(The following article by Pete Donohue, Lisa Munoz and Bill Hutchinson was posted on the New York Daily News website on February 14. Bob Evers is the BLET’s General Chairman on the Long Island Railroad.)
NEW YORK — Thousands of Long Island Rail Road riders were steamed enough to melt snow yesterday as they waited for trains that were hours late – or never showed up at all.
For nearly 19 hours, all LIRR service between Penn Station and Jamaica was down, stranding much of Long Island from 12:45 p.m. Sunday all the way until yesterday morning’s rush hour, when most service finally resumed.
It took even longer for the LIRR’s Port Washington branch to come back, finally getting back on track at 2:19 p.m.
“How are we? Frustrated,” said Robert Roganti, 57, of Lido Beach, L.I., who was waiting at the LIRR Long Beach station yesterday morning for his train to get to work in Manhattan.
As Roganti’s wait grew longer, his fuse grew shorter as LIRR workers seemed to have no information on when he might reach his job.
Alva Allen, 51, of South Ozone Park, Queens, was kicking herself for not driving to her job in Floral Park, L.I., as she waited for more than two hours for her LIRR train at the Jamaica station. She said she took a bus from her house to the subway, and the subway to Jamaica, where her commute came to a dead stop.
“I’ve been on a train, on a bus and now I’m waiting on another train,” Allen said. “And I’ve got a little cold, so that doesn’t help.”
With Metro-North and NJTransit having comparatively few problems recovering from the big storm, the LIRR’s troubles stood out.
In hindsight, a strategic decision by LIRR to continue running electric-power trains on regular weekend service Sunday instead of switching to diesel-powered trains apparently led to the long-lasting hassles.
Five of the electric-powered trains got bogged down in the Woodside and Forest Hills areas of Queens when snow and ice covered the third rail.
Unable to get power, the idle trains remained stuck for hours on the four tracks connecting Queens to Manhattan, blocking specialized track-clearing equipment, called snow brooms, from doing their job.
“They [LIRR officials] perhaps may have been a little overzealous in trying to maintain their normal service,” said Bob Evers, chairman of the Locomotive Engineers and Conductors. “You had some [electric] trains that became stuck in very strategic areas of the operation that led to the total downfall of the service.”
Gerry Bringmann, head of the Long Island Rail Road Riders Council, called the rail woes “a horror show.”
But LIRR spokesman Brian Dolan denied suggestions the railroad was caught off guard. He said service was fully restored quicker than in the blizzard of 1996.
Dolan, however, said the LIRR is looking to buy another snow broom for the future.