Jamaica Interlocking Reconfiguration Operations Simulation

The Long Island Railroad (LIRR) operates one of the busiest passenger rail networks in the US, and for over 100 years, the Jamaica terminal is essential to maintain passenger trains to and from Manhattan. Over this time, the patterns of ridership have changed dramatically and there is a new terminal stop at Grand Central Station for LIRR passengers. The “East Side Access” will provide the LIRR system the ability to connect into Grand Central Terminal. To accomplish this, the Jamaica terminal is planned to be reconfigured along with a new operating plan. To support this expanded service, LIRR needed to evaluate the level of infrastructure and flexibility required. The current terminal has a lot of routing flexibility that limits trains speed and a new higher speed” rail configuration will reduce routing flexibility within the interlocking. A focused simulation model of the Jamaica Interlocking was developed and completed by TranSystems in 2012 and was used to iterate through numerous scenarios to evaluate the new plans to determine the level of flexibility necessary to support the new train service.