on the news tonite..

Christ the King HS is bitching about the "trash train" stinking up the school! Uh, who was there first? The RR was. The school is also built over a filled in swamp! The CH 11 news crew was trespassing, obviously, and a CSX crew member called for security.
Anyone remember the horrible wreck at Cajon Pass in CA? The residents said, "why do they put track so close to homes?"
Tracks were there WAY longer before a developer built right up to ROW.
Some people just don't get it!
Joe

While the news story was a little over the top, as most railroad-related news pieces are, the base of the story has merit.

Who was there first? The school was there before the trash train. Now I know what you're going to say - the railroad has been there for 100 years. True. The garbage train was not. Let's use the same analogy as it applies to YOU. NYC Sanitation decides to change the way they store their garbage trucks, and starts to park them overnight on the public street outside of your house. Who was there first, you or the road? Do you have a right to complain? I would hope so, even though you don't own the road.

Let's face it, garbage trains are a sensitive commodity. There was so much political pressure against NYAR moving it when they started, that there was a moratorium placed against the movement of municipal waste. Why was there such a uproar? Because the residents around the rail yard knew they would bear the brunt of it.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against railroads or the movement of garbage via rail. There is a place though for corporate citizenship. Don't let rail cars that you know are going to cause a problem sit around, particularly near a school with a longtime state senator as a chairman. If you're willing to make the money that comes from moving garbage, then you need to come up with a workable plan to keep it moving or store it in a less sensitive area.

For this piece to have been effective, they should have paid more attention to the cars that are actually causing the problem, and not a lot of boxcars and locomotives moving around. Last I saw, "rust" was not a known health hazard, and neither was water leaking out of the cars. The warnings of "Phosphine Gas" were placards placed on the cars when they were loaded maybe a month earlier and is used to deter rodents from entering cars with foodstock inside. It becomes inert shortly thereafter. If it's safe enough to be near food, it's not all that bad - unless you're a rodent.

Jay

http://www.wpix.com/landing_fact_finder ... eedID=1128

Seems very over the top, complete w/blatant trespass by the camera crew. Wonder what they'd say if they got hit by a train?

Do the C&D cars really smell that bad? I've not noticed despite having been around these cars on occasion for a long time now. What I find more disgusting is the smell from passing kephardt trailers going through my neighborhood all night carrying MSW to harlem river. You get the double wammy of trash stench & diesel fumes from dozens of trucks - many of which you can find parked all over queens and brooklyn between loadings, stinking up streets near highways.

that said, a dedicated trash train that doesn't linger anywhere for that long would likely be ideal.

I guess pushing the cars into a more isolated stretch of track wouldnt work, it still be over the fence from someone else's job or home.

I am pro RR, and always take the side of the progress of the railroad. With that said, would any of you want a trailer full of garbage parked outside of your office or your kid's school?

Even one dead stinking car can put off a lot of stench... I can see their side of the story, but the politicians should try to find a solution that wont put garbage in many trucks instead. Just 'stopping the trash trains' isn't a solution. The trucks would stink too.

Reduce,recycle, re-use is what folks have to do, to reduce amount of trash.
There is no easy answer. Someone will always complain! Wasn't there something a while back about people sore about cars parked on an overpass, they were an "eyesore" Lot's of nimbys in LI/Queens, as elsewhere.
Joe

There are places in Fresh Pond to store the cars until they are ready to go on the outbound. You have a yard crew that sits in the yard all day. You're telling me they can't add them to the train before CSX does their brake test and leaves? Probably more like they WON'T do it. So instead of doing the responsible thing, you fuel the flames of NIMBYism, as they told you this would happen 10 years ago.

Jay

I personally can't wait until people in those ugly new houses they build northwest of the yard next to the mall start complaining... because you know that is coming.

DogBert wrote:I personally can't wait until people in those ugly new houses they build northwest of the yard next to the mall start complaining... because you know that is coming.

From Sept '04: (More moaners and groaners on the way?) http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 160#p51160

I couldn't believe it's been 4 years.

I didn't see the news story, where are they storing the trash cars in the yard?

As for the smell, I've always figured it depends on what's loaded on a given day. I regularly see the CSX trash train headed towards Selkirk, often from closeup. Somedays it seems relatively odorless, somedays it really smells foul.

Let me toss out another question-

I looked at this forum, a couple of NY&A sites (including the company's own site) without finding an answer to the following.

I have seen on parent A&P's site that construction & demolition waste is an important traffic source for NY&A. But C&D usually doesn't stink! So where do they get the smelly household or commercial-type (restaurant) waste from? There is a list of their customers on the A&P web site but no municipal waste transfer sites are mentioned, at least none I recognized. They do list Waste Management, Inc (at a Brooklyn site, I think) but within the City of New York I thought WMI mainly hauls C&D.

On a blog I found a reference to a munipal waste transfer station in Nassau County that loads for NY&A. Island Park, I think. One of the Five Towns anyways.

Anybody know for sure??

Funny thing, too. Acoording to my friend who was working on the very train in the video, there were only 4 grabage cars on the train that day.

I have seen on parent A&P's site that construction & demolition waste is an important traffic source for NY&A. But C&D usually doesn't stink! So where do they get the smelly household or commercial-type (restaurant) waste from? There is a list of their customers on the A&P web site but no municipal waste transfer sites are mentioned, at least none I recognized. They do list Waste Management, Inc (at a Brooklyn site, I think) but within the City of New York I thought WMI mainly hauls C&D.

As you may already know, NYAR agreed to a moratorium for the movement of MSW through the borough of Queens when they started operations. The moratorium has since expired and they are free to move MSW.

They have a couple of operations that move MSW. Emjay Environmental in Brentwood moves MSw, as well as C&D. I believe there are also operations that move MSW out of Maspeth as well.

Jay

One other point to remember is their website probably would not want to advertise the fact that customers are moving MSW. This could be considered their dirty (and smelly) little secret.

Jay

Thanks for the info guys.

As for MSW (municipal-solid-waste?), yes it's people who generate it but then they don't want to know anymore about it. It's a lot better for it to go by rail than highway. And it's a good solid business for NYAR to be in (or any railroad), one cargo that will be there no matter what happens with the economy.

I've read that NY City Sanitation hopes to depend in the future more and more on rail for bulk handling of solid waste.

It's a lot better for it to go by rail than highway. And it's a good solid business for NYAR to be in (or any railroad), one cargo that will be there no matter what happens with the economy.

I've read that NY City Sanitation hopes to depend in the future more and more on rail for bulk handling of solid waste.

You are right - to a point.

Garbage is a commodity that will always move no matter what type of economy there is - but the profit margin for a carload of garbage is much smaller than other commodities. You're not moving oranges - just orange peels. That carload of garbage takes up the same amount of space that a carload of more profitable products would. For a railroad with capacity constraints, this can turn into a problem. The garbage also has the ability to make you a very unpopular neighbor if it is handled improperly. Look at the reason for this thread and it proves my point.

Most of NYC garbage is transloaded to rail at Fresh Kills, which cuts NYAR out of the majority of NYC garbage. What they can move is garbage from private companies, such as waste management and Emjay.

Jay