by pgengler
Just came across this on the NY Times website: Mystery Freight Train Out of Queens? It May Soon Be a Familiar Sight. It's about the New York & Atlantic.
Some select passages:
Some select passages:
Gritty freight trains may be a familiar sight out West and in cowboy movies, but in Queens and Brooklyn and the neat suburbs of Long Island, they are a roaring, sooty cause for a big double take.
“We go through here every day, and everyone still looks at us like ‘What the heck is this?’ ” said Tom Materka, a rail freight engineer, as the train approached the Hicksville station, one of the Long Island Rail Road’s busiest commuter stops, one recent afternoon. “People are always shocked to see a freight train coming through here.”
...
Since freight trains are far outnumbered by commuter trains, few people glimpse the bulky, graffiti-covered boxcars as they lumber past the sleek silver commuter cars rushing passengers to or from Pennsylvania Station.
But passengers can expect to see more of these trains soon. Transportation experts, government officials and rail freight advocates say conditions are suddenly in their favor.
New York’s new governor, Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, favors expanding rail freight, as does United States Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Mr. Nadler, a longtime champion of building a rail freight tunnel under New York Harbor to reduce truck traffic, helped obtain $100 million in federal money in 2005 to study the tunnel project, and his power has increased now that the Democrats have a majority in Congress.
Given that political climate, and the effect high fuel costs have on prices of goods trucked in, experts say they expect a huge increase in rail cargo in the New York area. The city gets roughly 2 percent of its goods by rail, compared with a 40 percent average figure nationally, experts say.
Also, a new waste management plan for New York City calls for more reliance on rail freight to ship waste out. The city is set to activate a rail freight line on Staten Island and is seeking to expand rail activity in Bay Ridge, where a short-line railroad floats rail cars from New Jersey across New York Harbor to Brooklyn to be picked up by New York & Atlantic.
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This little-noticed suburban rail line has become the little engine that could, and proposed increases in rail freight could thrust it into a much larger role, as would plans to create new depots on Long Island to reduce truck traffic on the Long Island Expressway.
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Many spur lines and off-ramps are now rusted and overgrown, but lately the crew members have seen signs of revival, as some companies build new sidings to make way for rail service.
Phil Gengler
Overheard in NY Penn: "All aboard! Get on the train if you're coming with us!"
Overheard in NY Penn: "All aboard! Get on the train if you're coming with us!"
