Snowmaggedon 2016 Jonas

MNRR & LIRR to shut down: http://alert.mta.info/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and above ground NYC Subway service will begin an orderly shutdown of service at 4:00pm due to deteriorating weather conditions and concerns for customer and employee safety. Crews and snow fighting equipment have been dispatched and are working to keep platforms and rails clear of ice and snow. We advise customers if at all possible to remain at home during the duration of this storm.

Well..........it looks like this was the wrong storm to try and maintain service. They probably should have shut down instead of making a valiant effort to keep the trains running, though they were criticized for always shutting down during Helena's time. Last few hours there seem to be several stalled trains on the main-line in the Westbury-Hicksville area. Now Newsday will probably run a week-long series taking LIRR to task for NOT shutting down the railroad during a blizzard and stranding passengers on dead trains.

Both Metro North and the LIRR were shut down at 4 PM today (January 23, 2016)

Also the forecasts for the storm didn't predict it would be this bad. You can't shut down the entire RR for forecast of 10 inches.

That's true ADL6009. The forecast up thru yesterday was for 12 inches max, and was updated to 18-24 inches today. Guess the storm swung further north than we'd hoped.

Morisot, I know they'd officially shut down operations at 4PM. I started hearing these stuck trains around 5-6PM. They must have started their runs just before the shut-down.

There were numerous stuck trains - the last 4 Main Line eastbounds, the last 2 Main Line westbounds, a couple on the Port Washington Branch, and a couple at other locations.

I should note that the stuck trains were all due to third rail icing.

Last night was not good. The crews on the stuck trains were abandoned. Some of them on the equipment for 16+ hours with no food.

With the Travel Ban in place, there would be no way those crews could move.

It would be ironic to starve while collecting overtime. Did any of those crews starve? If so, at what point was their pay cut off?

RR vehicles would have been allowed on the roads.

Most LIRR employees do not meet the State or fed definition of "Emergency Workers" and would "risk arrest" as the governor threatened if they attempted to ride to or from work or use the roads during the travel ban. Last year the MTA sought inclusion of all its employees in the "Emergency Worker" classification, but the effort, like many forged by the agency lost momentum and remains unsettled.

Of course we all know that police officers who exercise great discretion should and would certainly permit any public service worker on the roads in such a case. But an employee who doesn't wish to run afoul of or has supreme respect for the law, or who fears an insurance issue should he become involved in an accident would have to stay off the roads.

A limited number of LIRR and MTA employees have been certified as "Emergency Workers" by FEMA. These include operations field managers and some field equipment managers. They received training and testing by FEMA and are entered in a FEMA registry. They could legally operate a vehicle on State roads during such a ban. Could they shuttle crew members as passengers? Again, according the the Governor's edict, that would be a violation of the law also. A railroad vehicle with Official registration would require and EMG sticker or special red plate if the technicalities of the law were followed. The LIRR has about a dozen such plates.

So those employees starving on trains during the blizzard should beware that excessive complaints could wind up with an attempt of their paid time being terminated at the ban's implementation.

Railroaders aren't the only ones in this administrative boat. Virtually all hospital workers are also not certified as "Emergency Workers" by FEMA.

Do you think anyone clued in the governor before he ran his mouth?

Cuomo isn't interested in facts.

Travel ban in city limits was a joke. Most people were smart enough to not drive anywhere (due to how slow and dangerous it was) but those that did were in 4 wheel drives. NYPD's fleet of sedans were nowhere to be found in the outer boros.

Parking meters were also apparently in effect yesterday.

Not the smartest people leading this state/city/region.

They were hoping the area would get about a foot of snow, it got nearly 3 feet in most places. Because they were ill prepared they acted very harshly, and then patted themselves on the back for doing a "good job".


What else is new.

Head-end View wrote:That's true ADL6009. The forecast up thru yesterday was for 12 inches max, and was updated to 18-24 inches today. Guess the storm swung further north than we'd hoped.

Morisot, I know they'd officially shut down operations at 4PM. I started hearing these stuck trains around 5-6PM. They must have started their runs just before the shut-down.

Technically it can be argued that we had a chance of getting 24 inches of snow albeit slim based upon data earlier in the week, that particular weather model was mostly disregarded as it was for the most part an outllier up until the Thursday-Friday time frame when it became even more apparent that New York was going to be affected quite heavily. At that point both Mt. Holly in NJ and Upton in NY were forced to acknowledge that we were poised to receive 2 feet of snow and in some instances closer to 30 inches of snow. It's amazing the railroad kept chugging along until the shutdown, with all the problems that started cropping up around the 11am-12noon hour.

I also feel for anyone who was stuck on the trains during the storm, crew and passengers alike.

CBS News is saying that they will have a sort of normal rush-hour service Monday morning. Metro-North will be on a Sunday schedule.

Darth is earning it's keep with a pair of NY&A Gp38-2's plowing,LIRR reportly will start up at 5:00am monday
according to the WCBS stream.