# LIRR Nightmare



## OlympianHiawatha (Aug 24, 2010)

It sounds like a travel nightmare has hit the Long Island Rail Road (MON AUG 23) and will be a few days getting resolved. According to WNBC there was a fire at the Jamaica Tower where 10 of the 11 lines merge and if I understand one of the spokespersons they interviewed, they are actually having to use the old Armstrong Machines to manually throw the switches until repairs are made; she added fully electronic switching was still a few years off. As a result many trains are canceled to lighten the workload. Can anyone in the area shed some light on this?


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## jis (Aug 24, 2010)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> It sounds like a travel nightmare has hit the Long Island Rail Road (MON AUG 23) and will be a few days getting resolved. According to WNBC there was a fire at the Jamaica Tower


There is nothing called "Jamaica Tower". The interlocking affected by the fire is "Hall Interlocking" which is controlled out of "Hall Tower".


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## AlanB (Aug 24, 2010)

> Expect a slow morning commute if you will take the Long Island Rail Road with more than a quarter of service canceled.
> A fire in a switching tower knocked out nearly all service Monday -- and the delays have rolled into Tuesday. Ten of 11 lines are affected; only the Port Washington branch will operate normally.


More details can be found here thanks to MSN.


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## OlympianHiawatha (Aug 24, 2010)

jis said:


> OlympianHiawatha said:
> 
> 
> > It sounds like a travel nightmare has hit the Long Island Rail Road (MON AUG 23) and will be a few days getting resolved. According to WNBC there was a fire at the Jamaica Tower
> ...


Thanks for the accurate update; I'm always leery when the media tries to report on stories like this as often they get it wrong; at least they didn't show Acela Trains in their stock footage B-roll


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## tp49 (Aug 24, 2010)

You can also read any of the major NYC papers (Daily News, Post and the Times) all have stories on the LIRR mess as do the major tv stations.

Things like that make me glad I don't commute on the LIRR anymore. I don't miss those headaches one bit.


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## jis (Aug 24, 2010)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> Thanks for the accurate update; I'm always leery when the media tries to report on stories like this as often they get it wrong; at least they didn't show Acela Trains in their stock footage B-roll


Jamaica station is controlled by two interlockings. Jay controls the west end of Jamaica station and Hall the east end. The next CP west of Jay towards New York Penn is Harold by Sunnyside, and the next major CP eastwards towards Hicksville and Babylon is Queens. There is a minor CP called Hollis with a single switch on the mainline controlled by it between Hall and Queens.

Hall controls access to the three eastward routes out of Jamaica, namely Main Line (Mineola, Oyster Bay, Hicksville, Huntington, Port Jefferson, Ronkonkoma, Greenport and Hempstead), Montauk Branch (Babylon, Patchogue, Montauk) and Atlantic Branch (Long Beach, Far Rockaway, West Hempstead), and also access from the west side into Hillside Facility. With Hall out, they had to preset three routes, one for each line, and hence no cross platform transfer was possible at Jamaica for the duration. The train changes had to be moved to Mineola, Hicksville, Huntington, Valley Stream and Babylon, and hence the total chaos.


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## amtrakwolverine (Aug 25, 2010)

AlanB said:


> > Expect a slow morning commute if you will take the Long Island Rail Road with more than a quarter of service canceled.
> > A fire in a switching tower knocked out nearly all service Monday -- and the delays have rolled into Tuesday. Ten of 11 lines are affected; only the Port Washington branch will operate normally.
> 
> 
> More details can be found here thanks to MSN.


uhh you forgot the link


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