack far better than Portland cement concrete. They also have 2X-4X (12-20ksi) the compressive strength of conventional concrete. This could lead to far longer life cycles for modular precast concrete grade crossings.
And the LIRR must have contingency plans and contracts in place with Montauk Bus Company and/or others for just such summer weekend train problems on the East End. Otherwise how else could they round up 18-20 school buses, and enough qualified drivers, on such short notice on a June Sunday afternoon?
ReplyDeleteI had an amusing weekday off-peak LIRR trip experience several years ago with train/bus combo service when track inspection work was being done between Patchogue and Speonk. The train only went as far east as Patchogue that day. The LIRR had MTA buses with uniformed MTA drivers for the Patchogue-Speonk leg. We (about a dozen of us) boarded what I would call an old New York City street bus at the Patchogue station, which then made stops at Bellport and Mastic-Shirley stations on its way to Speonk. We had to give our driver - obviously unfamiliar with the area - help with directions on how best to get from Patchogue to Bellport to Shirley, and finally Speonk. The train makes the Patchogue to Speonk run in 30 minutes. It took over 60 minutes on the bus that day.
I have heard stories where the bus drivers not from the area frequently get lost. It's one of the reasons why I try to avoid bus outages whenever possible!
ReplyDelete