Henican: LIRR's command upgrade will make 'rail' difference
A file photo of LIRR rider Lindsay Stanford watching the schedule at Penn Station. (Aug. 23, 2010) Credit: Craig Ruttle
How 'bout this for Command No. 1 at the LIRR's new state-of-the-art Command and Control Center?
Don't. Catch. Fire.
Unplanned conflagrations like the one that knocked out a 1913 switching room at Jamaica station can be truly catastrophic. Nearly a week after Monday's cable fire, train service still isn't what it's supposed to be.
But there is hope, and it doesn't spring entirely from that frantic patch job by LIRR old-timers, brilliant though they are in their own make-do way. The long-term solution - beyond "Don't catch fire!" - involves moving beyond the pre-World War I technology and into railroading's modern age.
Yes, there is such a thing. It's just that, compared to Europe and Asia, we've been painfully slow in getting there.
During an extremely tough week, LIRR officials took time out to unveil their computerized command center of the future. It's gleaming, and it sounds very cool. No more manual levers. No more pre-computer-age systems. No more it's-all-in-the-old-timers'-heads.
The new system ought to give the railroad's supervisors far more real-time information about how the service is running and what can be done to improve it. This should make a "rail-life" difference in avoiding rush-hour backups and anticipating maddening bottlenecks.
The new technology should be online by early November. The system should be more transparent to the techies and easier to fix when something breaks.
But one thing won't change: Even with a sparkling new Command and Control Center, the nation's largest commuter line will still have to depend on some cables, switches, relays and other infrastructure that are decades old or older. With a $900-million budget gap, how soon can all that stuff possibly be replaced?
No, the past isn't just prologue at the Long Island Rail Road. The past will be around for a good long time.
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