NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA CEO Janno Lieber were among an estimated 100 passengers on the first Long Island Rail Road train today (Wednesday, Jan. 25) to Grand Central Madison, the new Manhattan station deep beneath Grand Central Terminal.
“Grand Central Madison is a game changer for New Yorkers, and I look forward to welcoming Long Island commuters to our tremendous new terminal,” Hochul said in an MTA press release. “Infrastructure is all about connections, and this project is an extraordinary step forward to better connect millions of New Yorkers with their homes, their families and their jobs.”
The 11:07 a.m. arrival inaugurated Grand Central Direct shuttle service between the new station and Jamaica that is running at half-hour intervals during non-peak periods and hourly during peak periods. Those frequencies reflect the need to fit the trains into available slots around the existing schedule until the initiation of new schedules, bringing direct service into the new station. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has said it will provide at least three weeks’ notice before inauguration those new schedules, which were published in draft form last June and are available here.
“What we are opening today is truly breathtaking,” Lieber said. “The eight tracks, four platforms and 714,000 square feet of space at Grand Central Madison are only the most visible part of a project that also includes 40 miles of new track, 96 new switches, 550 miles of cables, 8,445 feet of retaining walls, five new railroad bridges, 296 new catenary poles, 51 signal towers, 2 million cubic yards of rock, soil and muck excavated, 1 million cubic yards of concrete poured, and tunnel ventilation plants with emergency exits every few blocks. Together with the successful Third Track project and L Train rehab, what was accomplished since the 2018 overhaul of East Side Access proves the MTA is a megaproject leader.”
The MTA says Grand Central Madison is the first new major downtown rail terminal in the U.S. in 67 years and the first expansion of the LIRR in 112 years, since service began to Penn Station on Sept. 8, 1910. More on the new station is available in this News Wire report.
How did Senator Chucky Schumer not get the word to get his photo on the front page to take credit for this.
Philadelphia’s Center City Commuter Connection, the four-track (two tracks in each directions) standard-gauge rail link between Suburban Station and the new Market East Station (now Jefferson Station), formally opened for business on November 12, 1984.
These tracks are through tracks so trains entering from the PRR side leave on the Reading side. If NY is limiting themselves to stub stations, then their ciaim is correct.