Since Grand Central Madison opened, most LIRR branches send trains to two Manhattan terminals. The fare is the same to either, so the choice is about where you are going and which train is leaving. This guide covers what the timetable data on this site can tell you.
Same zone, same fare
Penn Station, Grand Central Madison and Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn are all zone 1. A ticket from any station to zone 1 is valid to any of the three, so you can board whichever train leaves first and change at Jamaica if it is going to the wrong one. The peak rule is the same at all three terminals.
Which terminal for where
Penn Station sits on the West Side at 34th Street, with the 1, 2, 3, A, C and E subways, NJ Transit and Amtrak. Grand Central Madison is on the East Side under Grand Central Terminal, with the 4, 5, 6, 7 and S subways and Metro-North upstairs. Atlantic Terminal is in downtown Brooklyn. If your destination is east of Fifth Avenue, Grand Central Madison usually saves a crosstown trip; if it is on the West Side or you are connecting to New Jersey, Penn Station does.
Which branches run direct
| Branch | To Penn Station | To Grand Central Madison | To Atlantic Terminal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Babylon Branch | 19 stations · 856 trains | 19 stations · 461 trains | 17 stations · 245 trains |
| Far Rockaway Branch | 15 stations · 441 trains | 15 stations · 426 trains | 14 stations · 296 trains |
| Greenport Service | no direct service | no direct service | no direct service |
| Hempstead Branch | 20 stations · 459 trains | 20 stations · 429 trains | 19 stations · 280 trains |
| Long Beach Branch | 14 stations · 543 trains | 14 stations · 339 trains | 13 stations · 273 trains |
| Montauk Branch | 18 stations · 243 trains | no direct service | no direct service |
| Oyster Bay Branch | 12 stations · 261 trains | no direct service | no direct service |
| Port Jefferson Branch | 24 stations · 798 trains | 17 stations · 376 trains | 16 stations · 258 trains |
| Port Washington Branch | 13 stations · 404 trains | 13 stations · 250 trains | no direct service |
| Ronkonkoma Branch | 22 stations · 961 trains | 13 stations · 288 trains | 8 stations · 84 trains |
| West Hempstead Branch | 7 stations · 184 trains | 8 stations · 200 trains | 9 stations · 253 trains |
Stations with direct weekday service to each terminal, and the weekday trains into it from the branch, from the LIRR feed.
The Port Washington Branch is the one branch that reaches Manhattan without passing through Jamaica, so it has no across-the-platform change to Brooklyn. Every other branch feeds Jamaica, where trains for the three terminals are timed to meet.
Changing at Jamaica
Jamaica is built for the change: trains to Penn Station, Grand Central Madison and Atlantic Terminal are scheduled to stand across the platform from each other. On a trip page, the calling-points diagram shows Jamaica among the stops when a train passes through it, and the Related trips section links to the same origin's trips to the other terminals where they are published.
Where this comes from
Terminal, zone and fare come from the MTA's own datasets; the direct-service counts above are computed from the LIRR schedule feed on a representative weekday. See how LIRR fares work for the peak rule.
Updated 21 Sep 2026 · operator fare rules and schedule feeds
The LIRR prices a ticket by the fare zone you start in and the zone you end in. There are eight zones in use: 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12 and 14. Zone 1 is the Manhattan and Brooklyn terminals, Penn Station, Grand Central Madison and Atlantic Terminal, together with the stations nearest them. The zone numbers climb as you travel east, so a longer trip crosses more zones and costs more.
Peak fares apply on weekday trains scheduled to arrive at a New York terminal between 6:00 and 10:00 AM, or to leave one between 4:00 and 8:00 PM. Every other train, and every train on a weekend or holiday, is off-peak. Trips that stay entirely within zones 4 to 14, with neither end in the city, cost the same on every train.
Tickets are sold in the MTA TrainTime app, at station ticket machines and windows, and on board. Buying on board costs more than buying before you get on. Senior, disabled and Medicare fares are reduced and are not valid on weekday morning peak trains into New York. Weekly and monthly tickets cover unlimited travel between two zones for the period and are the usual choice for a five-day commute. The monthly pass break-even shown on each trip page is that pass price divided by the one-way peak fare, rounded up.