Staten Island Railway

I have a question. Is the SIRT T & E employees apart of the MTA? And if so what union does it fall under UTU/TWU? And do they still fall under the railway labor act?

The SIR is part of the MTA, but I don't think it's like the subway. Not sure, but I believe it operates more like LIRR or Metro-North. Almost positive the equipment is FRA compliant. But I don't know about the employee unions.

Prior to 1971, SIR (then SIRT) was B&O and still operated some frieght on the South Shore line (Perth Amboy Division, St George to Tottenville).

Freight continued on the North Shore Line (Cranford) until float operations ceased, I believe in the early 1990's. The two branches remained physically connected and SIR was operated under FRA regs.

I have heard that SIR is now operating with some FRA-modification and some FRA-waiver. Although still connected to the North Shore Line on paper, sections of the ROW are impassable. When the Ball Park station was built, however, one of the passages was built high enough to accomodate high box and intermodal rolling stock, leaving the door open to reactivate service across the two divisions again.

Eltingville SINY wrote:Freight continued on the North Shore Line (Cranford) until float operations ceased, I believe in the early 1990's. The two branches remained physically connected and SIR was operated under FRA regs.

I don't believe float operations continued under Conrail or CSX (well Delaware-Oswego anyway) - freight operations continued to the early/mid 1990s to P&G on the North Shore via AK bridge, not float. Talk about restoring this service begain in the mid-1990s, was bobbled serveral times, and only now is almost ready to get going (with the Travis branch included this time).

Although still connected to the North Shore Line on paper, sections of the ROW are impassable. When the Ball Park station was built, however, one of the passages was built high enough to accomodate high box and intermodal rolling stock, leaving the door open to reactivate service across the two divisions again.

I thought I read on Forgotten NY those NS sections were out of service by the 1970s - passenger service surely was.
I know about the ROW retained by the Stadium, but I thought that was for future passenger service only - I am afraid I cannot see the purpose in routing intermodal trains to St. George (people were whining about reactivating Howland Hook Intemodal Terminal...image their shreiks about a intermodal yard on the eastern commercial/residental side of Staten Island. If the Homeport was still around, that might have made some sense, but that port lasted - what, all of 4 years or so?

Staten Island Railway is under an indepedent operating agency known as the SIRTOA, which is a MTA subsidiary. SIR police are MTA officers, nor NYPD Transit cops.

I think SIRT might be the same union as the remainder of the system.

Also, it's a bit hard to see out front of the SIRT equipment too.

Robert Paniagua wrote:I think SIRT might be the same union as the remainder of the system.

Different union. They kept operating during the strike last year.

Staten Island bus driver's aren't part of the TWU either, but they voted to strike if the TWU went on strike.