Moving Forward

News for customers, employees and friends of the New York & Atlantic Railway

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Spring 2015

normally spread gravel ballast (bed for railroad tracks) and create drain-age ditches. However, the spreader can also serve as a snow plow.

Due to continuous winds and drifting snow, there was a significant amount of snow that had to be cleared several times. About 800 locomotive miles were operated over a three-day period and, by mid-February, well over 1,000 locomotive-miles were con-sumed in this snow removal service.

Immediately after the storm, the NY&A maintenance team cleared ice and snow from the rails and at all switch points. “We had to dig out all the switches and worked with the train crews to get to our customers to make sure there were no interruptions in ser-vice,” says Bob Clark, chief engineer.

NY&A instrumental in clearing snow after storms

The LIRR’s 53-foot-long and 80-ton steel Harsco Spread-er Ditcher, also known as a Jordan Spreader and nick-named “Darth Vader,” gets a push from two NY&A GP38-2 locomotives. The Jordan Spreader was used to clear the tracks between Ronkonkoma and Riverhead, eventually ending up in Montauk.Photo by Joseph A. Tischner

On Monday, January 26, 2015, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a state of emergency as Storm Juno hit Long Island with heavy snow, high winds and coastal flooding. Parts of Long Island saw more than two feet of snow. The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), Metro-North Railroad and all main roads were closed by 11 PM. The New York & Atlantic Railway tempo-rarily ceased operations.

NY&A operations started again on Wednesday, January 28 and the rail-road was instrumental in clearing snow for the LIRR. NY&A crews helped reopen passenger and freight lines in central and eastern Long Island.

Two NY&A GP38-2 locomotives were used to push the LIRR’s Jordan Spreader—a heavy maintenance unit equipped with a plow and blades that

NY&A 261 after a day of clearing snow and ice. Photo by Joseph A. Tischner

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MOW supervisors share the workload

(From left) Edwin DeLeon and Bob Clark

The Maintenance of Way (MOW) department at the NY&A has not one but two professionals keeping an eye on their tracks: Bob Clark, chief engineer, and Ed-win De Leon, MOW supervisor.

Bob, a native of Canada, has more than 60 years of experience in the railroad industry. He started out in the engineering department for the New York Central Rail-road. As his railroad career progressed, he worked in various locations around the northeast United States and the Midwest, subsequently ending up in Philadelphia. He retired as the assistant vice president of engineering at Conrail in 1994.

“I met Paul Victor in 1999, while we were individually doing consulting work in Mexico,” says Bob. “When Paul became president of the NY&A, he asked if I could assist the NY&A in strengthening its MOW organization.”

That’s when Edwin entered the picture. He was self-em-ployed, doing contract right-of-way clean up work for the NY&A. Edwin says, “I asked Paul for a position at this railroad

and he gave me the opportunity to work on my first railroad job.”

Bob goes on to say, “It’s a much different railroad than when we started. We’ve upgraded the condition of the rail-road substantially over that period, with welded rail and a lot of capital jobs.”

“I think we work well together,” says Edwin. “Our relationship has developed over the past six years and we’ve been able to do a lot together for the NY&A.”

Bob replies, “Edwin is a very hard worker and maintains a high quality of work. He is a real asset to this railroad.”

When they’re not working, they each spend time with their families. Bob has

been married to his wife, Mary Ellen, for 61 years and has four children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Edwin, a New York Yankees fan, enjoys working out and lifting weights and spending time with his wife, Cecilia, and their three daughters: 17-year old Ashley, 14-year old Kimber-ly and 2-year old Makailey.

ELM Global Logistics, located in Brentwood, Long Island, is the only direct rail-served, third-party, full-lo-gistics service provider in Nassau and Suffolk counties. They are also well positioned to serve all five boroughs of New York City.

Located 40 miles east of New York City, ELM has been using NY&A ser-vices since 2003. Through the railroad, they connect with all major rail carri-ers, receiving goods from as far away as California, Mexico and Canada.

Plans are under way to expand track capacity and improve crew utili-zation by removing an interior wall in

ELM Global Logistics relies on NY&A to build businessthe warehouse. Currently, railcars need to be separated and hand brakes ap-plied at different openings in order to unload them. Completing this project will allow more railcars to be unloaded at a faster rate.

ELM, which has experience han-dling a wide range of consumer and industrial commodities, has an addi-tional rail spur that can be opened once the need arises.

“We are pleased to partner with a company that is such an effective rail logistics provider,” says James Bon-ner, director of sales and marketing at the NY&A. “ELM handles inbound

freight for a number of customers that are crucial to the Queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island markets and tireless-ly explores new opportunities as they arise.”

ELM's Director of Sales, Cindy Farley, says, "ELM formed a partner-ship with the NY&A as they have the ability to offer competitive rail rates with connections to all major rail car-riers. As such, their rates reflect a sub-stantial savings in trucking costs."

Three of ELM’s current rail cus-tomers receiving inbound cargo are Azteca Milling, Inter-County Bakers and Clearwater Paper.

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The New York metropolitan area, as well as the northeastern region of the country, has been in a deep freeze since almost the beginning of the New Year. There have been repeated cycles of snow, followed by rain, immediate-ly followed by a hard freeze. This cre-ates two specific challenges: significant snow drifts and ice that forms over the rails.

To combat the snowfall, NY&A, together with the LIRR, operated a ma-chine known as a Jordan Spreader. The engine’s plows were a critical compo-nent because winds drove snow back over the recently plowed right-of-way. In addition, the NY&A contracted to use front-end loaders and other equipment to clear snow that collected repeatedly on freight-only line segments after each snowstorm.

Almost all trains and yard engines that were operated during this period required both contractor-supplied and NY&A engineering personnel to ride along with the transportation employ-

ees to re-clear switches and crossings. Blowing snow from passenger trains can quickly undo the effort just expended to make a switch operational.

The occasional times when the mer-cury climbed above 32°F, especially in concert with rainfall, repeatedly result-ed in a sheet of ice several inches above the head of the rail at many locations. The standard practice of using under rail portable kerosene heaters, and/or the staging of rail cars tied down over key switches, were simply not sufficient to overcome the magnitude of ice that formed. Only people armed with picks, lining bars, propane, gasoline and jack-hammers were able to clear the ice-cov-ered areas and liberate cars frozen in place.

In total, more than 20 people, in addition to our own train crew mem-bers, were required to keep rail service up and running for NY&A’s customers. The working conditions can only be de-

scribed as bad. However, despite these challenges, NY&A persevered and we will work hard in order to return to the level of service our customers expect.

We need to thank everyone for their individual efforts and for their fo-cus on safety over this critical period.

Paul

NY&A President Paul Victor recalls that the design of the bridge was a challenge. “We have the street overhead, so we couldn’t go up. The sewer is underneath, so we couldn’t go down, but we needed another foot of clearance.”

The bridge in question is an integral and final component of the railroad’s Plate F clearance project, which was initiated last fall to increase clearance for 17-foot high cars. Constraints were the over-head intersection of Metropolitan Avenue and Fresh Pond Road, and a 100-year-old sewer line below. In between is a 630-foot long un-derpass less than a mile from NY&A’s Fresh Pond yard in Queens, New York.

Borrowing from past experience, Paul suggested a way that the clearance could be improved. The idea was reviewed by Thomas Si-wula, principal engineer and Scott Wertans, president of Saratoga Railroad Engineering PC and approved by the New York State De-partment of Transportation.

With the bridge project completed, the NY&A will be able to ac-commodate 17-foot high Plate F cars throughout all of Queens and Brooklyn by the end of April 2015.

Bridge project completed through ingenuity

Message from the President

Construction of the bridge showing use of I-beams (in-stead of conventional girders) and placement of a sample rail. The objective was to cut the height of the supporting structure, which would typically be 2½ to 3 feet, to only 16 inches. The bolts visible in this photo were torqued down upon completion.

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NY&A properties, which are within the 25-mile New York studio zone, have provided ideal locations for the filming of scenes of many movies, TV shows and advertising shoots. Some memorable films and TV shows include "Unstoppa-ble," "Man on a Ledge," "Person of Inter-est," "The Good Wife," and "Boardwalk Empire."

Below is a pop culture quiz to see if you can guess the movies or shows that have been filmed on NY&A property.

Hollywoodat the NY&A

1. In this reboot, featuring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, a young man uses his super powers to protect New York from bad guys.

2. Two detectives solve modern-day ver-sions of Sherlock Holmes cases in New York City. It stars Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu.

3. Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni, and Ice-T star in this TV show about an elite squad of NYPD detectives who in-vestigate a variety of crimes.

4. Liam Neeson starred in this film about a hit man who has one night to figure out who he can trust - his estranged son (played by Joel Kinnaman) or his long-time best friend (played by Ed Harris).

5. This dark drama starring Ben McKenzie and Jada Pinkett Smith takes place in Gotham City years predating Batman’s arrival.

6. This crime thriller takes place in New York City in 1981 during what is con-sidered one of most violent years in the city’s history. It stars Jessica Chastain, Oscar Issac and Albert Brooks.

Posters featuring movies and shows that have filmed on var-ious NY&A properties line the walls of the railroad’s offices.Top: Posters from the TV show “Persons of Interest” and the movie “Man on a Ledge.” Bottom: Posters from the movie “Unstoppable” and the TV show “The Blacklist.”

Answers:1. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (filmed in several locations in 2013 and 2014) 2. Elementary (filmed at Maspeth in 2013) 3. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (filmed at the East NY Tunnel in 2014) 4. Run All Night (Filmed at Blissville in 2013) 5. Gotham (filmed at Dutch Kills Bridge in 2014) 6. A Most Violent Year (filmed at the East NY Tunnel in 2014).