A look at the LIRR's new system

In the new nerve center of the Long Island Rail Road's Jamaica station switching system, a giant black screen displays a dense web of tracks and signals.

For now, the image is still. But come November, when a long-awaited new computerized system comes online, the matrix will blink with passing trains and changing signals. And the station's switching control technology will have jumped forward nearly a century.

As repair crews scrambled Wednesday to finish replacing charred cables and equipment in one of the station's antiquated switching machines, railroad officials offered reporters a peak inside the electronic "brains" that will soon replace it.

Jamaica station, through which 10 of the railroad's 11 branches pass, has 155 total switch points.

They are currently handled using a system designed in 1913: train directors, working in three control towers, pull levers on a control board to throw switches on the tracks.

With the new $56 million system, train directors will accomplish that task with the click of a mouse.

Currently, rerouting a train through the station involves flipping several switches and takes 30 seconds or more. Sitting at a computer console in the new nerve center, senior signal circuit designer Tony Passaretti demonstrated the new controls: four clicks, 5 seconds.

While the new system won't prevent the type of disruption seen this week as a result of a fire, it will allow the railroad to identify switch problems, isolate them and fix them faster, railroad spokesman Joe Calderone said.

"If you have a lightning strike, if you have a fire, you're going to have damage," he said. "We'll be able to recover quicker."

The new system also has surge protection, he said.

It will consolidate the staff of three control towers in one windowless room in the Jamaica Central Control building, adjacent to the AirTrain. Six train directors will perform the job that nine did, said Mike Chieco, assistant signal engineer. It includes a backup system, he said.

And its wiring will be simpler to fix than the "thicket of wires" found inside the old machines, Calderone said.

The high-tech brains will come alive after two weekends of testing, currently scheduled for Oct. 23-24 and Nov. 6-7. Services will be reduced on those weekends to allow for testing on the tracks.

It's true that the new system still will connect to aging infrastructure, officials acknowledged. Replacing that comes next, they said.