Passenger Trains > Long Island Rail Road Grand Central service to begin January 25

Long Island Rail Road's (New York) long delayed service to Grand Central Madison is now scheduled to begin on 25 January. The service will initially operate as a limited Jamaica to Grand Central shuttle.

https://new.mta.info/grandcentralmadison



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/23 23:03 by Amtrak2025.

... and there was much rejoicing!!!

Gazillion billion dollar, multi-decade work for a Jamaica-GCT shuttle. Priceless (literally).

Art House

https://new.mta.info/document/104556

This will last about 3 weeks until full service begins. 

So no evening weekday service?  Blah - was going to take it tomorrow from Jamaica (via JFK airtrain) to GCT 

I think another board mentioned that all the crews wouldn't be qualified till at least March so I'd pick March as a safe startup date! It would also give them enough time to place two more M8 sets into service!

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They said at least 3 weeks, which would be around Presidents Day.

The March date had to do with PTC development, but FRA granted a waiver for that. It had nothing to do with qualified crews. The crew picks and employee timetables were dated for a full start on December 6. They have done hundreds of test runs. 

They don't need any more M9's to be in service. They can easily send the M3's to Brooklyn.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/23 04:53 by joemvcnj.

First GC Madison-bound train departs Jamaica at 1045 Wednesday 1/25/23 with Gov Hochul at the throttle (not really but apparently she'll be along for the ride). Should be a non-stop 22 minute ride.

" The first train is schedule to originate at Jamaica at 10:45 a.m., and run express to the new station where it is scheduled to arrive at 11:07 a.m. News 12 Long Island has learned Gov. Kathy Hochul will be riding that first train."

https://connecticut.news12.com/first-lirr-train-slated-to-travel-to-grand-central-madison-later-this-morning



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/23 05:19 by JPB.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtaphotos/albums/72177720305520724

Four cheers from me to abyler and his crew for finishing the job, and making a huge public works project come to life

The NY Times has coverage of the first trip.  Emphasis on how much time will be saved by Long Island residents who work in the Madison Avenue / 48 th Street area.  And how much easier the trip to JFK Airport will be for people living on the Upper East Side.

Reader comments in the NYT are savage. Absolutely ripping the last several Governors for pandering to Long Island residents. Noting that the amount of money spent on rich white suburbanites far exceeds the amount spent on many more people in NYC "transit deserts" dependent on bus service.  Many of the same critiques were delivered when the new terminals at LaGuardia were opened.

 

even with their so called diagram, which i cant understand, i have no idea where and how this connects to the real gct.
and this new terminal is 4 tracks on 2 levels?  2 island platforms? 

There are 8 tracks. Passengers descend to a deep mezzanine. From the mezzanine, there are two platforms with four tracks on the level immediately above it, two more platforms with four more tracks on the level immediately below the mezzanine.

The new station appears to lie deep under the westernmost part of the existing station, with separate entrances at/near Madison Avenue and for passengers between the two parts.
 
The videos I've seen don't make clear how this new two level station interconnects with the original two level terminal above (let alone with the two levels of subway tracks passing along the south side and the one to the east. They have invested in signage and current train info displays.

  

TomPittsfieldMA Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are 8 tracks. Passengers descend to a deep
> mezzanine. From the mezzanine, there are two
> platforms with four tracks on the level
> immediately above it, two more platforms with four
> more tracks on the level immediately below the
> mezzanine.
>
> The new station appears to lie deep under the
> westernmost part of the existing station, with
> separate entrances at/near Madison Avenue and for
> passengers between the two parts.
>  
> The videos I've seen don't make clear how this new
> two level station interconnects with the original
> two level terminal above (let alone with the two
> levels of subway tracks passing along the south
> side and the one to the east. They have invested
> in signage and current train info displays.
>
Sleeping areas on the platform for the homeless and columns for the robbers to wait behind for the unwary? These are necessary in New York City these days.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Four cheers from me to abyler and his crew for
> finishing the job, and making a huge public works
> project come to life

Thank you.
 

Remarkable achievement and I give this a huge applause in its completion, as this was no easy feat. One question, what year were the tunnels built - that the LIRR will now use to access Grand Central under the East River???? If memory serves me correctly, it was perhaps in the 90s (or earlier)???? The genesis for this whole idea I know goes back to like the 1960s.....But the tunnels under East River that LIRR uses to get to Grand Central - were they always necessarily for this intention, or was it supposed to be for subway use and then sort of re-engineered to accomplish (or eventually accomplish) this intended East Side Access plan......Why am I thinking they had more of the latter intention. 

abyler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Four cheers from me to abyler and his crew for
> > finishing the job, and making a huge public
> works
> > project come to life
>
> Thank you.
>  

Absolutely! Great achievement!!!!

jp1822 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Remarkable achievement and I give this a huge
> applause in its completion, as this was no easy
> feat. One question, what year were the tunnels
> built - that the LIRR will now use to access Grand
> Central under the East River???? If memory serves
> me correctly, it was perhaps in the 90s (or
> earlier)???? The genesis for this whole idea I
> know goes back to like the 1960s.....But the
> tunnels under East River that LIRR uses to get to
> Grand Central - were they always necessarily for
> this intention, or was it supposed to be for
> subway use and then sort of re-engineered to
> accomplish (or eventually accomplish) this
> intended East Side Access plan......Why am I
> thinking they had more of the latter intention. 

The tunnel was constructed between 1969 and 1989 (completion was delayed by the NYC 1970s fiscal crisis). The upper level of the tunnel carries the 63rd Street line of the NYC Transit subway system (F train) and the lower level of the tunnel carries the Long Island Rail Road. The tunnel was constructed with the intention of subway service and LIRR service from the plan's inception; this week's LIRR revenue service inaugural is the culmination of those plans from over 50 years ago.

Jim

The Long Island Rail Road should be very proud this year.  They got the decades awaited third track to Hicksville and opened they multi billion dollar service to the deep canyon under Grand Central Terminal.  The long awaited opening delayed by only three or so decades and the  third track are both here.  Kathy Hochul is very proud.  She spent much of the week taking credit for the project..  Now Long Islanders can land in the sub sub sub basement of GCT, take a gigantic escalator to the land so far above and be almost a mile closer to where they need to be..  I worry that with MTA maintenance practices the escalators may fail someday (soon)  which will allow only the most healthy commuters to attempt the long difficult climb to the surface. The survivors of those who can't make the climb will have to wait an hour for another train back to Long Island.  On the positive side, in the event of a nuclear war, the people so deep in the underground cavern may be the only ones to survive, even if they will need to defend themselves for the morlocks after the event.  Best of all GCT is almost a mile from Penn Station.  So if you consider that, the 12.7 billion dollars spent was well woth it.  After all, how can you put a price on saving a mile of walking, taxi, or bus travel.   Government does really know what's best and how to better invest our money..  That's way so many people are moving to New York State.  

As a longtime resident of NJ and a pretty frequent user of LIRR, I agree that the MTA LIRR should be proud. For those LIRR passengers who are heading to destinations on the East Side of Manhattan(east of 5th Avenue), Grand Central Madison will be the the most convenient for them. That includes visiting places and people in East Midtown. It will be a shorter walk than having to go to Penn Station. Plus no subway trip would be needed. If a person wants to visit any of the museums on 5th Avenue, than it would be better to go use Grand Central Terminal over NYC Penn Station. It would be a one seat bus and subway ride lost likely. For the subway, I think passengers would have to walk over to Broadway.

Yes, the current arrangement at Grand Central Madison has its drawbacks. It sounds like the escalators are the fastest way to get from street level to where the LIRR waiting area and tracks are. You still have to do a little walking from 42nd St to get to where the escalators are at GCM. If there is no elevator available at Grand Central Madison, that is something that the MTA should seriously look into. There should be multiple elevators as well. Look at Washington Metro Stations that are deeper than others-Wheaton comes to mind. There is an elevator there. Even though GCM is now open, the majority of my LIRR trips will begin at NYP, given that would be connecting from either NJT trains, NJT buses, or Decamp buses which stop on the West Side. NJT trains require me not to have to go outdoors at NYP. Plus the walk from the NJT wing to the LIRR wing at NYP is a breeze.

I descended into the deep coal mine - I mean GC Madison - on Friday.  First, the signs in the "legacy" GCT to the looong esclators are pathetic - it took me 10 minutes of fumbling about trying to follow the signs before I realized it's only accessible from the lower level where the food court and the 100-numbered tracks are.  Once I found the 'entrance', it's still almost a three-block hike to the top of the long escalators, which are basically located on 45th and Vanderbilt.   

Some cell phone pics:
1)  here's the entrance from the lower level of GCT - picture taken looking west
2)  from there you go down a set of short esclators, turn right (north) and enter a large hallway - here you start walking, and walking, and walking...
3)  ...until you get to the top of the long esclator on 45th street

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