Confused driver rides car onto LIRR platform

From the New York Daily News:
Confused driver rides car onto LIRR platform, leaving it dangling over train tracks in Mineola



http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/dri ... -1.3642540


I wonder if they will blame the GPS for this.

I mean to the driver's credit it's on the same level as the street.

I enjoyed the media explanation as "confused". Report is as factual: Car owner "drives" car onto LIRR platform. Details to follow. Was he/she confused (as to what?), drunk, stoned, vehicle malfunction, cut off by another auto, distracted by persons inside the car, ad nauseum... It is, perhaps, another example of lack of reporting integrity on the part of the NY Daily News. Business as usual with more sensationalism hyperbole... Sad

Believe it or not, something similar happened back in the 90's when someone drove off the east bound platform and overturned onto the track. It happened during a Nor'easter around 9 at night. I was was working that night at Mineola and will never forget hearing a bang and seeing the car overturned on No. 2.

I wrote to the MTA about suggestions to add barricades or fencing or whatnot to the open portion by the train tracks at Mineola Station.

The Mineola Station is set to get redone with third track modifications and barracades to prevent car intrusions into track area whether fencing or metal or concrete or whatnot should be done in conjunction with the project, ie control the perimeters around the train tracks to prevent incursions. Mineola had one glaring one which was never eliminated and apparently, whoever did this wind up going through it.

I have never heard about this situation happening before at this location but we saw the Isis attack in Manhattan with a truck and so we are living in different times now and regardless of the causation of this, it is extremely easy to fix which needs to be done in conjunction with third track project.

The causation however and story is extremely ambiguous. They claim the car was towed by police. Also no identification of the driver involved. I have seen some bad stories of drunk drivers getting onto tracks and ruining the tracks and third rail and their own cars and being badly injured to boot. But this one seemed easy to prevent but was not an occurrence that I recall even happening before. For safety reasons, track perimeters should be secured which generally are except for railroad crossings which have to be open. Apparently at Mineola the area by the station had one section with no railroad crossing which needs to be secured in conjunction with removal of railroad crossings on the Main line. Not sure if other stations have any such vulnerabilities which need to be addressed as well.

This car basically shot through a hole that no car should ever be near. You have to drive up on a curb, and that gap is barely wide enough for a car. It's basically a one in a million chance. I don't know why you always throw things way out of proportion when it seems you have no actually knowledge of what you preach.

adamj023 wrote:I wrote to the MTA about suggestions to add barricades or fencing or whatnot to the open portion by the train tracks at Mineola Station.

The Mineola Station is set to get redone with third track modifications and barracades to prevent car intrusions into track area whether fencing or metal or concrete or whatnot should be done in conjunction with the project, ie control the perimeters around the train tracks to prevent incursions. Mineola had one glaring one which was never eliminated and apparently, whoever did this wind up going through it.

I have never heard about this situation happening before at this location but we saw the Isis attack in Manhattan with a truck and so we are living in different times now and regardless of the causation of this, it is extremely easy to fix which needs to be done in conjunction with third track project.

The causation however and story is extremely ambiguous. They claim the car was towed by police. Also no identification of the driver involved. I have seen some bad stories of drunk drivers getting onto tracks and ruining the tracks and third rail and their own cars and being badly injured to boot. But this one seemed easy to prevent but was not an occurrence that I recall even happening before. For safety reasons, track perimeters should be secured which generally are except for railroad crossings which have to be open. Apparently at Mineola the area by the station had one section with no railroad crossing which needs to be secured in conjunction with removal of railroad crossings on the Main line. Not sure if other stations have any such vulnerabilities which need to be addressed as well.

SwingMan wrote:This car basically shot through a hole that no car should ever be near. You have to drive up on a curb, and that gap is barely wide enough for a car. It's basically a one in a million chance. I don't know why you always throw things way out of proportion when it seems you have no actually knowledge of what you preach.

I know exactly what I am talking about. The area where car got through no matter why the person did it, is a vulnerability.

Areas by tracks even have some intrusion sensors by at least some of the rail companies and it is responsibility of the rail company to secure their tracks except for areas outside of their control. If you think the driver accidentally got confused as the story goes and thought he was driving out of the station to a road but instead encroached on the tracks, it’s way less than the probability you suggest. And it is a glaring security vulnerability as well since conductors and moving trains shouldn’t have to deal with objects or vehicles coming onto the tracks. Reason why it happened is less relevant than securing the areas of the track that can be secured and it’s obvious this is easily securable. The third track project for the station includes new brick work and overhangs on each side of the tracks however they never appropriately accounted for the vulnerability that happened here as from photos that were shown so I do indeed believe the suggestion and recommendation was extremely prudent and would have been even before this had happened but since it wasn’t happening, it wasn’t considered a risk in the past. The change is extremely simple and won’t even mean much more materials or work than the existing project already planned. The suggestion seems like a basic request more than anything.

The area where this happened wasn’t a railroad crossing, it was an open area which could easily be enclosed somewhat to keep vehicles out and allow passengers to continue to flow into the station area with their belongings.

This was an incident that didn’t have to happen at all. Fortunately the train was able to stop on time which is in itself is lucky. With three tracks, it becomes even more dangerous as crossings are already planned to be eliminated.

Remember also, in 2001 according to the FRC, Long Island Railroad had a demonstration of intelligent intrusion system in 2001 in New Hyde Park, nearby. That crossing is scheduled to be eliminated as part of the third track project.

The vast majority of railroad accidents are documented through the media which are searchable via the internet. LIRR had more fatalities in the older days while safety on the LIRR itself has been quite good overall even though Metro North was problematic. The LIRR conductor and other personnel and feedback given which let to stopping the train protected the train and passengers and even the life of the driver of the car. But with all that, they could do a better job keeping this area secured. As for other stations with vulnerabilities in LIRR footprint, I do not know, but I know the mainline is very heavily utilized and as such this just fits into the whole scheme of things which seeks to minimize delays and improve safety for the railroad.

adamj023 wrote:I wrote to the MTA about suggestions to add barricades or fencing or whatnot to the open portion by the train tracks at Mineola Station.

The Mineola Station is set to get redone with third track modifications and barracades to prevent car intrusions into track area whether fencing or metal or concrete or whatnot should be done in conjunction with the project, ie control the perimeters around the train tracks to prevent incursions. Mineola had one glaring one which was never eliminated and apparently, whoever did this wind up going through it.

I have never heard about this situation happening before at this location but we saw the Isis attack in Manhattan with a truck and so we are living in different times now and regardless of the causation of this, it is extremely easy to fix which needs to be done in conjunction with third track project.

The causation however and story is extremely ambiguous. They claim the car was towed by police. Also no identification of the driver involved. I have seen some bad stories of drunk drivers getting onto tracks and ruining the tracks and third rail and their own cars and being badly injured to boot. But this one seemed easy to prevent but was not an occurrence that I recall even happening before. For safety reasons, track perimeters should be secured which generally are except for railroad crossings which have to be open. Apparently at Mineola the area by the station had one section with no railroad crossing which needs to be secured in conjunction with removal of railroad crossings on the Main line. Not sure if other stations have any such vulnerabilities which need to be addressed as well.

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Wouldn't a simple, quick and practical fix to this be for the MTA to place concrete barricades in the area in which this occurred (similar to the concrete barricades the NYPD uses to secure areas around the city)?

Then again, it's the MTA and LIRR, so things like "simple," "quick" or "practical" aren't always as obvious as they should be ...

They are already planning on redoing the sides of the tracks due to third track project including brick work or whatnot and overhangs so it’s easy to just add this to that project. Can be done in lots of different ways, including just extending the brickwork and platform sidings out in a way that makes sense using existing materials being procured. Naturally they could also do concrete or metal or whatnot as well. MTA contractors don’t usually do things that make sense all the time. I didn’t suggest how they should do it.

The stories about drunk drivers or drivers on drugs on the tracks are a lot worse situations and it’s true you can’t prevent all vehicles on tracks but you can have intrusion sensors that can stop trains earlier and add barriers for protection where it makes sense.

This story was unusual because unlike other stories, the causation is ambiguous and lots of details missing and also the fact that the train actually stopped in time. Only photo released was one photo showing the car dangling on the tracks but no passenger inside the dangling car as far as I can tell with a stopped train right before the car. Also when I posted, I got a weird error message but was able to get back to the screen to post the message.

I wonder if Nassau tower and/or an eastbound train alerted that westbound train to the situation at Mineola ahead of time. There seems to be more to the story than what's been reported I'm just speculating because the whole story seems incomplete to me

Agreed.

The only thing I have to say about this, and it was Facebook comments on the story because people were being exceptionally rude about the incident. On my Facebook account I commented on the link from NBC 4 New York.

"I'm not surprised this happened to a driver in the state of confusion, especially with how the car ended up that way. For the entrances to the Westbound platform at Mineola, the only thing separating the platform from the parking lot is platform railing. They need to put some Jersey barriers for those parking spaces within the vicinity, because not only could he have hit an idling train/moving train, landed on the tracks damaging the third rail and the tracks, but passengers as well. Also the reason why the Ronkonkoma Branch is not affected is that this weekend there is no service between Ronkonkoma and Farmingdale due to the double-track project. It's still a logistical obstacle because Mineola is one of the busiest stations East of Jamaica."- My comment from November 18th.

Then on Newsday's link.

"This is not funny at all, and part of it is driver confusion, but the key role in this is the layout of the Westbound platform at Mineola. Where the car entered the platform was an entrance from the parking lot that was only protected by a walking handrail for the passengers and a decades old guardrail that dates back to when the M1's rolled out onto the LIRR. There is no protection whatsoever, I mean you could accidentally leave your car in gear and it will idle onto the platform. What needs to be done is to build a reinforced retaining wall or Jersey barriers. I understand you get miffed about the delays and what not, but do you really expect the 4:15 PM rush hour Eastbound to Babylon or whatever branch you use to depart at 4:15 on the dot?"- My comment from November 19th.

By the way, the last sentence in my Newsday comment was to the passengers who get ticked off, whine and complain about the delays. It's like they are saying, "What a way to run a railroad!" All I have to ask to those commuters is, "Why don't you try running it for a day, then we'll see who has the last laugh!" Just a little jab, because I was raised old school, and I can't believe how immoral some people have become today. I just can't stand it, it's exasperating. None of this is directed at you guys, and we all know that, and this coming from someone who is 27 and still has youth in him, but is intellectually ahead of that.

Honestly no reason why there shouldn't be a barrier. Lets hope the LIRR has some common sense & installs one soon. It's a miracle no one was seriously injured considering all the trains & people that pass thru Mineola.

I agree. It isn’t like this was an issue though that I recall even happening before and so for many years it wasn’t perceived as an issue for the railroad. Unfortunately in the era of Isis truck incidents and even humans who seem to be causing more issues than ever due to population growth, the fix is needed here and potentially in other station areas. LIRR seems to be fixing up their issues including closing crossings, redoing grade crossings, and adding new platforms and new rail bridges and the like so a quick fix makes sense here and in other vulnerable areas as well.

If the area was really confusing, there would have been other incidents because this is the 8th busiest LIRR station and has a huge amount of volume constantly. Yet this time we have an incident and one where car doesn’t even go over the tracks and train stopping on time. Incident still seems suspect and information is still withheld as per press articles.