Future of LlRR Diesel Branches
Hey guys, wanted to start a conversation on what the future of the LIRR’s Diesel branches look like. There are many changes on the horizon that will hopefully improve this service, these include:
- Port Jefferson branch full electrification: MTA and LIRR are committed to electrifying the branch and work might’ve started already if it weren’t for DOT blocking LIRR from acquiring a piece of land near Port Jeff that would be used for a new yard facility for the electric trains. The land transfer was tentatively agreed to by both parties but DOT is now dragging their feet. Without the land transfer, it’s not going to happen.
If they are able to work this out soon, the branch could be electrified in the next 10-15 years and would improve service significantly in almost every way — think the Ronkonkoma branch once it was electrified. Plus, it would free up resources to improve Diesel service on the other Diesel branches.
Replacing the DE/DM30AC fleet with new Siemens Chargers SC42-DM locomotives: From my understanding, they are somewhat close to placing the order for new Charger locomotives. This would be huge as the current Diesel fleet is amongst the worst in North American commuter rail. They have an absurdly high failure rate causing frequent delays and the electric mode is borderline unusable at times. They’re also super heavy, underpowered, and controlled by a glitchy computer system still running Windows 98. New locomotives would go a really long way in making service more reliable and slightly faster with better acceleration times on branches with stations close together. However, acquiring new locomotives raises another problem and this leads me to my next point:
If LIRR goes ahead with acquiring new locomotives, the current C3 Diesel cars would need to be retrofitted to be compatible with them or buy a completely new fleet of cars: This is interesting to me because LIRR already has an impactful shortage of Diesel cars to begin with. It would cost a ton of money on top of new locos if they were to fully replace them, so my guess is that they will try to retrofit them to make them compatible with the new lcoos instead of buying a whole new fleet of cars. The C3s are in fine condition and a little refresh would have many other benefits like prolonging their life and modernizing the passenger experience. I would think at some point though they would want to purchase brand new cars to help with the shortage and slowly phase out C3s over time.
Anyways, those are my thoughts. Let me know what you guys think.