Farmingdale intermodal site?

Riding along the LIRR mainline, I have noticed a space between Rt.110 & New Highway (I believe) & mall/airport & mainline tracks in Farmingdale that looks pretty undeveloped (has a colasped hanger like building). I believe it is diagonal across from rail/rubish loading site. Seems pretty ideal for a freight intermodal location - near Nassau & Suffolk county boarders, with Rt.110 north/south access to east/west routes and already industrial/commercial. Was this space ever considered for the freight intermodal site? If not, why?

Thanks.

Sounds like the remaining area from the old Fairchild Republic site (now mostly that bigbox strip mall/movie theatre Airport Plaza), I'm assuming south of the LIRR & north of (relocated! ) Conklin St.
Dunno, bit small for a true intermodal site, and besides the studies I remember from the early 1990s were for intermodal yard along New Highway (including & north of the Waste Transfer station) - this was were they unloaded the LIRR intermodal bogies, and the travel crane from that period is still there, so in fact that was an 'intermodal yard' of sorts. However, for some reason the LIRR never would disclose it's plans and intentions (probably cause they didn't know themselves), and that, as usual, eventually peeved off the neighbors - who, for once, seemed at first quite accepting of the idea, at least according to Newsday).
Hopefully nothing happens to the land (and the underused lot north of the LIRR) until the current crop of local politicians peters out and we get a new crop, this time more understanding of true industrial/commercial development and the concept of WELL PAYING SKILLED JOBS (hint - not Taco Bell or 7-11).

Intermodal will never work on Long Island.

For intermodal to be successful, it has to be fast...very fast. The big railroads can do it because they can offer point-to-point service, and they own the track.

If you build the intermodal site in Farmingdale, as proposed, here's what will happen.

NYAR will begin their journey out of Farmingdale (and that in itself will be a challenge) and bring the train to one of the following:

Fresh Pond (where the train will sit until whenever CSX can get it, then take it at 10 MPH over Hell Gate, to Oak Point, where it will join all of the other slow moving freights over the Hudson Line.) Forget seeing that daytime move - Metro North will only give them a nightly window.

Bay Ridge (where it will sit until Cross Harbor can float it across New York Harbor.) Let's hope the barge is working and the tides are just right. Storm on the way? The cars will sit also. The locals in Brooklyn will love this though, as it will give them ample time to empty the cars there.

Jay

Ray & Jay are right on this one...

Just look at the bogies and how miserably they failed...

jayrmli wrote:Intermodal will never work on Long Island.

For intermodal to be successful, it has to be fast...very fast. The big railroads can do it because they can offer point-to-point service, and they own the track.

If you build the intermodal site in Farmingdale, as proposed, here's what will happen.

NYAR will begin their journey out of Farmingdale (and that in itself will be a challenge) and bring the train to one of the following:

Fresh Pond (where the train will sit until whenever CSX can get it, then take it at 10 MPH over Hell Gate, to Oak Point, where it will join all of the other slow moving freights over the Hudson Line.) Forget seeing that daytime move - Metro North will only give them a nightly window.

Bay Ridge (where it will sit until Cross Harbor can float it across New York Harbor.) Let's hope the barge is working and the tides are just right. Storm on the way? The cars will sit also. The locals in Brooklyn will love this though, as it will give them ample time to empty the cars there.

Jay

I see your point about the problems facing rail freight moving onto LI, but what is all the talk about an intermodal site near Pilgrim or Pine Aire?

As to the bogie experiment with NYCHRR, I thought that failed due to the bogies themselves - something to the effect of being too light, even with trailer load, causing derailments.

I hear the community just to the east of New Highway has organized a movement to keep out the intermodals. The residents at the various cemeteries have joined forces to prevent train traffic and truck traffic from destroying their quality of death in their final resting place. more news on this...as it becomes available. They plan to hold a protest/rally on October 31.

badneighbor wrote:I hear the community just to the east of New Highway has organized a movement to keep out the intermodals. The residents at the various cemeteries have joined forces to prevent train traffic and truck traffic from destroying their quality of death in their final resting place. more news on this...as it becomes available. They plan to hold a protest/rally on October 31.

When Dead Nimby Slime/
Start to Shreik and Whine/
Who You Gonna Call?/
Ghostbusters!

It's interesting you mention all of this because I wondered the same thing for awhile about all of the vancant space there. By car passing along Conklin it looks somewhat big, but let me tell you, that space is tremendous. I am still unsure if back in the hayday did they bury anything in the ground that needs removal.

I still think that space has a lot of potential, given it's location. You've got New Highway, which serves as the main artery for Coastal, and Rte. 110 as someone mentioned before is less than a 1/2 mile away. Lot's of trucks use New Highway coming from Rte. 109 (again, another congested road on LI) as well.

Speaking about Farmingdale, if anyone is familar with the area, the old WW1 buildings on Motor Ave are for the most part demolished, with only part of the hanger still there. I also thought that would be a potential place for business off of the Central. But from rumors (again the past 4 years it's still uncertain what is going there) they're supposed to make it a Super Stop and Shop.

I see your point about the problems facing rail freight moving onto LI, but what is all the talk about an intermodal site near Pilgrim or Pine Aire?

It's not a problem with rail freight, just intermodal freight (i.e. - TOFC).

The NYSDOT has pushed the Pilgrim Intermodal Facility thing for years, and it's just that...talk. Lots of government money wasted on feasibility study upon feasibility study. It's gone on for almost 20 years now. The politicians want it because it is a visual sign of trucks off the road - you can actually see the trailer on the flatcar!

Three trucks still equal one boxcar. The solution for Long Island is transloading - not intermodal.

The reason for the protests at the Farmingdale sight (I'm assuming you mean Coastal), is because it has to deal with one thing - garbage.

Jay

jayrmli wrote:The reason for the protests at the Farmingdale sight (I'm assuming you mean Coastal), is because it has to deal with one thing - garbage.

Hmm, the only protest posting above was a joke, AFAIK (hence my crappy parody post afterward) - ghosts and spirits protesting expansion toward the cemetaries.
What I remembered (In real life) was a discussion in the Newsday about expansion of the 'intermodal' yard on New Highway north & east, and a response by a neighborhood spokesman (the residents routinuely complained about Republic Airport in those days - pre 1995 - and were fairly well organized) stating they could not give an OK to the plan, as the LIRR wouldn't give specifics - I guess at this late date, we can assume the LIRR simply didn't have said plans and specifics, just some napkin doodles that consultants billed them 100s of thousands for...

I have official LIRR b/o tags from the the PW long trailer, actually box outside. I got these when it was a transload site for this place caled AMCO plastics which is located on the Central. They have their own siding and even laid up an MP15 there one day. The Central Branch was my favorite because it housed freight virtually from end to end(7 miles). Does anybody remember the names of places with sidings?

jayrmli wrote:

I see your point about the problems facing rail freight moving onto LI, but what is all the talk about an intermodal site near Pilgrim or Pine Aire?

It's not a problem with rail freight, just intermodal freight (i.e. - TOFC).

The NYSDOT has pushed the Pilgrim Intermodal Facility thing for years, and it's just that...talk. Lots of government money wasted on feasibility study upon feasibility study. It's gone on for almost 20 years now. The politicians want it because it is a visual sign of trucks off the road - you can actually see the trailer on the flatcar!

Three trucks still equal one boxcar. The solution for Long Island is transloading - not intermodal.

The reason for the protests at the Farmingdale sight (I'm assuming you mean Coastal), is because it has to deal with one thing - garbage.

Jay

But does not transloading require even more space - space to unload and store until picked up by client. Does this not take up more time - unload freight car into wharehouse then load into truck to unload at customer site. While I know there are issues with clearance for multi-level TOFC, but I thought the whole benefit of intermodal, even single TOFC, was trailer unloaded, attached to tractor then driven to customer site for unloading plus less trucks on bridges, tunnels and highways leading into NYC & LI?

Also, from my original post, why is NYSDOT pushing, talk or not, Pilgrim for an intermodal over a Farmingdale site near Republic airport & Rt.110? As I said, Farmingdale is near Nassau/Suffolk boarder and pretty industrial/commercial in that area - could attract customer right there, plus serve rest of LI.

1) There is plenty of space at Pilgrim to build a yard. Farmingdale would be very tight.
2) If it was a rail to truck transfer site, the last thing you'd want is to add more traffic to Route 110. It's about at capacity during the week already. The Pilgrim site is closer to the LIE than Farmingdale is.
3) The existing yard at Farmingdale is already being used by another freight customer, who you wouldn't want to move anyway. To build on the south side (as you suggested originally) would require new switches/signals, etc. There already is a switch at Pilgrim.

Read my original posting as to why intermodal (TOFC) wouldn't work. Transloading doesn't take more space necessarily, but there is space available at Pilgrim.

Where everyone dropped the ball was in choosing Pilgrim as the site. The ultimate site for a large freight yard would have been the old Grumman property in Bethpage. You could have designed a huge yard, and all customers could have been serviced out of this yard much more efficiently there than out of Fresh Pond. You would have relatively close access to the LIE and route 135.

Jay

jayrmli wrote:The ultimate site for a large freight yard would have been the old Grumman property in Bethpage. You could have designed a huge yard, and all customers could have been serviced out of this yard much more efficiently there than out of Fresh Pond. You would have relatively close access to the LIE and route 135.

Was this even anything beyond some idle speculation (there's always that in regards to anything on Long Island)? I do not remember ANY discussion of an intermodal (or even just a general freight yard) at the Grumman site (which I believe is now mostly...housing in the southern portion and commercial/light industry of some sort in the northern - at least I think you mean the former Grumman runway area near S Oyster Bay Road & Central Ave). Anyway, I don't remember this ever being brought up (Calverton yes, among the many other configurations proposed for that site).
Also, I don't feel its all that close to the LIE (schelp through Hicksville Broadway during a weekday? Heh) - at least Pilgrim is somewhat closer.

jayrmli wrote:1) There is plenty of space at Pilgrim to build a yard. Farmingdale would be very tight.
2) If it was a rail to truck transfer site, the last thing you'd want is to add more traffic to Route 110. It's about at capacity during the week already. The Pilgrim site is closer to the LIE than Farmingdale is.
3) The existing yard at Farmingdale is already being used by another freight customer, who you wouldn't want to move anyway. To build on the south side (as you suggested originally) would require new switches/signals, etc. There already is a switch at Pilgrim.

Read my original posting as to why intermodal (TOFC) wouldn't work. Transloading doesn't take more space necessarily, but there is space available at Pilgrim.

Where everyone dropped the ball was in choosing Pilgrim as the site. The ultimate site for a large freight yard would have been the old Grumman property in Bethpage. You could have designed a huge yard, and all customers could have been serviced out of this yard much more efficiently there than out of Fresh Pond. You would have relatively close access to the LIE and route 135.

Jay

I agree about Pilgrim as dropping the ball, which was why I asked why that area. While it has the space and switches, it is meeting resistance due to its closeness to residential areas. Also, what is the best nearby north/south route for trucks? I cannot think of any.

Funny thing you mentioning the Bethpage area - between Hicksville & Bethpage stations, it looks like there was a transloading site on the north side of the LIRR tracks, complete with tracks to wharehouses with loading docks and what appears to be a truck scale (was it one?). I did not think this would be a good site as there is housing near by, so, like the Pilgrim site, there would be resistance. Also, there did not seem to be a good truck route to 135, but I could be wrong on that point.

A Farmingdale site, either north or south of tracks, should eleminate the neighbor problem, but I cannot comment about Rt110s capacity. Would adding switches at my south side site be that difficult or such an issue?

As to your point of getting TOFCs onto LI, it would have to be part of Freight tunnel project. Although, if existing systems (Hells Gate & Float bridges) can get freight cars onto LI without hassels, then settling for a transloading site would still be an improvement.