(Newsday posted the following article by Jennifer Maloney on its website on November 16.)
NEW YORK — The Long Island Rail Road has been jacking up platforms and shifting them closer to tracks, railroad officials revealed yesterday, contradicting earlier statements about their efforts to fix the dangerously wide platform gaps and the time needed to settle on solutions.
Correcting a previously released list of stations slated for track work, the LIRR yesterday said platforms – not tracks – had been moved at Deer Park, Merillon Avenue in Garden City and Mineola. The new data was announced at a regular meeting of the LIRR/LI Bus Committee.
Also announced was that at New Hyde Park, the railroad opted for yet a different gap solution: Yesterday, it began affixing wooden boards to platform edges to fill in the gap.
Since Minnesota tourist Natalie Smead was killed on Aug. 5 after falling in a gap at the Woodside station, the LIRR has been under attack from commuters about its handling of the gap issue. The strongest rebuke has come from those who have fallen into the gap and their relatives. And while the railroad cautioned against making any immediate structural changes in the aftermath of Smead’s death, it turns out that the LIRR has been moving tracks and shifting platforms since mid-August.
“I would hope that the railroad would be more communicative with everyone about what they’re trying to do because they’re trying to do the right thing,” said LIRR/LI Bus Committee member Mitchell Pally. “Their reaction [to Smead’s death] has been very strong and forward-looking, and they should get that word out every way they can.”
Railroad spokeswoman Susan McGowan said she had only recently learned that gap-related projects at some stations involved platforms, not tracks. She said the decision to move platforms rather than tracks was based on gap measurements and field inspections of stations.
McGowan declined to disclose the cost of the track work or the platform moves, but said both were being funded mainly from the operating budget for track maintenance. Some track shifting has been funded through capital funds that already had been allocated for track work, she said.
This year, the operating budget for track maintenance was $48.3 million; the proposed budget for next year is $52.5 million. The 2007 figure was proposed in July, before the death of Smead, 18, who fell through a gap at Woodside, crawled underneath a platform and was struck by a train on the other side.
Railroad officials yesterday said they expected to pay for gap-related projects with existing operating and capital funds in the 2006 and 2007 budgets but would request more funds from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board if the need arose.
The platforms that have been shifted are made up of sections called slabs. Platform slabs are akin to squares on a sidewalk, McGowan said, and can be shifted individually. Platforms made of a single piece of concrete cannot be shifted, she said.
Railroad workers lift a slab using a hand-operated jack. They roll the slab over a system of rollers, then set it in the desired position.
McGowan declined to disclose the exact distance the platform slabs had been shifted, or the gap widths before and after each platform move. She said the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigators had jurisdiction over that data.
The NTSB is currently investigating Smead’s death. In addition, the LIRR, state and other federal officials have been investigating the gap issue.
An NTSB spokesman said gap measurements do fall under NTSB jurisdiction, but he could not immediately confirm whether details on the movement of platform slabs fell in the same category.
Meanwhile, wooden edge boards – which had been in use at a few stations before Smead’s death – were installed this fall at stations in Shea Stadium, Mineola and New Hyde Park.
The wooden strips, which are tacked onto the sides of platforms, are flush with the platform surface and vary in width according to the size of the gap, according to McGowan.
Railroad officials at yesterday’s meeting also discussed a spike in reported customer gap falls since Aug. 5, the day Smead died. LIRR customers reported 73 gap falls from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, compared with 49 during the same period of 2005, or nearly 50 percent more incidents, according to a monthly LIRR report.
Of the 73 falls, 38 – or about half – occurred after Aug. 5.
“We really don’t know why,” said Jane Dietz, LIRR’s acting senior vice president for operations.
Staff writer Karla Schuster contributed to this story.
Platform fixes
The LIRR uses a number of possible solutions to close gaps at train stations. When moving the tracks is not possible, the platforms must be nudged toward the tracks. Here is what was done at the Mineola station last week.
SOLUTION #1
Platforms that are cast as one piece cannot be moved. Instead, wooden boards are mounted on the edge to bring it closer to the trains…
..Each board is custom-made to the appropriate thickness. Here, a wider gap requires a thicker piece
SOLUTION #2
Some platforms are like slabs of sidewalk pavement. About 300 feet of slabs were lifted up with a hand-operated jack, pushed over using a system of rollers, then set in position.
Rolling on
LIRR’s revised list of work to narrow the gap
SHIFTING TRACKS
Completed:
Sea Cliff, Track 1, Aug. 17
Locust Manor, Track 1, Aug. 21
Laurelton, Track 1, Aug. 23
Glen Head, Track 1, Aug. 25
Glen Cove, Track 1, Aug. 25; Track 2, Aug. 28
Roslyn, Track 1, Aug. 30
Greenvale, Track 1, Aug. 31
Shea Stadium, Track 1, Sept. 27; Track 2, Sept. 28
Locust Manor, Track 2, Oct. 5
Laurelton, Track 2, Oct. 17
Jamaica, Track 7, Oct. 19
Rosedale, Track 2, Oct. 24
Southampton, Oct. 25
Rosedale, Track 1, Oct. 26
Babylon, Track 2, Oct. 29
Hicksville, Track 3, Nov. 2
Woodside, Track 3, Nov. 4
Planned (Hoping
to complete this fall):
Jamaica, Track 2
Mineola, Track 2
Woodside, Track 2
SHIFTING PLATFORMS
Completed:
Queens Village, shifted 350 feet of platform, Sept. 9
Deer Park, Track 1, Oct. 26; Track 2, Oct. 27
Merillon Avenue, Track 2, Oct. 30
Mineola, Track 1, shifted 300 feet of platform, Nov. 10
Under way:
Merillon Avenue, Track 1, started Oct. 26
INSTALLING PLATFORM EDGE BOARDS
Completed:
Shea Stadium, Track 1, 370 feet of edge board added, Sept. 27
Mineola, Track 1, 300 feet of edge board added, Nov. 10
Under way:
New Hyde Park, Track 1, began yesterday
They siad, they did
Officials statements on the gap, and then what happened
What They Said: Railroad officials said on Sept. 29 that they were focused on educating passengers while thoroughly investigating the engineering implications of making structural changes to either the platforms or trains. “We can’t go the opposite way and have trains striking platforms,” LIRR spokeswoman Susan McGowan said.
What They Did: Railroad officials revealed yesterday that they also had moved tracks closer to the platforms at several stations beginning in August. They also revealed that they had moved platforms at four stations, one on Sept. 9.
What They Said: Railroad officials said last Thursday that track work was completed, under way or planned at the Deer Park, Merillon Avenue, Mineola and New Hyde Park stations.
What They Did: The railroad did not move tracks at those stations; it shifted platforms or added edge boards there instead.
What They Said: Last Thursday, railroad officials said they had recently shifted tracks at several stations not initially included on the list of stations slated for track work. The newly added stations included Locust Manor, Laurelton, Greenvale, Glen Head, Sea Cliff, Glen Cove and Roslyn.
What They Did: The railroad actually began track work at all of those stations in August. The work was completed at five of the stations by Aug. 31 and at the other two by Oct. 17.