Due to track maintenance between the Junius Street Station and the New Lots Avenue Station, please expect delays in service on the and trains in both directions at this time.

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Due to signal problems at the 40th Street-Lowery Station, please expect delays in service on the Times Square-bound trains at this time.

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Due to a train with mechanical problems at the 59th Street Station, Crown Heights-bound trains and Bowling Green-bound trains are running on the local track between the 125th Street Station and the Grand Central-42nd Street Station.

Please expect delays in service on the and trains at this time.

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Just a reminder for everyone, the different divisions of the MTA are not running on weekday schedules today. Here are the details:

NYC Transit Buses & Subways - Saturday Schedule

Long Island Bus - Sunday Schedule

Long Island Rail Road - Saturday Schedule

MTA Bus - Sunday Schedule

Metro-North - Sunday Schedule

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I just wanted to let everyone know that the service diversions have been updated for the weekend & upcoming week. I apologize if anyone had problems accessing the page. I had to recode a few things due to an error I noticed. The page should be fully accessible with no problems now.

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I just wanted to take this time to wish all the readers of Transit Blogger a happy 4th of July. Thank you for your continued support of this blog, I truly appreciate it!

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Wednesday, July, 2, 2008 6:35 PM

Montauk Branch Customers:

LIRR service east of Sayville has been restored with 60 to 90 minute delays eastbound and up to 2 hour delays westbound because of an earlier disabled train west of Patchogue.

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The Long Island Rail Road has issued a press release praising a LIRR crew who with MTA Police foiled a rape in progress. Here is the release with all the details:

MTA Long Island Rail Road and MTA Police officials today commended the bravery of a LIRR train crew that came to the aid of a 28-year-old woman as she was apparently being sexually assaulted on the track bed just off the eastern end the Freeport train station.

Authorities said the crew’s response led to an immediate arrest by MTA Police of an Island Park man who was later charged with the assault on Tuesday afternoon.
Continue reading ‘LIRR Crew Foil A Rape In Progress’

The MTA has issued a press release to highlight the first East Side Access tunnel boring machine reached Grand Central Terminal. Here is the press release:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today announced that after just eight months, the first of two 200-ton tunnel boring machines had completed its mile-long plus journey from the bedrock beneath the intersection of 63rd Street and Second Avenue to the terminus of what will become a new station and concourse underneath Grand Central Terminal. The second machine is scheduled to complete its parallel journey near the end of the summer.

“It is terrific that the progress on the East Side Access project is moving forward steadily,” said Elliot G. Sander, the Executive Director and CEO of the MTA. “We look forward to inaugurating Long Island Rail Road service at Grand Central Terminal – a dream many have shared for generations.”

Now that the machine has reached its destination, excavation will begin on what will become a cavern underneath Park Avenue between 49th and 51st Streets that will connect the newly built tunnel with parallel tunnels which will allow the future Long Island Rail Road flexibility in accessing all eight tracks in the new station under Grand Central. That work involves intermittent blasting and mechanical excavation that is scheduled to begin in mid-July and last for six to eight months.

MTA Capital Construction and the contractor working on the project, a joint venture of Dragados, S.A., and Judlau Contracting, have worked to minimize the size and impacts of blasts. One to two blasts per day will occur when blasting is underway, although the team does not expect that blasting will occur each day. Each blast will be imperceptible to most people in the Grand Central Terminal area. If felt, the noise and vibration may be similar to the muffled thud of a box of books dropped on the floor in another room.

The East Side Access project will provide Long Island Rail Road service to Grand Central Terminal for 160,000 customers a day.

A 53 year old man was stabbed 19 times at the Long Island Rail Road’s (LIRR) Sayville station. Bill Mason of Newsday has the story:

A Sayville man was arrested and charged yesterday with the attempted murder of a 53-year-old man, stabbed 19 times Monday at the Sayville railroad station platform, police said.

The injured man remained hospitalized in critical condition, police said yesterday.

David W. Gorman, 22, of Willet Avenue, Sayville, was arrested near the Sayville station by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police. He was to be arraigned today in First District Court in Central Islip.

MTA Det. Sgt. Peter Cummo said that after his arrest, Gorman led MTA detectives to a storm drain about a block away from the station, where he had disposed of the weapon used in the attack - a hunting-style knife with a blade of about four inches.

The knife attack, at about 3:45 a.m. Monday, was actually an outgrowth of a fistfight a few days earlier involving Gorman, the victim and the victim’s adult son, Cummo said.

“The victim actually called the suspect to apologize and asked the suspect to meet him at the train station to talk over their differences,” Cummo said. “It was not provoked. … From what we got, they met to talk. They were drinking, smoking. … Then somehow he [Gorman] became nervous, took out the knife and started to stab him.”

The 19 knife wounds were to the chest and back, and defensive wounds to the arms, Cummo said.

Gorman fled after the attack, and the victim, whose name was not released by police, made his way to a public telephone near the platform and called 911. He was taken to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital for surgery.

This story seems strange to me. Why meet up at the train station? What could have possibly been said or done that would lead an encounter to go from peaceful to an all out stabbing rampage? Hopefully these questions will get answered as I am quite curious.

xoxo Transit Blogger

The biggest transit related story of the day is the design changes that will come to the World Trade Center Transit Hub. Here are some reports about it starting with this one from the New York Times’ David W. Dunlap:

It was to have been an audacious gesture in an already daring design. As envisioned by the architect Santiago Calatrava, the enormous counterpoised wings forming the rooftop of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub were to have opened almost 50 feet wide to the sky, in fine weather and on each anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

“On a beautiful summer day,” Mr. Calatrava said, “the building can work not as a greenhouse but as an open space.”

And on each Sept. 11, he said, the rooftop could open again, “giving us the sense of unprotection.”

The idea of an entire building in movement was startling, but it would not have been the first kinetic work by Mr. Calatrava, who is a sculptor and an engineer. The winglike sunscreen at the Milwaukee Museum of Art opens and closes twice daily, and has become a civic attraction in its own right.
Continue reading ‘Design Changes For The World Trade Center Transit Hub’

The MTA has posted service alerts for the & . The service alerts state:

Due to a customer requiring medical assistance at the Nevins Street Station, selected Brooklyn College-bound trains are running on the line from the 149th Street-Grand Concourse Station to the Nevins Street Station.

Please expect delays in service on the and trains.

In addition, due to signal problems at the Smith-9th Streets Station, please expect delays in service on the trains at this time.

LIRR train idle at the Ronkonkoma station. Resized photo courtesy of Eye On Transit

The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) has issued a press release about the planned service increases for the Independence Day holiday. Here are the details courtesy of the MTA:

The MTA Long Island Rail Road will provide additional early afternoon service from Penn Station for customers planning to leave work early on Thursday, July 3 for the start of the Independence Day holiday. The four additional Hamptons/Montauk summer service trains that normally run on Fridays will operate on Thursday, July 3rd.

The LIRR will be operating on a Saturday schedule on Friday, July 4th.

Eight extra trains will depart Penn Station between 1:47 PM and 3:48 PM on July 3. The extra service will include: three trains on the Port Jefferson Branch; three on the Babylon Branch; one on the Port Washington Branch to Great Neck; one on the Far Rockaway Branch as detailed below:

Extra Train Service from Penn Station, Thursday, July 3
Continue reading ‘LIRR Increases Service For Independence Day’

Yesterday evening I had the unfortunate task of writing about 2 separate accidents of a LIRR train running over & killing a male. Steve Ritea of Newsday has posted an updated report about the accidents:

Two men were killed in unrelated accidents on Long Island Rail Road tracks Monday morning, MTA Police said, when a 19-year-old fell from a platform at Lynbrook station and the body of a 57-year-old was found between Central Islip and Ronkonkoma.

The victims were identified as Patrick J. Gordon of Rockville Centre and Dennis Pankavich of Central Islip.

“Everybody’s numb,” said Gordon’s uncle, Gerard Gordon of Westbury. “It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. … He was a real good kid.”

Patrick Gordon and a friend had just gotten off a train from Long Beach, where Gerard Gordon said they had attended a party, when Patrick fell from the platform onto the tracks around 3:30 a.m. as another eastbound train was headed into Lynbrook station, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Sgt. Kim Riley said.

The train was traveling at about 30 mph when the engineer saw Gordon fall onto the tracks. The engineer applied the emergency brakes and blew the horn, but the train was unable to avoid hitting the man, Riley said. Gordon was pronounced dead at the scene.

Riley said police were investigating whether alcohol played any role in Gordon’s fall. His friend was not injured, she said.

In the other accident, Pankavich was lying motionless on the tracks about 2,500 feet east of Central Islip station when he was struck by a westbound train around 11:18 a.m., Riley said.

She said the train was traveling at about 70 mph.

Police are investigating whether Pankavich touched the electrified third rail, which powers trains, before he was struck.

Pankavich’s family could not be reached for comment.

Gerard Gordon said his nephew had just completed his freshman year at Iona College in New Rochelle, where he was a liberal-arts major and played rugby.

A graduate of South Side High in Rockville Centre, Patrick had returned to his summer job at Jordan Lobster Farms in Island Park. “He was a great kid,” owner Steve Jordan said. “In the last year, he had really matured.”

Patrick has two sisters, ages 16 and 11, and a brother who is 14. “They’re very close,” Gerard Gordon said. “And my nephew is like my brother’s best friend.”

A wake will be held for Patrick J. Gordon Tuesday, 7 to 9 p.m., and Wednesday, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m., at Macken Mortuary, Rockville Centre. A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday in St. Agnes Cathedral, Rockville Centre, followed by burial in St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale.

LIRR train departing the Woodside station. Resized photo courtesy of Eye On Transit

Today was not a good day for the Long Island Rail Road as 2 men were killed in separate incidents after being struck by trains. Joseph Mallia of Newsday filed this report:

Two men were hit by Long Island Rail Road trains in unrelated incidents Monday morning, LIRR officials said.

A 3:31 a.m. accident at a Lynbrook station left a 19-year-old Rockville Centre man, Patrick J. Gordon, dead after he tripped or slipped from the platform and fell in front of an oncoming train, officials said. The death did not appear to be a suicide, officials said.

The second accident involved a man described as “an unauthorized person on the tracks” who was hit by an LIRR commuter train east of the Central Islip station Monday morning, railroad officials said. The exact time of the accident was not available, but officials said the train involved was the 11:11 a.m. westbound from Ronkonkoma.

The condition of the man in the Central Islip accident was not immediately available, but it resulted in the Suffolk police sending for the county medical examiner’s office — an apparent indication that this incident, too, was fatal, officials said.

MTA police are investigating, and it’s not clear yet whether the cases would be turned over to Suffolk and Nassau homicide detectives, railroad officials said.

Rush-hour commuter rail service was not affected by the Lynbrook accident.

Commuter trains on the Ronkonkoma branch of the LIRR were delayed between Central Islip and Ronkonkoma. The 11:11 a.m. train, scheduled to arrive at Penn Station at 12:35 p.m., was held at the accident scene. Also delayed was an eastbound train, the 10:15 a.m. from Penn Station, due in Ronkonkoma at 11:40 a.m.

I feel bad for the first victim as it seems his death was an accident. However I do not feel bad for someone being hit by a train when they had no business being on the tracks to begin with. When will people learn that railroad tracks are not a place to be on unless you are qualified to be there? I am sick of this stupidity causing damage not only to the service people depend on but the operator as well.

xoxo Transit Blogger