NYA to get 65th street yard completely?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/nyreg ... eight.html

This article makes it sound like nya is next in line to hold the lease to the yard and hopefully drum up more business than CP did. I hope that works out... only other option is cross harbor, but I suspect they don't have half the skilled marketing dept. nya has.

Yeah, I saw that article too. The best bet for float ops to continue -- and increase -- between NY/NJ would be some kind of merger between NYA & NYCH. NYA needs maritime crews, and NYCH has them. And although it's not like NYA couldn't have guys trained for rail-floating, but it takes time and things might go slower (customer-delivery wise) by initially using a 'rookie crew'. And a merger would relieve NYCH from doing the float ops so they could concentrate on their New Jersey Port area business (which IIRC also involves truck freight).

NYA does have guys that are exNYCH, two of which had many years on the NYCH property.

It would really stink if NYA couldnt continue to use the yard, although its used mainly for storage, it is valuable storage space. Would be nice though to get some more customers in there.

I'm sure NYA can drum up some business there. Look at all the building going on in Brooklyn. Building materials are best shipped in bulk by rail, and if they can get a contract to help produce manure at Belmont Park, contracts to bring in building materials and construction equipment is a ground ball. NYA/Anacostia should definitely seek to acquire the NYCH and it's business over in N.J. Maybe Staten Island too.....

Nothing's really left on staten island. Conrail Shared Assets will run over arthur kill drawbridge to service howland hook soon, and possibly south to visy (sp?) paper, but other than that there's nothing left. It'd take millions to get the north shore rebuilt.

I can't imagine anyone other than NYA getting the yard with NYCH's sorid history. Unless for some wild reason CSX/NS/Shared Assets tried it... even then though, CP was a class 1 that got nowhere with it so I can't imagine the city going that route again.

As for yard space in general: I wonder about this sometimes. Can NYA keep growth up without the luxary of a really big yard like LIRR used to have? I never saw Holban when it was in use, but yard A had loads of space, and a hump to boot.

Anything up with the proposed-but-who-knows-when-it'll-happen-if-ever rebuilding of blissville?

I don't see anyone else bidding on it either. What railroad would bid on a yard that is essentially landlocked from the rest of their system? Even if they did bid on it, they would contract out the switching services, just as CP did.

Yard space is at a premium, and every time a new customer comes along, particularly if its one that proposes large carloads, the question of space comes up. Eventually, something will have to be done. Many times when the topic of rail freight is brought up in the newspapers, the 100,000 car per year total is brought up from decades past. While the business has changed significantly since then, the LIRR also had 65th Street Yard, Holban, Yard A, New Lots and a few other smaller yards. All but 65th Street yard listed above is gone.

Jay

Jay, one interesting thing that I've heard recently that could certainly help out NYA's business in the future: there is talk that NYCT will be farming out their track fabrication work. This means that their current track facility at Linden Yards (New Lots) may at some point be up for grabs (or revert back to LIRR ownership).

Being at NYCT got me this 'scoop'.

It seems to be a natural match. Couldn't NYA market to shippers/manufacturers west of the Hudson to earn cross Harbor/Hudson business? There has to be be some time and cost savings by floating cars across the Bay as opposed to sending them up to Albany and back. It seems as if NYCH has gotten its financial house in order as well.

ElTrain wrote:It seems to be a natural match. Couldn't NYA market to shippers/manufacturers west of the Hudson to earn cross Harbor/Hudson business? There has to be be some time and cost savings by floating cars across the Bay as opposed to sending them up to Albany and back. It seems as if NYCH has gotten its financial house in order as well.

I personally think decent carfloat service would be more than sufficent for the NY/LI market for decades to come, alliveating the need for a cross harbor freight tunnel (which I would love to see, but just don't think it realistic at this time - indeed, if we got along for centuries without one, even when rail service was 10x or more larger, it's rather hard to justify one right now.

the tunnle would creat a good impact on rail freight on LI. look at teh 7 mile tunnel in the cascade mountians (BNSF) the tunnle across the east/hudson rivers is relitivly an easy project compared to a 7 mile long tunnel. ventlation should not be that hard to incoorprate, and it is necarry.

Despite what they say, there is not enough rail traffic to justify such a project.

Jay

interesting thread...speculation...and ambitious rail fans... too bad the politicians arent as bold in their thinking. you would think less trucks would be appealing to the elected... so short sighted