LIRR signalperson pleads guilty to charges stemming from 2019 derailment

LIRR signalperson Stuart Conklin has pled guilty to federal charges of falsifying a federal inspection report from an inspection of a rail bond that subsequently failed and caused the collision of two trains east of Speonk on Memorial Day weekend in 2019.  Mr. Conklin falsely submitted an inspection report saying that he visually inspected the rail bond, however CCTV camera footage showed Mr. Conklin was not present at the rail joint on the day he said he made the inspection.  He was not charged with causing the derailment, the significant damage to the track and both trains, or the ensuing weekend of service disruptions and chaos—but had Mr. Conklin done his job properly, he very likely would have discovered the defect that ultimately led to the incident.  He will be sentenced on May 17, and faces up to two years in Federal prison.

(Photo: MTA)

In the early hours of Saturday morning over Memorial Day Weekend in 2019, train 8700 (the 1:09a train from Jamaica to Montauk) carrying 32 passengers collided with a non-passenger equipment train 5785 (the equipment of the Cannonball train, returning empty from Montauk back to Jamaica), causing both trains to derail.  No injuries were reported, but the incident destroyed hundreds of feet of track, caused significant damage to both trains, and resulted in significant service impacts for nearly 48 hours over the course of a busy holiday weekend.

Train 5785 was the return equipment of the Cannonball from the prior night, the railroad's longest scheduled passenger train at 14 units long (2 locomotives and 12 C-3 cars).  It was waiting on the SK Freight Track siding just east of Speonk station for train 8700 to pass—but given that the siding is only 13 cars long, the rear locomotive fouled the siding's east switch.  A report issued by the Federal Railroad Administration following the derailment pointed towards a loss of shunt on a track circuit as the primary cause of the incident.  This falsely gave train 8700 a clear signal, and as it accelerated out of Speonk station, it collided with the east locomotive dangling off the end of the siding, causing portions of both trains to derail.

Mr. Conklin was separately suspected of fraudulently claiming regular and overtime pay for hours not worked, and was reportedly under investigation for this around the same time.  In the indictment filed in 2021, investigators stated that location data from Mr. Conklin's phone, along with other evidence, allegedly showed multiple occasions where he was absent from his workplace during times he claimed to be working (including shifts being paid overtime).  E-mails obtained by the US DOT's Office of the Inspector General show the LIRR reinspected certain pieces of equipment that were supposed to have been inspected by Mr. Conklin and found additional locations where rail bonds were either broken or in poor condition—additional points that could have failed and caused a similar or more significant incident—yet were not reported on inspection reports completed by Mr. Conklin or escalated for repair. A source told the New York Post in 2019 that Mr. Conklin "'basically made his own hours,'" and that "his no-work approach was an open secret among his colleagues".  According to payroll records, Mr. Conklin made $61,101 in overtime during 2018 on top of his $95,668 base pay—increasing his earnings by 65%.

Mr. Conklin submitted a handwritten letter of resignation to the LIRR on May 31, 2019—6 days after the collision—after being confronted about the two probes.  

US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement “As dramatically evidenced by the derailment, the rail bond Conklin falsely claimed to have inspected was a critical piece of rail road equipment, essential to ensuring the safety of passengers."

In a statement to Newsday, Anthony LaPinta, an attorney for Mr. Conklin tried to argue that he was being scapegoated for another LIRR employee's error.  “Mr. Conklin conducted a track inspection and submitted a report with the wrong date. The derailment occurred because an LIRR track operator mistakenly directed an oversized, empty train to the wrong track. The LIRR’s efforts to use Mr. Conklin as the scapegoat for the derailment is very troubling.”

While the rail bond defect that Mr. Conklin failed to identify was cited as one of the key factors in the incident, there were multiple points of failure where the LIRR could have helped prevent the sideswipe from ever happening in the first place, but didn't.  There were several major operational blunders by the train crews and dispatchers working that day were a significant lapse of proper safety practices. 

Westbound equipment train 5785 departed Montauk 9 minutes late that night due to a door issue in one of the C-3 cars in the consist.  Because of the delay, the block operator and dispatcher on duty that night decided to move the meet from Mastic-Shirley—where the siding is long enough to accommodate the 14-car Cannonball equipment—to Speonk, where the siding was too short.  While the crew of train 5785, the Babylon East block operator, and the Section C dispatcher were all aware of the risk that the rear of train 5785 might be fouling the switch, the Babylon East block operator did not review these risks with the crew of train 8700.

When train 5785 stopped on the siding and the signal system erroneously reported the switch was clear, both the Babylon East block operator and the Section C dispatcher made the huge mistake of blindly trusting the signal system.  Despite nine LIRR employees being directly party to the incident (four crew members on train 8700, three crew members on train 5785, the Babylon East block operator, and the Section C dispatcher), nobody thought to stop and take 30 seconds to visually verify that the rear locomotive was in fact clear of the switch.  Instead, everyone blindly trusted the signal system and just assumed that the special instructions had been wrong for decades.  

100% of the factors contributing to the incident wholly within the LIRR's control at practically every step of the way—from the malfunctioning door to the lax inspection protocols to the risky decisions taken by the employees involved.  This incident was completely avoidable.  Luckily, nobody was hurt in this case, but not every train runs at 3:00a on a Saturday morning in one of the most underused portions of the system.   This incident could have been prevented had any one of nearly a dozen LIRR employees done their jobs properly, or exercised just a little bit more care:

1. Stuart Conklin, for failing to properly inspect the rail bond that was defective.
2. the Babylon East block operator, who blindly believed the signal system was correct when train 5785 was showing clear of the switch, and for failing to warn the crew of train 8700 of the risky "saw-by" maneuver, assuming that the signals would properly direct the train.
3. the Section C dispatcher, for assuming that the siding length listed in the timetable was wrong all along and failing to intervene to stop the maneuver when the timetable said the siding was too short.
4. Conklin's supervisor, for failing to ensure his or her report was properly doing his job.
5. the conductor on train 5785 for failing to recognize that they were operating a 14-unit train parked on a 13-car siding and failing to verify that the train had properly cleared the switch (the three train crew members on 5785 are all jointly and severally responsible).
6. the assistant conductor on train 5785, who is customarily supposed to be positioned at the rear of the train and should have visually verified that the train had properly cleared the switch.
7. the engineer on train 5785.
8. the signal maintainer performing the other portion of the test that Mr. Conklin failed to witness, for not confirming in real time that the visual portion of the test was being properly completed. 
9. the conductor on train 8700 for blindly trusting the signal system and failing to exercise caution, accelerating to full speed even though the meet with train 5785 was moved from its scheduled location, the Cannonball operating with 14-units is widely known, and failing to recognize that the siding at Speonk is only 13-cars long and likely too short for the opposing train.
10. the engineer on train 8700.
11. the assistant conductor on train 8700.
12. the collector on train 8700.

Mr. Conklin does not get to pass the buck, but despite all of the tremendous safety benefits railroaders allege come with multiple person train crews—train 5785 had three crew members onboard, train 8700 had four crew members onboard, while trains in most other parts of the world have only one operator—none of the seven train crew members directly party to the incident elected to stop and think that maybe the signal system wasn't wrong all along.  

MTA and LIRR officials have said little publicly to assure riders that they have taken steps to address these problems and reprioritize passenger safety since this 2019 incident.  The nexus between the LIRR's overtime scandal and incident are certainly something to behold.  LIRR employees slacking off or filling out false timecards not only hurt our wallets, but also can have significant safety implications that could disrupt service, or even worse.  LIRR must demonstrate to riders that they are reigning in these types of abuse and reestablishing their safety culture to prevent an incident like this from happening again.

Another LIRR train derails on the Main Line

Another LIRR train derailed Thursday morning, this time a work train that was travelling west over switches in QUEENS Interlocking just east of Queens Village.  The MTA says that 2 cars of a 16-car train derailed around 10:09a on Thursday.  No passengers were onboard the train and no injuries were reported.  The train was carrying concrete ties to a site west of Jamaica for an upcoming trackwork program.

This latest LIRR derailment comes just weeks after a Hempstead train derailed less than 3 miles to the west of this location on August 3 injuring 13 passengers.  The MTA's preliminary investigation identified an improperly lined switch as the probable cause of the August derailment.  This train was also travelling over a switch in QUEENS Interlocking when it derailed, though the MTA is being much less upfront and transparent about the circumstances surrounding this incident, putting out few details in a press release Thursday and declining to be interviewed on camera by News 12.

Photos of the remaining derailed cars as rerailing efforts
were underway (Photos: News 12/Chopper 12)

The train derailed while travelling westbound over a switch from Main Line track 2 (the eastbound express track) to Main Line track 1 (the westbound express track).  These were part of the ladder of switches that most westbound trains from Hempstead would use to stop at Queens Village (before the MTA built Elmont station and duplicated the same switches less than a mile to the east).  The derailment took both express tracks out of service for the remainder of the day, causing significant impacts to the evening rush hour.  

In the immediate aftermath of the derailment, there were significant cancellations and delays on the Main Line branches as the LIRR fumbled rerouting trains around the derailment, cancelling about half of midday off-peak trains and running the rest with 20-30+ minute delays.

The LIRR announced that they would cancel about 11 PM peak trains on the Main Line, though they cancelled at least a half-dozen more on short notice due to congestion and equipment shortages.  Despite two Main Line tracks being out of service and the railroad taking on significant cancellations and delays for most of the day, the LIRR did not alert riders to expect impacts to the PM rush hour until 3:25p.  Similar to disruptions last month, the LIRR regressed to its old bad habits and targeted express trains on the Main Line the hardest, cancelling every single express train to Ronkonkoma Thursday evening.  Unlike last month's derailment, the scene at Jamaica was extremely chaotic with poor communication, last-minute track changes, and passengers forced to scramble to make trains.  Cancelled trains were also outright disappearing from TrainTime throughout the evening, with no indication that the trains were cancelled and no information about alternative options.

The scene at Jamaica tonight: Ushers screaming over each other on the Jamaica PA system, verbally announcing constantly changing track assignments that never appear on the overhead boards, leading to crowds colliding into each other as passengers run from platform to platform.

— Nolan Hicks (@ndhapple) September 7, 2023

Most Main Line trains operating through the area were delayed as a result of the incident, and the congestion and track changes caused spillover delays of 10-15+ minutes to most other branches.

Reverse-peak riders had a much more difficult time, with the LIRR largely abdicating all reverse-peak service on the Main Line branches, apart from a single hourly train from Hicksville and Mineola towards Jamaica—with no westbound service at all east of Hicksville.  The LIRR did not provide any alternate transportation, only offering riders the useless suggestion to use alternate branches on the South Shore or the Port Washington Branch, 10+ miles away.

How exactly do you propse we get to other branches from the Pt Jeff line? Seriously, I would love to know, because that’s not how this system works and you know it. Pretending we have options that LITERALLY DO NOT EXIST is the height of contempt for your riders.

— Donovan Finn (@donovanfinn) September 7, 2023

For a railroad that just a few months ago celebrated the completion of the Third Track and exalted the benefits it would have for reverse-peak riders and the additional flexibility it would offer during service disruptions like this to simply abandon reverse-peak service on the Main Line altogether is certainly disappointing and unacceptable.

The optics of this latest incident are hardly good for the MTA and LIRR, which hot off increasing fares have been falling on their face with a number of service disruptions due to infrastructure failures resulting in cancellations and delays over the last few days and weeks.  Just earlier that morning, there were 10-15 minute delays to most trains and Main Line bypassing due to yet more switch trouble west of Woodside.

@LIRR 3 nights in a row you have screwed my commute home. Are the constant delays and cancelations a permanent thing, like the pre-Covid LIRR? If so, I'd like my recently increased $378 fare reduced. Get your 💩 together!!

— donmfil (@donmfil) September 7, 2023

@LIRR get it together. You guys increase the price and can't even operate the trains safely for your customers. pic.twitter.com/dQSSn1llPm

— Iris (@msirisbee) September 7, 2023

The MTA says that "crews will work around-the-clock in an effort to restore regular service for Friday morning’s rush hour commute".  The LIRR announced late Thursday night that they expect to run a full schedule on Friday, "but some trains may encounter delays." 

Main Line bypassing leaves riders at local stops out to dry

It's been a miserable summer for those who rely on the local stations along the LIRR's Main Line to get to and from places they need to be.  A seemingly nonstop deluge of trackwork, signal problems, switch issues, and other disruptions have resulted in the significant service interruptions at the local stations along the Main Line—Woodside, Forest Hills, and Kew Gardens.

LIRR's Main Line has four tracks between HAROLD Interlocking in Queens and Jamaica, but other than a single switch to go from the eastbound express track to the eastbound local track at WOOD Interlocking just east of Woodside, there are no switches between HAROLD Interlocking and Jamaica.  That means that if there is a disruption or the railroad needs to perform trackwork, they have to take a 6-mile stretch of track out of service for that whole distance.

Signs announcing no eastbound service to Woodside
Forest Hills, and Kew Gardens during middays for most of
August (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Because the Main Line is the busiest stretch of main track on the railroad and they can't just shut it down for a weekend and run buses.  If the local track needs to be taken out of service, the railroad has to either bypass the station and have trains run express between Jamaica and the city terminals, or they have to set up temporary platforms.

During the month of August, there were at least 36 different service disruptions that impacted local service at one or all of the local stations on the Main Line.  Just 8 of those disruptions were announced in advance on the MTA website at the start of the week, the rest were either planned or unplanned incidents changes announced at the last minute (for the remaining trackwork-related disruptions, often no sooner than a half hour before trains were bypassed).  Both planned and unplanned disruptions have continued into the month of September, and have no signs of abating anytime soon.

The LIRR blamed the bypassing on a whole host of different reasons, listed by number in the calendar above.  In addition to the usual slate of signal trouble, police activity, switch trouble, and broken rails, the bulk of the planned changes were because of "state of good repair trackwork" and "Amtrak trackwork west of Woodside".

The MTA did not respond to questions about these planned trackwork changes, and what specifically was being worked on between LIRR and Amtrak that required bypassing Main Line stations on 21 different occasions last month. 

Most likely, the work had something to do with track or switch work in HAROLD Interlocking that reduced the number of available routes through the complex (in a number of cases, only trains to/from NY-Penn Station would bypass the local stations).  Work related to East Side Access continues to carry on in Queens as the MTA has not yet completed work on the westbound bypass and eastbound reroute (which will ultimately be used by Amtrak trains).

Bypassing adds significant additional travel time

People often write-off service at the local Main Line stations as incidental (or even celebrate bypassing since it means they can get to Manhattan a few minutes faster), but bypassing the local Main Line stations can add significant additional travel time for riders left behind.

When the LIRR bypasses the local Main Line stations, rail tickets are cross-honored by New York City Transit on the E, 7, and 1/2/3 trains at nearby stations (though this is often a whole other challenge, as mentioned below).  But paying the most expensive rail fares in North America just to be dumped back onto the Subway is hardly a great outcome.

Dumping riders on the Subway can also result in significant additional travel time—usually at least 20 additional minutes of travel time (but as much as 35 extra minutes), turning a quick 9 minute LIRR trip into a 30+ minute headache.

between	and	LIRR running time	Subway - midday	Subway - late night
Woodside	Jamaica	9 min	29 min (+20 min)	30 min (+21 min)
Forest Hills		6 min	14 min (+8 min)	16 min (+10 min)
Kew Gardens		4 min	18 min (+14 min)	18 min (+14 min)
Woodside	NY-Grand Central	11 min	30 min (+19 min)	24 min (+13 min)
Forest Hills		14 min	42 min (+28 min)	42 min (+28 min)
Kew Gardens		16 min	51 min (+35 min)	51 min (+35 min)
Woodside	NY-Penn Station	11 min	34 min (+23 min)	27 min (+16 min)
Forest Hills		13 min	38 min (+25 min)	40 min (+27 min)
Kew Gardens		15 min	48 min (+33 min)	48 min (+33 min)

More often, bypassing the local stations means riders are delayed 30-60+ minutes, since the LIRR does not hold connections at Jamaica for local riders to catch up on the Subway.  That means if you get off work at 2:00p and can normally make a 2:05p train to Long Beach at Woodside, you wouldn't get to Jamaica until 2:35p, at which point your connection is long gone and you have to wait for the next scheduled eastbound train, an hour later.

If you are travelling between one of the local stations and Manhattan, it's less of an issue.  But a significant number of riders who use these local stations are travelling to/from someplace east of that station—not Manhattan.  On the Main Line, this varies significantly.  85+% of riders who use Woodside, Nostrand Avenue, and East New York are travelling to or from someplace on Long Island.  At Forest Hills and Kew Gardens, more people are travelling to and from the city (because the trip time is much shorter, as shown in the table above), but there still are a significant share of people travelling to/from Long Island.

Bypassing the local Main Line stations not only does a disservice to potential intra-city riders, but it first and foremost negatively impacts LIRR riders who are travelling longer distances to/from points east of Jamaica and want to get off at one of the local stops, instead of travelling all the way to Manhattan.

Bypassing sprung on riders

In addition to the significant inconvenience and delay to riders that comes when the railroad bypasses stations, the LIRR makes matters much worse by springing these disruptions on riders at the last minute.  The railroad has a very bad habit of announcing bypassing for seemingly planned occasions like "state of good repair trackwork" or "Amtrak trackwork" at the last minute, often little more than 15-30 minutes before the first trains start bypassing stations.  And sometimes, not even then (and riders only find out there is bypassing when they are standing on the platform and see the train go whizzing by them on the express track).  

@mta @LIRR I was standing on the platform at Forest Hills when the 10:51am train was cancelled at 10:51am. I HAD TO TAKE A $20 UBER. AND THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE GIVES NOTHING BUT EMPTY APOLOGIES WHEN THEY SHOULD BE REIMBURSING ME . #DoBetter

— Alex Rubin (@AlexRubin_music) August 31, 2023

The LIRR did make a good—but extremely rare—move last month of announcing a 3-week block of bypassing during the midday off-peak period (though they didn't announce the 3-week block until the morning of the first day...).  Perhaps this is driven by, or is a consequence of, LIRR's willy-nilly approach to scheduling these outages.  There is seldom any rhyme or reason to when there is bypassing, which makes it difficult for riders to predict and plan properly.  Aside from the 3-week block of midday outages (which was only Monday-Thursday and not Fridays...) all other planned outages were not announced in advance, and often happened on random nights.

The LIRR's communication during bypassing is also atrocious.  99% of the time, they do not update the schedules to remove stops at the local stations when there is bypassing.  Therefore, you can't tell when there will be bypassing by looking at the all timetables page (where there is information on every other type of planned service change), they do not update their GTFS schedule feed (the official schedule data provided by the MTA to third-party applications like Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Transit App) so those falsely tell people they can catch fast rail trains when they really need the Subway.

By not updating the schedules, the trains also show as stopping at the local stations in the LIRR's official TrainTime application if you plan your trip more than a few hours in advance.  The LIRR leaves the stops in the schedule and then marks them as "skipped", which is only something they can do a few hours before departure.  So if you plan a trip for tomorrow, everything will look fine even though LIRR knows they will be bypassing.  And then there are also times when LIRR simply doesn't mark the stops as skipped, so everything shows on time as normal...until you show up at the station.

@LIRR you legit can’t get anything right, you make people wait 20 minutes for a train to a station that you then announce it’s not going to, great job hopefully those fare increases pay for actual app updates pic.twitter.com/ptHA2PZMew

— anthony hack (@nihilist_sysadm) August 31, 2023

Signage at stations to advise riders of bypassing are also frequently missing, incomplete, or flat out incorrect.  The LIRR sometimes but not always posts ushers at stations to notify riders, but frequently there is no station staff on hand to tell riders the trains aren't coming and where they need to go.  Most of the time, when LIRR marks trains as "skipped" in TrainTime, they will show as cancelled on the AVPS display—with no other information or context.  This is a horrible way to approach it, since riders have no idea what the story is.  Are the trains canceled altogether and I have no options to get home, or can I take the Subway to Jamaica and catch the train there?  You'd have no way of knowing from this display, and this leads to mass confusion as a result.

What happened here at Woodside @LIRR? Multiple cancelled main line trains, people are taking hundred-dollar Ubers to their destination - it’s an absolute mess pic.twitter.com/47iyywtz0f

— Michael (@MichaelSFBA) August 16, 2023

Bypassing of the local Main Line stations is also frequently poorly planned and scheduled without any thought or regard to events going on at the same time.  There have been several occasions this season where LIRR scheduled Main Line trains to bypass Woodside for planned trackwork on nights where there are Mets games, and thousands of people trying to get back towards Eastern Long Island from Woodside.  As mentioned before, bypassing can easily add an hour to total travel times if you are travelling east of Jamaica, and that's the last thing anyone wants to deal with at 10:30p at night after a long day.

And again LIRR's communication is often atrocious, making no effort to alert riders before they board trains at Mets-Willets Point that there is no eastbound service at Woodside.  This results in riders having to wait for half-hourly Port Washington Branch trains to ride to Woodside, only to have to double back one stop on the 7 train to Jackson Heights to transfer to the E to Jamaica (vs. just honoring rail tickets on the 7 train at Mets-Willets Point and going straight to Jamaica on the Subway).

@LIRR hey, if you’re gonna plan track work then maybe 1) don’t do it at woodside when a @Mets is going on. 2) don’t wait until 9pm to announce it so that people can make other plans BEFORE getting here. 3) provide an explanation when you cancel all trains until 5am

— stephen (@tols_16) August 16, 2023

There have been several occasions where this has happened this year, and the results are never pretty, with hundreds of tired Mets fans running around Woodside station trying to figure out what's going on...

@LIRR 2000 people in woodside waiting 45 mins for an east bound train after Mets Game at 10:40 at night. Love that new train schedule!!!! pic.twitter.com/uHlskFYJed

— WylieWay (@WylieWay) April 12, 2023

The only word that effectively describes LIRR's planning and communication of Main Line bypassing is just plain thoughtless.

Cross-honoring headaches

When the LIRR bypasses the Main Line stations, they will put cross-honoring into place with New York City Transit to allow rail ticket holders to enter at nearby subway stations without having to pay the Subway fare.

But unlike NJTransit, PATH, and New York Waterway—who frequently offer cross-honoring and have the procedures down-pat—coordination between the MTA's own operating agencies is positively horrendous, which makes availing of cross-honoring difficult.

First, you have to find a staffed token booth, which is becoming an increasing challenge.  While some booths are typically reliably staffed, NYCT's new program of bringing the agents outside of the booths to assist riders and perform other tasks throughout the station means that sometimes you now have to hunt around to find them wherever they might be.  At the A/C/E station at NY-Penn Station, the two token booths that are at the entrances directly off the LIRR concourses are seldom staffed.  To track down a station agent, you have to go up to street level, walk north along 8th Avenue to the 34th Street entrance, and then enter there.  You then have to wait on line at the token booth—pre-pandemic when token booths performed actual fare transactions, this could take a frustratingly long time.

Then you frequently need to argue with the token booth agent.  The MTA rarely has its act together for coordination among its own agencies and NYCT station agents rarely know that cross-honoring is in place, especially for planned disruptions (when it should be easy to make station agents aware that cross-honoring is in place).  You usually have to argue with the station agent for several minutes, or show them the alert or service status page on the MTA website.  I tested this out twice last month, and both times the station agents at the Penn Station 1/2/3 station were not aware that cross-honoring was in place (and this is in week 2 and 3 of a three-week long planned schedule of outages).  The station agent on duty the first time around was quite rude about it too, telling me repeatedly that I had to go to the LIRR part of the station with my LIRR ticket, even after I showed her the alert on MTA's website.

This is in stark contrast to how NJTransit, PATH, and NYWaterway manage cross-honoring.  Having availed of that many times, I've never had an issue with or had to argue with station staff about cross-honoring.  Employees are brought up to speed very quickly.  During large disruptions, NJT or PATH will often have dedicated employees at the PATH gatelines to check tickets and allow people through.  At other times or entrances, there are assistance telephones near all of the gatelines where you can call up, tell them you are there for cross-honoring, and they will remotely unlock the turnstile for you within seconds.  Much easier and better for riders.

The MTA is also quite cheap with cross-honoring, only cross-honoring at the certain stations immediately adjacent to the rail stop, instead of allowing riders to enter at more subway stations that may be more convenient or cut down on travel times.  For example, LIRR and NYCT will only cross-honor rail tickets at Grand Central-42nd Street station, even though the Madison Concourse and LIRR platforms are just a short distance from the Lexington Avenue-53rd Street station on the E train.  Instead of honoring LIRR tickets at both stations, cross-honoring is only offered at 42nd Street, meaning to get from Grand Central to Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, you have to walk up to 6 blocks south through the labyrinthian Grand Central complex, double back on the 6 train one stop north to 51st Street, transfer to the E train, and then ride out to Queens.  It's part of what makes the Forest Hills/Kew Gardens travel times much longer in the table above.  There are other examples like this across the system, too.  Casting a wider net and including more stations in cross-honoring would make it easier for riders to get where they are going with fewer headaches.

Not bothering with temporary platforms

Temporary platforms in place at Woodside
(FanRailer/YouTube)

A relatively straightforward solution to the problems caused by bypassing stations would be to use temporary platforms more often.  Temporary platforms are long metal bridges that allow riders to walk over the active tracks to board a train on one of the inner tracks.

The LIRR used to be much better at using temporary platforms, putting them out for almost all situations where there were outages on the local tracks.  Bypassing stations was very rare, either for short unplanned disruptions or when there was trackwork on the track in front of the station itself that prevented the temporary platforms from being physically put into place.

There are downsides (for the LIRR) to using temporary platforms—they require staff to put the temporary platforms out and take them down, and usually also require ushers to stand around the station and make sure people don't go out on the temporary platforms, and they often delay trains as it takes longer to spot the train at the exact point to line up the doors with the temporary platforms, and they usually only put out enough temporary platforms for a few doors or cars and results in slow loading.

The LIRR became a lot more cavalier with bypassing stations instead of using temporary platforms over the last few years, mostly under former LIRR President Phillip Eng (where the railroad took several steps backwards with providing service during planned disruptions), to the point where they are very rarely used these days.

The MTA did not respond to questions about why they no longer use temporary platforms.  The LIRR used temporary platforms (and only at Woodside) for just 5 of the 36 incidents last month, which is way more than usual.  Putting out temporary platforms does require more effort by the LIRR, but it mitigates many of the issues and impacts to riders mentioned above.

Local riders dispensable? 

The MTA did not respond to questions about what is driving so many disruptions and bypassing incidents along the Main Line, or if there may be an end in sight for riders in the near future.

Between the frequency of these disruptions, the poor planning that goes into scheduling them, the awful communication from the railroad, and the total lack of effort by both the LIRR and the MTA to make getting around these disruptions as easy as possible is certainly problematic, and very much weakens the case for taking the LIRR to places in Queens—since you never know when the LIRR might blow past your station and dump you onto the Subway, delaying you by 30-60+ minutes.

The Manhattan and Ronkonkoma Railroad clearly seems to view riders at the local Main Line stations as incidental and disposable, despite a large number of them utilizing the local stops to reach destinations further east on Long Island.  The LIRR should work to minimize these disruptions, plan and communicate them much better, and work to minimize the extra delays to riders when trackwork does need to be done.

Switch trouble meltdowns eviscerate express service

Longtime LIRR commuters likely remember the railroad's characteristic rush hour meltdowns, which would occur with frustrating frequency, and most often during the evening peak period.  Usually the disruption would start someplace between NY-Penn Station and Jamaica.  Back when the LIRR had only one Manhattan terminal, this often resulted in significant delays systemwide.

A combined train during a PM Peak service disruption
(Photo: @scaperfan/Twitter)

One of the railroad's common moves during these disruptions would be to "cancel and combine" certain trains, cancelling a train (often an express or flyer) and adding stops to the following train, turning it into a local train.  LIRR would frequently preface their alerts by saying "Customers will be accommodated by...", though most riders would hardly consider the combined train an "accommodation"—the railroad would in effect combine two rather busy trains onto one now extremely crowded train.  All but two of LIRR's default cancellations in the old schedules would result in loading that exceeds the railroad's loading guidelines.

The LIRR had a stock list of go-to cancellations—there were lists for AM Peak cancellations and PM Peak cancellations—that it would make pretty much any time things went south.  If there was something impacting the flow of trains west of Jamaica, the railroad would also often suspend reverse-peak service between Jamaica and NY-Penn Station (throwing everyone off at Jamaica and putting them on the Subway, so they could send the trains west of Jamaica empty so they would have more flexibility to hold them in Queens or bring them into the station at different times).  I would pejoratively call these changes "checklist cancellations" since LIRR would frequently implement these sweeping cancellations often simply as a matter of course anytime something went wrong, without putting much effort or thought into ways to mitigate and minimize the cancellations.  The checklist cancellations would most adversely affect the South Shore and Port Washington Branch, which would often see the bulk of the cancellations.

And these weren't uncommon occurrences, either—some of the most chronically bad trains (former trains 1064, 1736, and 456) would be canceled and combined between 20 and 30 times a year—that's an average of once about every two weeks!  In 2017, leading up to and after the "Summer of Hell", trains 362 (the 5:50p to Great Neck) and 1064 (the 6:05p to Wantagh) were canceled a total of 44 and 45 times, respectively.  And those trains didn't even run for two months during the "Summer of Hell".  That works out to an average of more than once per week.

The frequency of these disruptions has eased considerably in recent years following Amtrak's significant investment in infrastructure maintenance in and around NY-Penn Station during and after the 2017 "Summer of Hell", leading to a significant reduction in Amtrak-related delays.  Couple that with the reduced rush hour service during most of the pandemic (giving the railroad more wiggle room to recover from delays) and these types of big disruptions have certainly been fewer and further between.  Note from the chart above, LIRR operated significantly less peak service during most of 2020 and all of 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Many of these trains did not operate during this time (and were canceled/combined programmatically)—but there was certainly an impressive downward trend developing in 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic.

With the LIRR's new service plan for East Side Access, they have not published a new list like this of 'default' cancellations.  The new schedules do not increase the number of peak trains operating to/from Long Island, nor increase the number of trains running through the main portions of the Jamaica complex.  But with the addition of a fourth city terminal, the LIRR has reshuffled and spread its existing service out thinner across more locations.  The number of trains out of NY-Penn Station has been cut significantly in the peak of the peak, cutting train volume at the peak of the peak from 38 trains per hour to just 20 trains per hour to NY-Penn Station.  This gives LIRR significantly more wiggle room to adjust and work around issues in the event of a service disruption (20 trains per hour is, the railroad has said, designed to fit in only one set of the East River Tunnels).  So something like a switch failure, a broken rail, or disabled train would usually just impact the one or two trains that happened upon the issue, while others could be routed around it.

But there were two occasions last month when LIRR implemented a rush of cancelations at the last minute, canceling about a dozen trains on short notice at the beginning of the evening rush hour.  Regressing to their old bad habits, the railroad targeted express trains to quickly cut service.  The LIRR canceled 6 express trains to Babylon and 4 trains to Ronkonkoma—leaving just one express train each to Babylon and Ronkonkoma out of NY-Penn Station for the whole evening rush hour:

Sure, when push comes to shove, canceling express trains and combining them with local trains likely does the least harm (cutting trains on the smaller branches where there are fewer trains to begin with would expose larger gaps in service), but if you're travelling towards the outer ends of these lines, it really stinks.  Not only do you have to deal with crowded trains (and likely stand most of the way to your destination) but between taking a later train that is making more stops (and is usually also delayed due to heavy loading) you are adding 10-15 minutes to your trip.

Cancelling vs. diverting

One wonders why, with four city terminals, the LIRR still needs to resort to this kind of bulk cancelations.  By cancelling the trains outright and combining them with later departures, all riders on the impacted trains are delayed, and the train is crowded for nearly the entire journey.  If trains are diverted to or originate from another terminal, then the impacts are mitigated a bit—trains are only really crowded as far as Jamaica (then they can get back on their regular express train) and riders that have flexibility to travel to an alternate terminal with full service, or who can leave a little earlier to take a different connection to Jamaica to catch their usual train can do so, and then the rest of their trip is pretty normal.

The lack of flexibility to use its multiple city terminals has always been a significant weak point for the LIRR in their handling of service disruptions.  Under the old schedules, one could cut them a little bit of slack (they couldn't divert a 12-car express train to Brooklyn, since the tracks aren't long enough, and there was no spare capacity at NY-Penn Station to send extra trains there if there was an issue on the line to Brooklyn).

But now that the LIRR is operating almost entirely 8- and 10-car trains and has heaps of spare capacity at its city terminals, it has much more flexibility to make up for delays during service disruptions.  The LIRR has used this flexibility a handful of times since East Side Access opened, most often for rerouting trains between NY-Penn Station and NY-Penn Station, and usually in the westbound direction.  When a problem is discovered and a train is already enroute, the railroad has diverted trains to one of the different (sometimes the riders are told before the train departs Jamaica, sometimes they are not).  However, they have yet to make a sustained effort to do that—most disruptions are resolved in about an hour or so, otherwise they start cancelling trains.

There have been fewer cases where eastbound trains originate out of a different terminal.  Usually this has only happened when a westbound train is diverted to a different terminal, and then the train it is scheduled to turn for originates out of that same terminal.  Or the return train gets cancelled outright.  It's a tossup.

In these particular examples, the LIRR did not make much of an effort to divert trains to one of the other terminals.  The MTA did not respond to questions about the circumstances of these particular disruptions (e.g. where the switch trouble was specifically, and what time the LIRR discovered the issue and began canceling trains).  In the second instance later in the month, the LIRR began cancelling trains in the 3:00p hour (though they didn't tell anyone until 4:18p, causing people to miss diesel connections).

LIRR is certainly the only railroad in the US with four city terminals that can be used pretty much interchangeably (other than the diesels, pretty much any electric train could travel to any of the four terminals).  It has unique flexibility to keep people moving and minimize service disruptions when they do happen.  So far, they haven't taken full advantage of that—but hopefully they will continue to leverage that flexibility going forward.

Jamaica derailment blamed on misaligned switch, signal system fault

The MTA has announced the preliminary findings of its investigation into the derailment of a Hempstead train just east of Jamaica on August 3, which injured 13 passengers onboard and caused considerable damage to the track and all 8 train cars which derailed.  

LIRR and Metro-North crews rerail one of the cars that derailed east of
Jamaica on August 3 (Photo: MTA/Marc A. Hermann)

The agency is pointing to the train travelling over a misaligned switch at the east end of HALL Interlocking.  The switch allows trains travelling east on Main Line track 4 (the eastbound local track) to either continue straight or diverge to track 10, one of the Hillside Yard leads (the switch is partially visible at the bottom of this drone photo).  When the train travelling at track speed and looking to continue straight hit the switch improperly aligned for a diverging move, it derailed as it continued to lumber east.  Because this switch diverges to the Hillside Yard lead track and is not used by trains in revenue service, it is a lower speed switch, so when the train hit the switch at upwards of 50 mi/hr, the train had the momentum to continue straight (derailing) instead of lurching to the side following the switch.

The MTA's statement didn't specify whether the entire switch was misaligned or only a component—this appears to be a movable point frog switch, which means that in addition to the switch points there is another piece at the point where the two rails intersect (the "nose" or "frog" of the switch) that moves back and forth to help guide the train onto the correct route.  The trajectory of the train and photos of the damage afterword suggest that either the frog or one of the points could have been improperly lined (causing one set of wheels to derail, drag along the tracks, and derail the whole train but ultimately allow it to continue relatively straight like it did).  As anyone who has traveled through Jamaica knows, a train passing even over a properly lined switch at the correct speed can be quite jolting. 

The MTA says that following LIRR's monthly inspection of the switch immediately prior to the derailment, they believe that the switch did not properly realign upon completion of the inspection.  Train 722 was the first train to operate over the switch following the inspection.  This fault went undetected, the MTA says, because of a previously unknown vulnerability in the switch’s wiring configuration, which resulted in the block operator's display at JCC showing the route was properly lined for a straight move when it was, in fact, not.  Because the signal system believed the switch was lined for a normal (straight) route, it allowed the train to accelerate to track speed, instead of enforcing a lower speed for the diverging move.

The LIRR says it conducted "thorough assessments" of all 1,045 switches on the railroad and determined that this wiring and switch configuration was unique to this one specific location. 

The preliminary findings certainly beg a number of questions.  First and foremost, why did the inspector visually watching the switch throw not ensure it returned to the proper location following the test? 49 CFR §213.235 requires railroads to inspect switches "on foot" at least monthly, meaning that someone has to be physically standing in front of the switch to ensure that it is functioning properly, free from defects or debris, etc.  To walk away from an inspection without confirming that everything has returned to normal operation and is safe for operating trains is certainly a significant lapse of due care.  

LIRR says that they have developed and implemented enhanced routine inspection procedures as a result of the incident.

The LIRR's improper track and signal inspection practices have been cited as factors in prior incidents.  A broken bond on a rail joint was cited as the cause of the collision between two trains east of Speonk in 2019.  Former LIRR signalperson Stuart Conklin was accused of falsifying federal inspection records in the wake of that incident, for claiming that he visually inspected the particular rail joint that failed when video evidence showed he never actually performed the physical inspection or tested the circuit connections, and, as a result, allegedly failed to identify the flaw in the signal system that led to the crash.  According to reporting by the New York Post, Mr. Conklin had already been suspected of lying about his work hours prior to the incident, with a source saying "'[h]e basically made his own hours,'" and that "his no-work approach was an open secret among his colleagues".  Mr. Conklin resigned six days after the Speonk incident.

That the MTA has publicly released its preliminary findings at this early stage is good, though also very interesting.  It is certainly a break from its usual practice of saying an incident is "under investigation" until people stop asking about it.  Hopefully this is because of a new breath of transparency and forthrightness and not because the full story (which is bound to come out now that the FRA is investigating) is even more outrageous...  

Hempstead train derails east of Jamaica

An eastbound Hempstead train derailed between Jamaica and Hillside on Thursday morning, with all 8 cars of the train derailed near 175th Street in the Bricktown section of Jamaica.  Approximately 13 people onboard the train were treated for injuries.  Train 722, the 10:43a train from NY-Grand Central to Hempstead, was heading eastbound on Main Line track 4 when the train derailed.  Railroad officials say that the train was going at about 54 mi/hr at the time of the incident.

The train derailed near the very east end of HALL Interlocking, just west of where the Montauk Branch flyover viaduct crosses over the Main Line (the tracks curve at this point, but it looks like the train didn't even make it that far).  The rear 3 cars of the train derailed most significantly, with the west car leaning towards track 10, which is one of the yard leads to Hillside Yard and is not normally used for passenger service.  The train appears to have just passed over the last/easternmost switch in HALL Interlocking, that brings trains from Main Line track 4 to track 10 going eastbound.

The west end of train 723 derailed near HALL East.  The photographer is standing in the gauge of track 11, looking eastbound.  The track in the middle is track 10 (Hillside Yard Lead), and the train is [mostly] on Main Line track 4. (Photo: MTA/Marc A. Hermann)

The west end of the derailed train, looking east in the gauge of track 10, with the Montauk viaduct in the distance (Photo: MTA/Marc A. Hermann)

MTA, LIRR, and FDNY personnel on site following
the derailment (Photo: MTA/Marc A. Hermann)

A rescue train was brought up alongside the derailed train, and after about 90 minutes the approximately 100 passengers were moved onto the rescue train and brought back to Jamaica.

The FDNY indicates that of the 13 injuries, 9 are considered minor, 2 moderate, and 2 more serious injuries, but all were reported stable and expected to be ok.

At a news conference near the derailment site Thursday afternoon, MTA Chair and CEO said that there "is damage to the ties, and other railroad infrastructure as well that has to be addressed."  

It appears that most of the damage has been limited to Main Line track 4 and Hillside Yard Lead track 10.  Trains have been using Main Line track 2 (immediately to the north), with a 15 mi/hr speed restriction, throughout the PM rush hour, with no direct service impacts to South Shore trains.   The train derailed outside of the Jamaica MTEA zone (where full functionality of Positive Train Control is not in operation).  Wreck crews have begun to rerail the train, and a E15 locomotive was positioned near the east end of the train as of around 6:00p Thursday.  The MTA says they expect service disruptions to continue at least through the night, and perhaps into the morning rush hour Friday.

Evening rush hour service through Jamaica was not too bad on Thursday.  Trains were arriving into the station relatively close to schedule, with most delays occurring just east of the station.  Most delays earlier in the evening were to Main Line and Hempstead trains—with Main Line track 4 out of service, trains had to operate on the three remaining tracks in both directions between Jamaica and Queens Village, causing some congestion, which later backed up into the station and caused delays to spread to other branches.  Most delays were in the 6-10 minute range earlier in the rush hour, compounding to 10-15 minute delays later in the evening.  Two Ronkonkoma and two Huntington trains were canceled (trains 2068, 1966, 1668, and 1670).  In terms of service impacts, the derailment happened in one of the easier places to reroute trains around.  With the LIRR running fewer trains through tracks 0-9 of Jamaica station at the peak of the peak compared to pre-pandemic along with the completion of the Third Track on the Main Line, the railroad was able to absorb more of the impact, preventing delays from rippling out of control as we have seen with prior incidents.

There were a number of last-minute track changes through Jamaica, causing the platforms and overpasses there to become rather chaotic (but not too much worse than the normal levels of chaos during rush hour at Jamaica that LIRR has wrought with the new schedules...).

Passengers await track assignments and listen for last-minute track changes on the portal mezzanine at Jamaica Thursday (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Riders scramble up and over to other platforms as track changes were announced, sometimes as trains were pulling into the station (Photo: The LIRR Today)

With Main Line track 4 out of service, eastbound trains were bypassing Hillside, Hollis, and Queens Village stations.  NYCT was operating substitute bus service to Hollis and Queens Village.  The buses were marked with "Subway Shuttle" headsigns staged in front of the Jamaica station building, however there was no communication about substitute bus service.  LIRR's alerts instructed riders to take nearby local buses that run along Hillside Avenue and Jamaica Avenue, and there were no announcements being made by LIRR ushers on the platforms and mezzanines about bus service or where to locate them.

Substitute buses for Hollis and Queens Village loading outside Jamaica (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The FRA is reportedly investigating the incident, and hopefully we will learn more about the cause of the derailment from the MTA in the coming days and weeks.  Check back here, or follow The LIRR Today on Twitter for further updates.