LIRR Service to Grand Central

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Another change of plans pushing back inaguration of service to Grand Central Madison, possibly by several months...

Link says page not found.

Here's something similar:
 

Fenway

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FINALLY!!!!!!


The Long Island Rail Road will run its first passenger trains to its new Manhattan home, Grand Central Madison, on Wednesday morning.

The opening of the 700,000-square-foot station, announced by MTA officials on Monday evening, will mark the culmination of nearly six decades of planning, as well as more than 15 years of construction of the $11.1 billion East Side Access megaproject.

“The first train is scheduled to originate at Jamaica at 10:45 a.m. and run express to Grand Central Madison where it is scheduled to arrive at 11:07 a.m.,” the LIRR said in a statement.
 
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FINALLY!!!!!!


The Long Island Rail Road will run its first passenger trains to its new Manhattan home, Grand Central Madison, on Wednesday morning.

The opening of the 700,000-square-foot station, announced by MTA officials on Monday evening, will mark the culmination of nearly six decades of planning, as well as more than 15 years of construction of the $11.1 billion East Side Access megaproject.

“The first train is scheduled to originate at Jamaica at 10:45 a.m. and run express to Grand Central Madison where it is scheduled to arrive at 11:07 a.m.,” the LIRR said in a statement.
Looks like this is the just the limited shuttle service that they first intended to start in December. I wasn't able to read any further before the paywall popped up.

ETA: Here's an article in the Post (with some pretty pictures) that doesn't appear to be paywalled:

It says it will be at least 3 weeks before regular service begins.
 
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Rambling Robert

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MTA Release:

======•=======================

My brother did engineering work on the East Side Access Project throughout its construction. Before that he worked for the MTA. He’s looking for work - haha.

IMHO Newsday is a far better paper than the NY Post. I delivered Newsday in Levittown from 1961 to 1965. But too bad about the paywall - Newsday is better than that! [I was able to access the Newsday article by copying the byline/NEWSDAY. It usually works.]
 
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Fenway

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The first reviews are positive




 
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What is often lost in this picture is that the 63rd st tunnel construction began more than 50 years ago. There were many plan changes and reasons for stalling elements of the project, the subway level went into service, albeit in limited fashion, 30 + years ago. ESA was a reimagination of the original plan, although ultimately may be better.
 

railiner

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What is often lost in this picture is that the 63rd st tunnel construction began more than 50 years ago. There were many plan changes and reasons for stalling elements of the project, the subway level went into service, albeit in limited fashion, 30 + years ago. ESA was a reimagination of the original plan, although ultimately may be better.
I forgot what the original plan was…did it provide some kind of connection from the 63rd Street Tunnel to the MN’s Park Avenue tunnel?
It’s too bad they didn’t make that possible some how, even if the completely separate terminal design is better…
 
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I think I'm split on this project.

At this point, non-car infrastructure of this scale getting finished is such a rarity (maybe once every two decades or so) that I'm glad it happened. Plus, this adds major system redundancy, which is something that America has a lot of trouble fathoming the importance of. The author does acknowledge this, but I don't think he grasps just how crucial it is for the country's busiest railroad to have a second way into NYC.

OTOH, just about every aspect of this project, from planning, to execution, to opening, is embarrassing.

All that said, once these projects get finished, public memory of how bad they are lasts anywhere from 5-10 years. After that, people are just glad the infrastructure exists in the first place.
 
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Good summary at Grand Central Madison station - Wikipedia, and much more detail in the quoted references.

I'm not an expert, but I suspect it would have been far harder to bring tracks under the East river and connect to the essentially ground level tracks and one level down tracks at GCT. And even without Amtrak or the 20th Century Limited, they get pretty busy at rush hour.
 
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Does anyone know why they built pretty much separate station deep down rather than using tracks at actual Grand Central station
Good summary at Grand Central Madison station - Wikipedia, and much more detail in the quoted references.

I'm not an expert, but I suspect it would have been far harder to bring tracks under the East river and connect to the essentially ground level tracks and one level down tracks at GCT. And even without Amtrak or the 20th Century Limited, they get pretty busy at rush hour.
That and Metro North is very protective of their tracks and slots, among other things.
 
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