Concerns Raised Over Uncovered Freight Trains

Several Mineola residents have spotted an unusual sight rolling down the tracks of the Long Island Railroad: uncovered freight train cars.

“We have noticed freight trains, many more than in the past,” Russell Sullivan of the Birchwood Court homeowners association said during a meeting of the on April 4 at the . “We also noticed at times these open – what appear to be coal cars – are uncovered.”

The tracks run adjacent to the Birchwood apartments with about 40 garages and three open spaces located on the property. Within the 3 open spots, 2 cars have been damaged by “debris – metal usually – falling onto our property off these open cars,” Sullivan said. “I find it unusual that somehow the MTA could miss this, they don’t oversee these freight trains coming through.”

Most of the time the train cars travel at night but Sullivan said he observed at midafternoon on weekends. Concerns were also raised about the trains hauling radioactive waste to the Brookhaven labs.

Resident Dennis Walsh produced several cellphone photos he took on Sunday, April 1 at about 3 p.m. of a freight train on the main line behind his house.

Calling the freight cars “open-top hopper cars,” Walsh estimated that the train was approximately 20 cars long and said that the trains are supposed to have a tarp covering any freight they might be hauling.

“They’re not legally allowed to do that,” he said of New York Atlantic Railways Company, the freight train operator. “They have to be covered. To me it looked like demolished building, a pummeled building and it was concrete. Concrete was falling off right in front of my eyes and dust was flying from these things.”

Walsh also found it incredulous that the MTA could not have known about the freight being uncovered as it went through their system: “When these freight trains go through... first they have to go through the Hicksville switching station, then they have to go through what they call ‘Nassau-1’ which is that little building across the street from ... it had to go through the Jamaica yards, it had to go through Penn Station, more then likely went to Jersey I’m told and I’m not sure of that.”

He stated that he reported the incident to , whose office called the MTA on April 2. According to Martins’ office, a LIRR representative said that an investigation was being conducted. Martins’s offices have had “continued conversations” with the LIRR and are attempting to set up a meting or conference call between the LIRR, Sen. Martins’s office and the Village of Mineola.

Martins’s office also confirmed that a LIRR representative did arrive at their Garden City Park offices about two hours before a scheduled appointment to discuss the photos, however the representative only picked up the photos and a discussion took place over the phone.