LIRR’s on-time service hit three-year high in 2019

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Riders board and exit a LIRR train in Jamaica. Eagle file photo by Jonathan Sperling.

Riders board and exit a LIRR train in Jamaica. Eagle file photo by Jonathan Sperling.

By Jonathan Sperling

If you’ve felt like your trip to Woodside, Flushing or Jamaica improved ever so slightly in 2019, it’s not just you — on-time performance along the Long Island Rail Road hit a three-year high last year, according to data released by the MTA on Monday.

On-time performance increased 2 percent in 2019, to 92.4 percent, according to the MTA. There were 44 percent fewer train cancellations and terminations, along with 29 percent fewer trains delayed more than 15 minutes, and 25 percent fewer trains operating short several cars, which can happen when cars are damaged.

MTA officials cited the LIRR Forward plan, implemented in April 2018, for laying the groundwork for the service improvements in 2019. As part of the plan, the LIRR became the first railroad in the country to upgrade all its railroad crossings with flexible delineators and reflective pavement markings in order to severely reduce the number of motorists mistakenly turning onto LIRR tracks. 

The LIRR also became the first railroad in the world to begin using a laser to eliminate slippery autumn leaf slime from tracks, preventing many seasonal operational problems. 

There’s a renewed sense of enthusiasm at the railroad for doing everything we can to put ourselves in a stronger position to respond to Mother Nature and other external factors that affect our operations,” LIRR President Phillip Eng said in a statement. 

The LIRR also continued its implementation of Positive Train Control throughout 2019. PTC uses a network of computers that can communicate rail conditions in real time. The feature helps to reduce train-to-train collisions, trains traveling into zones where railroad employees are working on tracks and derailments caused by a train traveling too fast into a curve.

LIRR tracks located in Queens were among the first to receive PTC implementation in 2018, when it was rolled out on a 16-mile stretch of tracks between Woodside and Port Washington, Long Island. PTC was activated on more than 100 miles of track, including the entire Far Rockaway, Long Beach, Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson and West Hempstead Branches, in 2019.