maybe you've heard of the hamptons or montauk
these are all places in long island and in this video i'm going to cover what the heck
is long island and how do you use the long island railroad and be successful at it from
understanding the train lines viewing schedules buying tickets to getting on board the train
and understanding transfers welcome to urban caffeine my name is thea and you're watching a
channel that talks about urban culture transit and history if you like trains hit that like button
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while the subway travels within new york city there are rails that go beyond its confines and
one of these rails is the long island railroad or lirr what i like about the long island railroad is
that it's an easy way to get to the far rockaway beach during the summer time or a faster way to
get to arthur ash to watch the u.s tennis open or city field to watch the mets i want to say it's
easy to use the lirr but if you've seen some of my transit videos you'll know that we have yet to
find the perfect transit system in new york city but that's what this video is for to understand
the long island railroad we need to look at some geography to figure out what and where is long
island new york city is part of new york state and new york city is divided into five boroughs
two boroughs worth noting are brooklyn and queens although these two are boroughs of nyc there are
also counties of an island that is pretty long so long that they called it long island
long island's counties are brooklyn queens nassau and suffolk and as a side note to understand some
local lingo when someone says they're from long island they usually mean somewhere in suffolk or
nassau people from brooklyn say they're from brooklyn and people from queens say they are
from queens and as another side note there's a place called long island city long island city
is a neighborhood in queens which is different from the island that is called long island
and now that we have geography out of the way while the new york city subway only runs within
the confines of new york city the long island railroad runs its tracks throughout long island
let's break down this map train lines are named according to their end of the line station
for example this red line is the port washington line or branch and this green line is the oyster
bay branch the gray line is considered the city terminal zone this means that
these stations are still within new york city either in queens brooklyn or manhattan a very
important station to know is jamaica because all trains except for those headed to port washington
will head into jamaica because depending on where your starting point is you might not get a direct
train to where you are going which means you will have to transfer at jamaica and with that said
the second important station to know is woodside because woodside will be your transfer point
if you need to get to port washington from a non-direct train and don't worry we'll cover
transfers later in this video jamaica station also connects to the airtrain that will take you to
and from jfk airport and i have an entire video on how to use the airtrain when you are landing
at jfk check that out in the description below penn station and atlantic are large hubs where
you can transfer to other transit systems another terminal at a major hub is currently
under construction and that will be at grand central the latest news is that the grand central
terminal will be complete by december 2022 but that's a year from now so a lot could happen then
naturally the frequency of trains depends on demand more popular stations will have more trains
available other factors to consider are the day of the week and the time of day and also the holidays
there are several apps out there in the wild that you can use to view the schedule of the
long island railroad trains the mta for example who is the operator of the lirr
actually has two apps that show the lirr schedule train time is specifically just for the lirr
and the mymta app shows information for the subway bus and other rails while these apps are okay to
use what i recommend is citymapper citymapper shows you information on the majority of the
transit systems in new york city under rail you will see the schedule of the lirr trains according
to the station along with other rails in the area and the map for reference is also available
you can also see service alerts
you can see trains departing at a particular station and filter all the available trains
to look for the one you need for example if i'm at penn station and i want to go to kew gardens
i'll type in q gardens and now i can see all the trains that will stop at kew gardens
another great thing about city is when you input your starting point
end endpoint
it will give you all your transport options along with the time and approximate cost
unlike the subway the long island city railroad does not have a flat rate
instead the system is divided into zones and these are the zones i know this looks weird
since we are missing some numbers but there used to be a complete set and at some point in time
these zones were combined so today we have this odd numbering traveling within a single
zone will obviously be cheaper and fair will go up the further away you travel from your zone
prices also differ between peak and off-peak times peak hours are when trains are scheduled to arrive
in any of the nyc terminals between 6 and 10 am and depart any of these terminals between
4 and 8 pm on weekdays but what a lot of people don't know about is city ticket on the weekend
you can get a one-way ticket for only 450 and travel within the city zone and the city zone
is indicated by these gray lines which is useful if you are traveling to and from jfk airport on
the weekend to get the most updated pricing the mta website will have this fee schedule
or you can view prices onto mta's e-tix app and this is the app to use if you want to buy a
mobile ticket and don't want to get a paper ticket which leads us to the next chapter of this video
there are several ways to buy a ticket try to avoid buying a ticket on board because there will
be a surcharge and it's pretty steep it's about five to seven dollars more than the actual ticket
price mail and ride is for monthly tickets tickets can be bought from a personnel but these offices
have hours and are not always open the best way to get a ticket is either through a machine or the
mobile app to get a paper ticket you can use one of these machines they don't all look the same but
they are all labeled with long island railroad the machines are actually a little different
from one another all of them will dispense lirr tickets as well as offer metro cards and i have
a whole video on metro cards check out a link in the description below and some of them will offer
uni tickets uni tickets combine buses and the lirr but we will not get into uni tickets today blue
machines will only accept debit and credit and no cash and as for red machines they are limited to
one-way and round-trip tickets i think they also have more restrictions but this is the gist of it
don't confuse them with the subway machine always look for the logo that says long island railroad
with these machines you can pay with cash card or a device with nfc like your smart watch or
smartphone the interface is pretty straightforward but i will still walk you through it
you start with the ticket type i'm only going for a single ride so that's what we'll pick
this machine happens to be at penn station so it already gives me an option to have penn station
as my starting point as a side note tickets last for 60 days from when you purchase them
so you can actually buy tickets days in advance so if i'm buying a ticket for the future and i won't
be leaving from penn station i can click on this button but today i'm leaving from penn station
so this is our option then i'm asked to input the station i want to travel to after inputting the
first letter options come up after that i get all the available ticket options for a one-way trip
any discounted tickets available will show up here for the rest of 2021 the mta has cancelled peak
tickets so i don't have the peak ticket option otherwise peak tickets are needed when trains
are arriving at nyc terminals between 6 to 10 am and leaving nyc terminals from 4 to 8 pm
then you indicate how many tickets you want
as i mentioned earlier these lirr machines also dispense metro cards that you can use
for the subway bus and other transit that accept the metro card if you don't need a
metro card just click none this machine was a blue machine so it wasn't accepting cash
so if you were on another machine the cash option will show up here
if you use a card just follow the instructions on the terminal pad
after paying you have the option to get a receipt your ticket and receipt will dispense
at the bottom of the machine and that's how you buy your ticket and in a bit here i'll show you
how to find and board your train but first if you want to use a mobile ticket you need to use
the e-tix app and you need to create an account in the e-tix app you indicate your starting station
and end station
for buying just one ticket you can stay under the single tab
if you need more than one ticket you go under multiple tabs
just like the paper ticket a digital ticket is good for 60 days from purchase then you
pay with your credit card after purchasing your ticket you can view all your purchase
tickets under ticket wallet and make sure you activate your e-ticket before boarding the train
so i have my ticket i'm at penn station going to woodside this is a pretty simple route but
later in this video we're going to talk about more complicated routes but for this ride since i have
my ticket now i will have to look for a train to get to woodside to find trains that you need look
for a screen that shows all the trains leaving at the station so here are all the lines leaving penn
station next to the lines the stations these trains will stop at will flash here i need to
look for a train that stops at woodside and i see i currently have four options it's almost
9:16 so i'm going to try to take the ronkonkoma train in case i miss that train i can catch these
other trains once a train is on a track ready to board passengers the track number will show up
here right now this ronkonkoma train hasn't been assigned a track yet so i'll have to wait around
so after waiting around i see that the 9:16 ronkonkoma train that i want is on track 18.
so i follow signs to track 18. at the entrance to the tracks i can
double check to make sure that the train i'm about to get on will indeed stop at woodside
and it is indeed stopping at woodside so i continue to board the train that is on track 18.
on board the conductor will check tickets if the conductor hands you back your paper ticket
don't lose it because they periodically check and once the next stop is your stop
they'll take your ticket and if you are using a mobile ticket keep your phone handy so that's
an example of a pretty straightforward ride but what if your ride requires a
transfer because there's no direct train from where you're starting to where you want to be
so this is when the long island railroad gets a bit tricky
when you're traveling in one direction for example from garden city to penn station
your ticket will say garden city to penn station whether or not you need to transfer trains but
if your commute at some point needs to go in reverse for example from garden city to flushing
your ticket will say garden city to flushing via woodside
so say our ticket is from penn station to garden city garden city is on the hempstead line but
say there are no hempstead trains available direct from penn station what you do is you
get on a train that will stop at jamaica from jamaica you can get a hempstead train
on the schedule board right here it says that to get to hempstead you take the babylon train
and transfer at jamaica the j indicates a transfer of jamaica this other board also confirms that the
babylon train connects to hempstead by the way from jamaica trains skip the branch they are
headed to for example if you are in jamaica and are headed to oyster bay from jamaica the first
stop will be mineola and vice versa if you're traveling from oyster bay once you get to mineola
the next stop will be jamaica but say you need to get from garden city to flushing this will require
you to backtrack at woodside that's why your ticket will stay via woodside meaning you have
to transfer at woodside to catch a train going the opposite direction of flushing but here's the deal
you may or may not get a direct train to woodside you might get a train headed to atlantic terminal
so that means you have to stop at jamaica to change course there you'll get a train
that will stop at woodside but your ticket will not say via jamaica because you are still going
in the same direction once you get to woodside that's when you switch directions and thus your
ticket says via woodside so there you have it the long island railroad it's a great way to explore
the eastern lands beyond new york city if you're a transplant like myself and you've been in new york
for a while make sure you go explore the eastern parts of long island go get a bed and breakfast
spend a long weekend explore the lands beyond the city there's a lot more to see beyond the confines
of new york city and speaking of transplants this coming year i'm working on some videos made
especially for you my fellow transplants so don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification bell
with that said thank you so much for watching hit that like button and share this video with
someone you think who could use it thank you so much for watching and happy new yorking