(The following story by Jennifer Maloney appeared on the Newsday website on April 5.)
NEW YORK — The Long Island Rail Road is shrinking gaps at most of its end-of-the-line stations to 5 inches – 2 inches less than the railroad industry’s minimum gap standard.
Scattered from Brooklyn to Montauk, the stations have a total of 30 platforms – 10 of which are on the railroad’s top-priority list because they have gaps wider than 10 inches.
Industry standards created to allow for safe passage of freight trains correspond to a 7-inch minimum gap on the LIRR’s straight platforms, though until recently the railroad has maintained an even larger minimum of 8 inches. The LIRR now is reviewing its own standard.
Railroad officials say they can reduce gaps at many terminus stations without risking collisions between trains and platforms for two reasons: There is no freight traffic along these platforms and passenger trains move past them at less than 15 miles per hour.
LIRR crews are narrowing the gaps by permanently tacking wooden boards to platform edges, said LIRR spokesman Sam Zambuto. Gaps on straight platforms will be reduced to 5 inches; those on curved inches will be slightly wider, depending on the sharpness of the curve.
So far, six platforms at Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and one at Port Jefferson have been modified. Those stations originally had gaps as wide as 15.5 inches and 14.5 inches, respectively.
Three particularly wide platform gaps at Port Washington and Long Beach will also be narrowed to 5 inches. Other terminals slated for work include Long Island City, Far Rockaway and Greenport.
The railroad began addressing dangerously wide gaps after the August death of a Minnesota teenager, and Newsday reports of gaps as wide as 15 inches at some LIRR stations.
In a five-month investigation published in January, Newsday found that the LIRR – which has had about 900 gap incidents during the past 11 years – had known for three decades that gaps posed a hazard to riders.
The railroad does not know when it will complete all the end-of-the-line station adjustments, and officials said they could not estimate how much the work will cost. In February, railroad officials estimated that gap work throughout the system would cost at least $13 million.
Terminal fixes
The Long Island Rail Road is planning to shrink platform gaps at these 11 terminal stations, including a total of 10 priority platforms, where gaps measure more than 10 inches.