(The following article by Bruce Lambert was posted on the New York Times website on October 4.)
NEW YORK — When James J. Dermody started as a Long Island Rail Road ticket clerk in Massapequa in 1958, the monthly pass from there to Pennsylvania Station was about $32. That Penn Station was the grand old original, whose demolition a few years later fostered the landmark preservation movement.
The railroad had only recently mothballed its last coal-fired steam engines, and the remaining rolling stock was equally antiquated. A primitive cooling system in the few luxury cars vented air over blocks of ice under the floor. “It was like night and day with what we have now,” said Mr. Dermody, 65, who retired last month after nearly half a century at the nation’s biggest suburban commuter rail system — the last three and half years as its president.
Back then, there were no cellphone yakkers, and no one envisioned today’s high-tech rail cars with picture windows and automated announcements and temperature control — costing $2 million each versus $110,000 for a car in 1958. Nor could passengers have imagined the futuristic revamping of Jamaica Station with its connection for the AirTrain to Kennedy Airport.
The next generation of changes promises to be just as sweeping, Mr. Dermody said in a recent interview at his office in Jamaica. The railroad is working on its first connection ever to the East Side, a $6.3 billion line ending at Grand Central Terminal. The railroad expects that project to increase ridership, and eventually account for more than 40 percent of daily volume.
Other major projects on the drawing board include a new Penn Station with the Farley post office building as its centerpiece, a direct connection through Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan and a third track on the Main Line along the center of Long Island, which would allow for more rush-hour trains. It is all a far cry from the system of 1958. “The cars were 40 years old and in desperate need of repair,” Mr. Dermody said.
The L.I.R.R. of that era ran freight trains with cabooses and hauled potatoes from farms on the daily Spud Express. On the commuter trains, special parlor cars — executive lounges on wheels — were cooled with ice. Smokers had free rein in alternating cars. Only men worked on the crews. Discounted “ladies day” tickets were honored for city visits on Wednesdays.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority did not yet exist. “We were part of the old Pennsylvania Railroad, and we were in bankruptcy,” Mr. Dermody said. In 1958, L.I.R.R. fares went up 5.9 percent to help finance a 12-cent hourly raise for the workers. It was the ninth fare increase in 11 years, and some irate riders vowed to form carpools.
Mr. Dermody was a mere lad of 17.
The Herald Tribune, The Journal-American and The Long Island Press were among the papers commuters read. Stereo records were introduced. Alaska became a state. Elvis joined the Army. Harvard tuition was $1,250; jeans were $3.75.
The railroad’s 701-mile layout is much the same today, but little else about the system has endured, according to David Morrison, founder of the Long Island Rail Road Historical Society. For instance, that monthly pass from Massapequa now costs $203.
When Mr. Dermody started, the tracks were punctuated by wooden towers where workers manually controlled signals and switches. The electrified rails ended at Mineola. Some street-level crossings had gate watchmen in booths. Conductors and engineers communicated with Morse-code-like buzzers and called headquarters from special boxes at stations. In the 1960’s the railroad hired women as short-skirted “mini-maids” to roam Penn Station with information for riders.
Women now account for 46 of the 408 engineers and 242 of the 1,023 conductors, said the railroad’s spokeswoman, Susan McGowan.
During Mr. Dermody’s presidency, the railroad converted three-fourths of its fleet to new M-7 cars. They average nearly 270,000 miles between breakdowns, according to the railroad. Many stations were renovated and parking was expanded.
Even more fundamental than the physical modernization has been “the whole change in the culture of the railroad to become more customer-oriented,” Mr. Dermody said.
Riding patterns — once concentrated in Nassau County and “taking people to work in the morning and home at night” — have also changed, he added. Ridership is rising in Suffolk as that county develops, and off-peak and weekend travel is up as “people go to hockey and basketball games, see shows and take the kids to the city,” he said.
The system has 11 branches, 124 stations, 1,143 cars and 730 weekday trains. The annual number of rides, about 74 million in 1958, reached 80 million last year. The budget, about $60 million in 1958, was $943 million last year.
But the work force has shrunk by about 1,000 to 6,100, as jobs have been automated. Clerks in the job that Mr. Dermody first held now sell only a fourth of the tickets. Most tickets are now purchased from electronic machines, by mail and online.
The railroad is still a frequent target of complaints but Mr. Dermody has won praise. “Under his leadership we saw tremendous improvement,” said State Senator Dean G. Skelos a Nassau County Republican who sits on the board that approves major projects for the railroad. Gerard P. Bringmann, chairman of the Long Island Rail Road Commuter’s Council, said, “I’m really sorry to see him go. Jim exceeded every expectation. He was in the trenches from the time he was a teenager.”
Working his way up gave Mr. Dermody hands-on expertise. “He’s the first president who came up from the ranks, and never in my 30 years here has there been anybody who knew the railroad like he did,” said Michael J. Canino, general chairman of the United Transportation Union, the largest of the system’s 11 unions. “Every morning he was in by 5 o’clock, and at 8 at night he was still at his desk. He’s a first-class gentleman and a first-class railroader.”
Mr. Dermody has faced big frustrations, however, notably community opposition over the route of the third track and the site of a railyard in Huntington. Railroad officials are working with local groups to revise plans for third track so that “we will have addressed probably 85 percent of the concerns, and many of the communities will be pleased,” he said.
As Mr. Dermody’s tenure ended, the railroad was also embroiled in criticism over safety when a young woman was killed after falling in the gap between the train and platform. Records showed similar falls over the years but no other fatalities.
“We’ll cooperate with everybody” seeking safeguards, Mr. Dermody said. But the problem is complicated by curves in some platforms, variations in the widths and lengths of cars and the clearance needed by express trains that rock back and forth at high speeds, he said.
To fill in for Mr. Dermody, the transportation authority named another career Long Island Rail Road executive, Raymond P. Kenny, as acting president. Mr. Canino said he hoped that Mr. Kenny got the permanent promotion, because “he’s as close to Jim Dermody as you can get.”