After 25 years now it’s obvious that Forgotten New York, besides a chronicler of a NYC the guidebooks won’t tell you about, is also enthusiastic about NYC’s infrastructure. To that end, today I’m turning it over to a published transit chronicler to talk about the new LIRR concourse at Grand Central Terminal, named Grand Central Madison.
BY ANDY SPARBERG
Guest Post
GRAND Central Madison (GCM) is the brand name LIRR uses for its new terminal below the existing Metro North Grand Central Terminal, which has been there in its present form since 1913, and in earlier incarnations going back to the 1870s. So for the last century and a half, it’s been a major rail transit hub. LIRR’s new terminal eliminates the need for riders to switch to subways (at Woodside, Hunterspoint Ave., or Penn) to complete a trip between LIRR stations and Midtown East Side destinations.
GCM is actually two double-deck caverns, deep underground below Park Avenue. Each cavern consists of four tracks (two over two) and two island platforms, giving the terminal a total of eight tracks and four island platforms. Upper level tracks are numbered 201 through 204; lower level ones are logically 301 through 304. Tracks 201-202 are atop 301-302 and constitute the west cavern. Correspondingly, Tracks 203-204 are atop 303-304 and are called the east cavern. Both caverns are directly below Park Avenue; the 300-level tracks are about 140 feet below the street surface.
Traditionally, Grand Central is associated with 42nd Street, but the new LIRR terminal extends its length to 48th Street. The LIRR caverns extend from 45th to 48th Streets, making the front of an inbound train, or the back end of an outbound train, line up with 45th Street. Conversely, 48th Street is back of an inbound train and the front end of an outbound train.
Four sets of long, high-speed escalators, corresponding to 45th through 48th Streets, connect the track levels to the Madison Concourse level, which in turn runs north-south one level below and north of the Metro-North dining concourse. Once a LIRR customer arrives on the Madison Concourse level, all streets, between 48th and 42nd, and Madison, Park, and Lexington Avenues, can all be accessed through a series of passageways, stairs, elevators, and escalators. Metro-North’s three lines (Hudson, Harlem, New Haven) and the subways (4, 5, 6, 7 and 42nd St. Shuttle) are accessed the same way.
When you arrive at GCM on a LIRR train, you must proceed either up or down to a common mezzanine between the two track levels. From there you proceed to the long escalators that take you to the Madison Concourse level. If you are departing on an eastbound train it works in reverse; everyone must take an escalator to the common mezzanine and then one must proceed up or down to one of the four platforms. Electronic signs provide the necessary information.
Keep in mind that transferring to the subway at Grand requires more walking than at Penn Station, even though it’s all underground. That’s because LIRR trains do not go south of 45th Street, and the subway is at 42nd Street. It’s easier to transfer to Metro-North trains – two east-west cross passageways at 45th and 47th Street connect directly to Metro-North platforms.
From the MTA website, this is a diagram of LIRR’s Madison Concourse. I added the two dashed white arrows at the bottom right to show the physical relationship between the two track caverns and the rest of the terminal.
Andy Sparberg is a retired (since June 2007) LIRR manager, who has continued to work part time in the transportation field as an author, tour leader, and university lecturer. His book From a Nickel to a Token (2015, Fordham Press) chronicles the NYC mass transit system between 1940 and 1968.
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2/22/24