(Newsday posted the following article by Jennifer Maloney on its website on October 18.)
NEW YORK — They filled the gap.
The Long Island Rail Road has shifted 2,000 feet of track closer to the platform at the Shea Stadium stop to help close the gap at a station that has seen 30 percent of the railroad’s gap-related incidents in the last two months.
The Shea station incidents since August followed the death of a Minnesota teen who slipped into a gap at the nearby Woodside station.
The track adjustment, completed earlier this month, is part of a pilot program at Shea to address wide gaps, which cause about 60 incidents a year throughout the LIRR. The railroad plans similar adjustments at Jamaica, Deer Park, Hicksville, Huntington, Merillon Avenue, Mineola and New Hyde Park, said LIRR spokeswoman Susan McGowan.
Those stations were selected because a railroad survey in the past two months found they are among those with gaps wider than the railroad’s standard of seven to eight inches, she said.
“These aren’t necessarily the worst locations, but they’re ones that in our measuring we have found to be out of compliance … and we are able to get track access to them without disrupting service,” McGowan said.
LIRR officials are to present preliminary results from their gap investigation today at a regularly scheduled LIRR/LI Bus committee meeting.
LIRR – as well as state and federal officials – began studying the gap issue after the death on Aug. 5, and a Newsday investigation found gaps as wide as 15 inches. After falling to the track at Woodside, Natalie Smead, 18, crawled under the concrete platform and was struck by a train on the other side.
The horizontal gap at the Shea station’s curved platform previously stretched 11 inches, according to a Manhattan man who measured the gap after he fell into it on Sept. 7. Nihal Metha, 29, broke his ribs in the fall.
After a Mets game on Oct. 4, a 44-year-old Manhasset man slipped through the gap at Shea. He was not hurt.
McGowan attributed the high number of incidents at the station to the inexperience of stadium-bound riders, who are less train-savvy than daily commuters.
In an attempt to reduce both vertical and horizontal gaps at Shea, railroad crews adjusted tracks 1 and 2 by adding 800 tons of stone ballast to the track bed, then elevating and shifting 2,000 feet of track with a machine called a tamper, McGowan said.
The tamper lifted the tracks between one and 7.5 inches, making train doors level with the platform. The machine also shifted the tracks horizontally up to 4.5 inches closer to the platform, bringing the gap within the railroad’s standard.
Because of the platform’s curve, the seven-to-eight-inch standard could not be met for the entire length of the platform, she said.
Cost figures for the project are not yet available, McGowan said.
The railroad also addressed a large vertical gap at Queens Village last month by raising one end of the westbound platform, she said.
Other gap solutions implemented at Shea station include:
Wooden edge boards tacked to the side of the platform to reduce the gap.
Gap warnings stenciled in red on the yellow platform edge.
LIRR minds the gap
To address gap concerns, the railroad has made changes to the Shea Stadium station for the Mets post-season games. The pilot program is being applied to other LIRR stations
WARNING SIGNS remind riders to “Watch the Gap.”
RED STENCILED LETTERS on the yellow edge of the platform warn boarding riders.
STONE BALLAST added under the tracks to elevate and shift 2,000 feet of track
to bring trains closer to the platform.
SHEA STADIUM STATION TRACK MOVEMENT
2,000 feet of track were moved closer to the platform.
800 tons of stone ballast were added to the track bed during the track move.
Tracks were moved vertically up to 7.5 inches.
Tracks were moved horizontally up to 4.5 inches.