MTA to Reroute Several LIRR Trains to NY Penn After Grand Central Opening Chaos

The Long Island Rail Road will start rerouting several of the Grand Central Madison trains to NY Penn Station starting next week to better accommodate ridership patterns and reduce overcrowding.

"We've noticed a few red flags right away. There was crowding on trains to Penn caused by higher than expected ridership as people are accustoming themselves to the new schedule and the frequency of Atlantic Shuttle services to Brooklyn," Interim President of LIRR Catherine Rinaldi said Thursday.

"News for next Monday, we are going to be moving some trains over from GCM to Penn Station and also adding some stops to trains that currently originated in Brentwood," Rinaldi went on to say.

The changes include:

• Train 2013, which is currently, the 5:42 a.m. train from Ronkonkoma to Grand Central Madison starting Monday will operate to NY Penn Station arriving at 6:55 a.m.
• Train 827, which is currently the 7:54 a.m. from Long Beach to Grand Central Madison, will operate starting Monday to NY Penn Station arriving at 8:44 a.m.
• Train 268, which is the 5:28 p.m. train from Grand Central Madison to Babylon, is now going to originate in Penn Station instead of Grand Central Madison at 5:28 p.m.
• Train 714, the 7:31 a.m. train to Hempstead, starting Monday will originate from NY Penn Station instead of Grand Central Madison.

The MTA is also adding several stops. Trains that currently originate in Brentwood will have added stops at Central Islip and Ronkonkoma.

• The 5:16 a.m. train from Brentwood to NY Penn Station is now going to have added Central Islip and Ronkonkoma stops.
• The 5:48 a.m. train from Brentwood to NY Penn Station is now going to have added Central Islip and Ronkonkoma stops.
• The 6:03 a.m. train from Brentwood and the 7:57 a.m. train from Brentwood to NY Penn Station will also stop starting Monday at Central Islip and Ronkonkoma.

"The purpose of this is to relieve some of the transfers we are seeing in Jamaica, provide more service opportunities in Grand Islip and Ronkonkoma, spread out some of customer loads, and as a response to some of our customer requests we have received over the week and a half," Rinadli said.

The launch of the full service at Grand Central Madison proved to be chaotic with overcrowding and confusion -- prompting the LIRR to roll out a series of schedule changes this past Monday.

The Long Island Rail Road rolled out a series of schedule changes earlier this month that were intended to address the overcrowding and confusion that dominated the first week of service at the new, and long-awaited, Grand Central Madison station.

The station had been touted as the antidote to those scourges, and yet many LIRR riders say the very infrastructure intended to help them has made their commutes more chaotic.

The railroad acknowledged the bumpy first week and said some growing pains are expected in connection with the opening of the $11 billion station -- and the historic expansion of rail lines to Grand Central Terminal.

Specifically, LIRR and Metro-North President Cathy Rinaldi blamed the overcrowding on new schedules that shortened trains bound for Penn Station and Brooklyn. Rinaldi admitted her team reduced the number of cars on certain trains based on data analysis. Transit officials thought many of those people would want to ride to Grand Central instead.

The initial March 3 changes were meant to adapt quickly to the commute reality. Gov. Kathy Hochul also directed the MTA to modify service to improve the commuter experience. She wants more rush hour service to Brooklyn, more cars on trains serving Penn Station to alleviate overcrowding -- and more cars on all trains that exceeded capacity last week.

The Democratic governor also called for enhanced communication and a more comprehensive customer service experience at the Jamaica station, where passengers described an epic nightmare -- one involving three track changes and people racing up and down escalators to get to where they needed to be.

Hochul also ordered the MTA to keep monitoring the situation in real-time to determine whether other schedule changes might be needed. Rinaldi says that's always been the plan. She said data shows LIRR riders saved a combined total of 38,051 commute hours on the East Side compared with travel time using Penn Station during peak periods last week despite the debut headaches and the agency will continue to assess capacity and ridership going forward.

"We had said we were looking at every train and every line to assess where customers were not getting the level of service they and we expect," Rinaldi previously said. "These changes are steps toward ensuring a better experience going forward while continuing to run more overall service to more NYC terminals than the LIRR ever has before." We will continue to monitor ridership trends and loading conditions and make adjustments as necessary." 

While there were some signs of improvement this week as a result of the changes, there were still many describing overcrowded trains, longer travel times and more train transfers. Brooklyn shuttle trains were kept standing by for transferring passengers. But despite more trains, more train cars and customer service reps patrolling platforms, there was still a lot of room for improvement, riders said.

The head of the LIRR Commuters' Council said things were a bit smoother Monday, but added that it's obvious that the train schedules will need to be revamped again. Some officials, like in Oyster Bay, said that the changes must be made immediately.

To see the full set of changes, make sure to visit the MTA website at https://new.mta.info/.