By Philip Newman
The Long Island Rail Road plans to use buses and vans to replace four early morning trains on the Port Washington branch Saturday, Oct. 27, at Manhasset, Plandome and Port Washington, L.I., stations to permit overnight track inspections.
LIRR passengers will be able to transfer between trains and buses or vans at the Great Neck station and should allow up to 31 minutes of extra travel time in either direction.
Trains leaving Penn Station at 1:19 a.m. and 3:04 a.m. bound for Port Washington will instead terminate at Great Neck. Passengers seeking to travel to Manhasset, Plandome and Port Washington will be able to transfer at Great Neck to buses and vans scheduled to meet these trains. Passengers for these stations should allow for as much as 27 minutes of extra travel time depending on their destinations.
Trains that would normally leave from Port Washington at 2:10 a.m. and 4:10 a.m. will instead originate at Great Neck at their usual times, 2:20 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. Buses and vans will pick up passengers at Port Washington, Plandome and Manhasset stations at the regularly scheduled train departure times and travel to Great Neck to meet special extra westbound trains. Passengers from these stations will arrive up to 31 minutes later, depending on their destinations.
The changes are required to accommodate specialized track inspections conducted by Sperry Rail Car. The Sperry Rail Car is designed to detect internal rail defects not readily visible to the human eye. Defects will be corrected immediately by LIRR track maintenance personnel.
Sperry Rail Car is used twice a year to check 500 miles of LIRR track.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at timesledgernews@cnglocal.com or phone at 718-260-4536.
