Little Neck Quiet Zone

I just saw on NBC News where the good people of the Little Neck area on the P.W. Branch are displeased with the increased sounding of horns at their crossing as required by the new FRA rules. And they are trying to get the area designated as a "quiet zone" which will require some improvements at the grade crossing. This as their news footage shows people walking around the lowered crossing gates. So if they get their wish, we'll see how long it takes 'til the first pedestrian gets killed there, and then watch how the LIRR is found at fault and has to ante up and pay the victims. (Like Clem has told us in the past)

And on that subject, did you see in Saturday Mar.25th's Daily News that a tresspasser who was killed by a NYC Subway train was awarded 1.4 million in damages. I guess Clem knows from where he speaks.

It should not be done anywhere. Case closed, does the LIRR legal dept have any leg to stand on to fight this?

The only way to stop the horns would be a grade separation project, am I correct? These NIMBYs would fight the construction project. If you ended Port Wash service altogether, they would fight the removal. If there were more trains added, they would fight the volume keeping the gates down too often... not just here, but all of suburbia... complain about everything. Let 'em complain, soon the next school budget vote will come up, and they will have a new crusade to fight.

It is quite doubtful that any local organization will pay the costs required to secure a Quiet Zone for Little Neck.

Even if they did, it's unlikely that they would be successful.

And, yes, the Railroad would certainly oppose this. That is a very dangerous crossing with more police summonses issued to violators than at any other crossing.

Clem

Back when I worked at the Nassau County sign shop one summer, the supervisor worked by the "bigger sign" theory. Whenever there was an accident caused by a condition warned by a sign, he would double the size of the sign. He actually got up to a 4' x 8' sign on one 90 degree turn in some road close to the north shore.

Maybe they should pursue that theory for that crossing?

Little neck is incredibly dangerous. Every time I work a westbound rush hour train there it is amazing how many people run around the gates, then into the grocery store on the corner, then they come running out with their newspapers and coffee in hand and expect the train to wait for them. While this is going on, there is usually an eastbound equipment train going by that is not stopping. The only reason more people have not been hit is the lower speeds there as compared with the mainline. As clem has said, the railroad is aware of the problem since many conductors and engineers have turned it in. The police are there regularly handing out summonses to the violators

Lirr Conductor Ditto

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have almost hit some one at this crossing. I was heading westbound pulling out of the station and a guy ran right under the gates infront of me trying to catch my train.

I had to slam on the brakes not to hit him. Needless to say I was furious I gave him an earful and he didnt care he only cared about catching the train.

So i left him there to ponder his actions.

A quiet zone in Little neck is an impending disaster.

Maybe the LIRR should contact NBC News and see if they will give equal reporting coverage to the railroad's viewpoint about this particular crossing re: everything that's been said here. Particularly the stats re: number of tickets issued to errrant pedestrians. This would tend to prove the case why sounding of horns is necessary. Hopefully the media will give equal time to this side of the story.............

That's a very good idea, but in this political inferno call Long Island. I doubt it will happen, and if it does, It will not get too far, but rather make it woese.

wait for the next school budgit or molester to move next to their school. You will see how fast they will forget about the train horns.

LirrConductor wrote:Little neck is incredibly dangerous. Every time I work a westbound rush hour train there it is amazing how many people run around the gates,

My bush hog has an EXTREMELY GRAPHIC pictograph of a person whose corpse is wrapped around the PTO shaft. Maybe the crossing gates need a sign depicting a person cut in half by a train? Gruesome? Sure. Scary? I hope so! Not for kids? Neither is crossing the tracks against the gate.

I know this statement has been beaten like a dead horse....but, I think it's a little rediculous how the residents complain about how the train is making noise in their neighborhood disrupting their lives. Well, it's not like the railroad was just built recently. It's been there for longer than any of those residents have been there. If you knowingly move to a place where there's a railroad (or an airport, or a highway, or anything that makes noise or an other disturbance) tough schmitt! You knew about it when you moved there, guess what...you have to deal with it! If you don't like the railroad noise, move your ass out to a different town that doesn't have the railroad running through it!

Wouldn't it be awesome if the railroad could actually say that in a statement to the public? hehe.

I don't even get how the hourly, or half hourly train could really be that disruptive. I live right under the flight approach to the city airports. Planes fly low over me, sometimes more than 20 passing over in an hour. It's not disruptive. They just want to cry and complain about something. How annoying and petty!

Some of these people are well educated and have big political connections and a green wallet. They can care less about what's said or done unless it's what they demand.

Sadly if the RR even had the right to tell them to move their asses out, they would combat back and say who give the LIRR the right to say that and find a way to say it's not pilitically correct and what not.

Where I live I can hear and some time feel the rumble of the trains comeing by quite often. I may be a buff, but it does get annoying some times, but liveing in the same area for many years, I became "acustomed" to the noice of a train, and was able to use it as a bennifit then a stress causing thing.
In the late nights of slime train season, I would open my window to listen to the silme train while I go to sleep, not only because I enjoy the noise of a train, rather it is some what soothing hearing the horns and engine rumble from a few blocks away.

The first form of action I suggust is some kind of psych treatment for these people. They obviously have a pshych issue if they think rounding lowered gates thinking the trains can stop on a dime and go back to pick it up.
As a suggustion from an outsider, I strongly suggust that when a house in close proximity to the LIRR ROW (Abandond or not) is for sale, the LIRR shall get involved and make it WELL KNOWN that they are there and they WILL NOT leave or stop they way of operation to satisify these new neighboors.) That's just an idea from the out side.

I agree with Joe %100.

What it all boils down to is this.

Trains need horns as a safety device.

The likely hood of elevating the entire LIRR free of ROW's isn't going to happen in our life times.

If people wish to disobey crossings and we see and hear about people getting killed on the tracks for not obeying the law then it should be no mystery as to why something like this happened.

It's common sense. Another beat-to-death topic. I don't know why town officals and politions are so oblivious to this.

Please don't get me wrong, the follow may offend some but it is to prove something not to be offencive, it's in "how it is" form.

when ever I here of this "we need a quite zone" garbage. 9/10 times it's in some stuck up white trash neighboor hood. mind you i'm white my self, but this is rediculas, why do you rarly hear of black or spanish neighboor hoods yelling and screaming about the train horns. it's these stuck up hisidics in cederhurst and and the stuck up's on the north shore thinking that they know everyone in politics and they can run the gov't and shut down the LIRR by writing out a check.

The truth comes down to this, if these peices of white trash cannot learn to live with the RR in their neighboor hood, then pick all your junk up and sell out, go up state or to some boon dox where thre is no trains or cars for a mile.

Maybe the seclusion will teach them a LESSON.

only a suggustion, when any of these homes goe for sale, the LIRR should "buy" then sell them to new owners under an contract that if they join the band wagon about the quite zones then they will be avicted.

solve that problem.

I'm sorry if I offended any one, but it's the truth in plain sight. I don't know how else to put it.

Long Island 7285 wrote:Please don't get me wrong, the follow may offend some but it is to prove something not to be offencive, it's in "how it is" form.

There's a perfectlly reasonable way for them to get a Quiet Zone: indemniify the railroad against any claims resulting from accidents which might have been avoided had the train been blowing its horn. If a gate fails to close -- railroad's fault. If someone drives around the gate -- their fault, but if they sue the railroad, the homeowners pay. If someone ignores the lights and crosses on foot -- their fault, but if they sue the railroad, the homeowners pay.

Never tell someone "you can't have this". Instead, say "It will cost you $$,$$$,$$$ to have this." It's the American way.