Use the Rockaway Beach Branch to Increase Mainline Capacity - 3/27/23

The LIRR is experiencing capacity problems caused by the necessity to serve two terminals in Manhattan with twice as many trains. They haven't yet found a system of scheduling that can reconcile the kind of service passengers want and expect with the need for all the additional trains, and are faced with train delays into the bargain, till experience - with trials-and-plenty-of-errors - can show the way to a reasonably serviceable plan.

The central problem is lack of track capacity, and although nothing like East Side Access ever crossed their minds, the owners of the LIRR during the first half of the 20th Century did foresee a scheme to increase capacity between Jamaica and the Manhattan terminal(s) - where it's most desperately needed.