Play Ball! Save $$ by Taking the LIRR to the Game
The LIRR will have additional service to and from Mets-Willets Point Station in plenty of time for the first pitch at 4:10 PM on opening day, April 8. Eastbound trains will depart Penn Station starting at 12:49 PM and westbound from Port Washington starting at 1:08 PM. Train service will then be approximately half hourly throughout the afternoon and through the game. The LIRR will provide service before, during and after all Mets home games. The Mets-Willets Point Station is on the Port Washington Branch. Fans who normally travel on Main Line trains or on trains from other branches should transfer at Woodside to the Port Washington Branch for Mets-Willets Point Station. For schedule details pick up a special Mets-Willets Point timetable at all terminals or check out the LIRR website.
And this just in....throughout the season take the Train to the Game on Tuesdays and get $30 off select Mets tickets with the special LIRR offer. Check out the LIRR website along with Facebook and Twitter for details.

 

Muggles: Harry Potter Alert
Attention all Harry Potter fans, the LIRR is the route to your hero’s New York City home. “Harry Potter™: The Exhibition” is a new LIRR NYC Getaway that includes LIRR off-peak round-trip rail fare, general admission to “Harry Potter™: The Exhibition” and up to 40% savings. See more than 200 authentic costumes and props from the Harry Potter films displayed in settings inspired by the movie sets. The exhibit will be at Discovery Times Square through September 5. For further information about this NYC Getaway or the LIRR’s other getaways, visit the LIRR website.

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Amityville-Wantagh Signal Modernization Project Saturday & Sunday, April 9-10

     

• No train service between Babylon & Freeport
• Shuttle buses will provide alternate service
• Special Weekend Timetables in effect for Babylon & Montauk branches
• Allow 30 minutes extra travel time
• To avoid busing, use Main Line, North Shore Branches
  

Please pick up a copy of the special April 9-10 Babylon and Montauk Branch weekend timetables. For the most up-to-date information throughout the weekend, visit the LIRR website and sign up for LIRR E-alerts and text messages.

 

East Side Access A Step Closer
LIRR customers are a step closer to being able to travel directly to Grand Central Terminal and the East Side of Manhattan via the Long Island Rail Road as another milestone is reached in the ongoing East Side Access (ESA) project.
Two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) will begin work this month from the Queens side of the project, eventually drilling four tunnels under the Sunnyside Yard area allowing for tracks to be laid between Jamaica and the East Side of Manhattan. "One day in the not too distant future, a conductor will say eight magic words that have never been spoken on Long Island: ‘This is the train to Grand Central Terminal,'" said LIRR President Helena Williams. "It will transform how we do business."  And we’re getting ready on Long Island too, as we will need space to stage more trains...for instance, the Colonial Road Improvement Project will add capacity on the Port Washington Branch. Meanwhile, the Queens TBMs are expected to complete their work late next year. Two other TBMs, working on the Manhattan side, are expected to complete their work in May of this year. 
The East Side Access Project will reduce commuting times by as much as 40 minutes a day for LIRR customers who currently travel to Penn Station and then take a subway, bus or walk to the East Side. The ESA Project is expected to be completed in 2016.

 

Millions & Millions & Millions ...
No, we’re not doing a poor imitation of the late Carl Sagan, it’s just that the audience for LIRR info-related e-alerts is expanding like the universe of stars, planets, etc. to which Dr. Sagan often referred. 
The experts who run the MTA's e-alert and text message system say that 50,600,000 e-alerts were received by LIRR customers in 2010. Most of the messages provided were service updates. We have more than 46,000 e-mail subscribers, with the number growing daily. According to these figures, each of our e-mail subscribers received, on average, 15 to 20 LIRR e-mail alerts per week last year.
In addition to using the LIRR e-alert/text messaging system our customers have also gone "CooCoo." Using any cell phone, simply send a text to 266266 (spells CooCoo) and receive LIRR train schedules and service updates. For more details about how to use CooCoo, check out www.coocoo.com/lirr.

 

Holiday Eve Extra Service
The Long Island Rail Road will operate nine additional eastbound trains from NY between 2:08 PM and 3:48 PM for customers leaving early because of the Passover holiday on April 18 and 19 and for Good Friday on April 22. The additional trains will operate on the Port Jefferson, Babylon, Port Washington and Far Rockaway Branches.

 

April "Meet The Managers"
You, our customers, have shown that you enjoy meeting LIRR managers to discuss the challenges you sometimes face while commuting, and we enjoy hearing directly from you! Hopefully, we have made a positive difference so far in our monthly face-to-face events at Penn Station. On April 26, from 4 PM to 7 PM, we’ll have another “Meet The Managers,” at Penn Station, this time with the Babylon and Montauk branches the focus. Please come by to share your thoughts with us.

March OTP
March overall on-time-performance was 95.62% and off peak on-time performance was 96.09%, both are records under our current OTP system that began in 1979.

BRANCH	AM Peak	PM Peak	Off- Peak	Total March 2011	Total March 2010
Babylon	96.5%	91.5%	95.6%	95.1%	91.7%
Far Rockaway	95.7%	97.1%	98.6%	98.0%	93.3%
Hicksville/Huntington	92.5%	93.8%	95.5%	94.8%	88.7%
Hempstead	97.0%	96.6%	98.4%	98.0%	96.2%
Long Beach	97.6%	97.0%	96.4%	96.7%	94.8%
Montauk	95.1%	91.3%	91.7%	92.2%	90.0%
Oyster Bay	96.3%	93.5%	97.8%	96.9%	93.3%
Port Jefferson	90.2%	92.6%	94.7%	93.7%	90.5%
Port Washington	95.2%	96.3%	98.1%	97.3%	95.2%
Ronkonkoma/Greenport	91.3%	92.6%	92.6%	92.4%	88.5%
West Hempstead	97.4%	96.4%	98.9%	98.1%	97.4%
TOTAL	94.9%	94.2%	96.1%	95.6%	92.4%

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