Jamaica Center

So a meeting I was going to at work today got scrubbed and I figured since I didn't have to go to work to write a new blog. Rather than write about the A train in Brooklyn which I would have rode to our meeting, I am going to instead write about Jamaica Center which I visited yesterday. Jamaica Center is as it's name suggests located in Jamaica, Queens which is roughly in Southeastern Central Queens if that makes any sense. It is the transportation hub for all but one of the LIRR (Long Island Railroad which I failed to clarify yesterday, my apologies) branches. For all but one of the Long Island Railroad trains that comes into the five boroughs and out to the suburbs of Nassau and Suffolk county, Jamaica Center is the major transfer point for all the trains. This is for a few reasons, the first being that trains coming into the five boroughs that go under ground cannot be diesel powered due to the sudden elevation changes and environmental concerns. A second reason is that trains coming into the city may be terminating in Hunter's Point, Queens, Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn, or Penn Station, Manhattan. A third reason Jamaica Center is a major transportation hub is that it was initially designed to be the end of the Queens bound subways, there is no more subway service in the Eastern third of Queens that exists after Jamaica and Flushing (where the Northern Queens 7 subway train terminates) A final reason all the trains transfer at Jamaica is that Jamaica provides connecting AirTrain service to JFK International Airport. I shall expand on each of these ideas on this posting and inform each of you who reads this the best methods of finding a connecting LIRR Train or subway line.

Approaching Jamaica from either Penn Station or Hunter's Point, the trains arrive on the main line of the LIRR across South Central Queens starting from Long Island City, stopping at the communities of Woodside, Forest Hills, and Kew Gardens before coming to Jamaica Center. The only difference is that the Penn Station bound trains ride on a third rail powered train while the trains from Hunter's Point are diesel powered. Below I have pictures of the two side by side to prove my point. These trains go through Queens above ground parallel to the Queens Boulevard subways but unlike their less expensive counterparts, they travel across the borough in a fraction of the time.  The areas of Queens the train travels through are a more urban section of Queens to say the least. There are more apartment buildings, the area is more densely populated, the neighborhoods directly off of the tracks are not comprised of detached houses as they are in much of the rest of Queens, the commercial areas are more clumped together, and the industrial areas along the track look less like supply oriented business and more like production oriented businesses. Approaching Jamaica from Brooklyn, the trains leave from Atlantic Terminal in Downtown Brooklyn (which will be described in full on another blog) and also travel on a third rail powered service stopping at Nostrand Avenue and East New York before approaching Jamaica Center. The trains are roughly run along Atlantic Avenue and Conduit Boulevard I believe in Queens remaining below ground for the majority of the trip but going above ground in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. The area of Brooklyn the train travels through- Atlantic Yards, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and East New York is comprised of attached rowhouse/brownstone type buildings throughout, automobile based businesses (car shops, gas stations, salvage yards, etc), hospitals, and various other mixed commercial/industrial use areas. Approaching Jamaica Center, all three lines of the City Terminal Zone branch trains converge on the southern set of tracks, tracks 5 through 8 where one can transfer to an Eastern Bound train.

Above are photos that give a passenger an idea of the overall layout of Jamaica Center, the first photo is an array of the tracks as viewed from the platform shown in the second. The third photo shows the roof of the terminal, it is a curved roof supported by various trusses and the fourth photo shows that the entire terminal is elevated above the street which if I am not mistaken is Sutphin Boulevard. There are eight tracks total beginning their numbering system in a north-south direction (track 1 is the northern most track, track 8 is the southern most) and tracks 1 through 4 are westbound trains while tracks 5 through 8 are east bound trains. When arriving at Jamaica Center, one may notice the two previously listed trains, a diesel powered and third rail powered train. The third rail powered train as shown on the left side of the fifth photo looks more like a set of subway cars than like a set of passenger rail cars. This makes sense as the third rail powers the subways as well. The diesel powered trains have a locomotive as shown in the video and the right side of the fifth photo are usually two levels high. The LIRR designates both forms of trains because a given line may not be electrified with a third rail. Usually the trains off of the main central line of the LIRR and the trains which terminate closer to Queens have third rail service. Usually the trains that end at an arbitrary point or further east in Suffolk County are Diesel powered. This is important for a given traveler because they may differentiate between the branches to take based upon the type of locomotive being used. Amongst the branches, the Port Jefferson, Oyster Bay, Ronkonkoma, and Montauk branches all require diesel service at the end point in their travels. I mention the end point because many of these trains first travel as a third rail service train up to a station on the line where the third rail service ends before transferring again to a diesel train. 

When figuring out which trains to ride, there are a few suggestions I can offer to a prospective passenger. First one must notice whether or not their destination branch is one of the four that could be diesel powered. Usually from what I saw yesterday and from other times using Jamaica Center, the Diesel trains are on the outer most tracks, tracks one and eight. This helps because if one is looking for a train that is powered as such, they know that there is a good chance of which track it will approach. This isn't to say there are no Diesel powered trains on the inner most tracks, but odds are they are on the outside as there is more vertical clearance on those tracks as shown below. Well that takes care of four out of ten potential branches of the LIRR leaving Jamaica Center eastbound and one of the three leaving Jamaica Center westbound, now I will tell passengers how to eliminate the trains which are third rail powered. Of the third rail powered branches, the Hempstead and Far Rockaway branches make several stops in Southeastern Queens and the town of Hempstead in Nassau County. Several of these train stops are in predominantly Black Queens neighborhoods or Hempstead so one can figure out those branches by following a larger number of Black passengers waiting on the trains (The reason I say Black is because the passengers may not be African American but also Foreign Born of Carribean descent). I know this may not sound right initially, the Al Sharpton and NAACP sorts of the world would call this racial profiling, I call it knowing the area traveled. This isnt to say one won't find Black passengers on other branches, it merely says one will find more on the branches that make stops in these communities where they are the majority. Knowing that eliminates two more potential branches. This theory also applies to westbound trains, the Brooklyn branch of the LIRR goes through a predominantly Black section of Brooklyn while the Hunter's Point and Penn Station branches do not go through a predominantly Black section of Queens or Manhattan. Sure enough last night when coming back from Port Jefferson, of all the CTZ LIRR trains, all the Black passengers traveling West were waiting with me on the platform for the Brooklyn bound train.

Before closing, I would like to discuss how to find the subway service and AirTrain service at Jamaica Center. One can find the subway service by going downstairs simply, the subway is below Sutphin Boulevard and one can find the E or J/Z service there. The E service will take one through Queens while the J/Z service will take one back through Northern Brooklyn, I will discuss the exacting routes of those subways on blogs dedicated to them solely. The subway service in Queens ends here, it was likely initially designed to do so because at the time, the population living beyond Jamaica Center was less connected to the urban part of New York City. The F train ends nearby at 179th Street-Jamaica and the only other Eastern bound Queens subway service ends in Flushing which is almost directly North of Jamaica Center on the I-678 Van Wyck expressway. The AirTrain service at Jamaica Center is service that provides one with a direct connection to all of the terminals at JFK International Airport. Public Transit to both of NYC's airports JFK and LaGuardia is still being developed, there is no subway that goes to either and this AirTrain is expanding and was built only fairly recently. The AirTrain connection to Jamaica Center gives JFK an incredible one up on LaGuardia in terms of public transit. The only ways to LaGuardia on Public transit are using overcrowded buses that go through Queens and Harlem in Manhattan. To get to JFK, one has to pay a $5.00 service for the AirTrain in one direction which can be added to one's MetroCard (If it is not an unlimited use card that is). The fee to get to Jamaica Center on the LIRR and the fee to use the AirTrain may be slightly more than an average subway ride but it sure beats the hell out of paying a $30 minimum cab ride from the Airport. Until LaGuardia can develop a similar AirTrain system or connection to a transportation hub not using buses, JFK will always have one up in terms of public transit. To find the Airtrain, its simple, look for the little train pictured below or follow everyone carrying luggage. It is south of track 8 and the entrance to it has every flight status posting one would normally find inside of an airport.

So now a passenger knows how to find a given train at the Jamaica Center. Look for the AirTrain by following everyone who carries luggage or that you think looks like they are tourists. Look for the subway by going downstairs, if you are upstairs, you will not find it. For Westbound trains, look for Hunter's Point by looking for the Diesel Service, look for Atlantic Terminal by looking for the platform with all the Black Passengers, that leaves one more possible service Penn Station. On Eastbound trains, look for the Port Jefferson, Oyster Bay, Montauk, and Ronkonkoma branches by looking for the Diesel train service, look for the Hempstead and Far Rockaway branches by looking for a larger number of Black passengers, that leaves only the Babylon, Long Beach, and West Hempstead services, three services is alot to sort, but three is easier to look for than nine is. Only four trains can leave at once in a westbound direction, so if one is going to the last three branches, if they see one diesal train, and one train with a fairly large number of black passengers, than its a two in three chance that their train is one of the other trains. I also say this to any of you Politically Correct ballbreakers want to cry injustice about me recommending the profiling of LIRR passengers as I know some of you are out there. If you want to cry about any real injustice, cry about the fact that Queens has a segregated subway system that excludes Black passengers. I say this because the Southeastern part of the borough where most of the boroughs Black population lives between Jamaica Center, JFK airport and the Nassau County line has no subway service at all. They are thereby the racial group which is most affected by Queens' incomplete subway service and the group that more often than not has to pay the larger LIRR fares to enjoy traveling to the rest of the five boroughs while most of their White, Hispanic, and Asian counterparts in the borough can use the less expensive Subway service. Whether or not they want subway service is up to them, some of them may like their communities without subways. I do however know that in a city as expensive as New York I know that many of them would love to have subway service instead to pay less in transportation costs especially when everyone else but them can. Below is a pic of the Port Jefferson bound train leaving the station last night that I rode. It symbolizes the departure from urban New York, the end of the subway service, and the beginning of what is truly considered Long Island.