Oyster Bay branch out today? 8/13

Saw some LI Buses signed up as LIRR service and pretty packed going through Greenvale, and again at Roslyn. This was around 3pm in the afternoon. I don't recall hearing about any construction on the OB this weekend, perhaps there was another track condition that required a closure?
At least they didn't use school buses, but I did see one INDEPENDENT cheese bus in front of the Roslyn station.

A downed tree that required LIPA forces to remove closed the branch for somewhere near twelve hours...

Clemuel

Clemuel wrote:A downed tree that required LIPA forces to remove closed the branch for somewhere near twelve hours...

Clemuel

Why did it take so long?

I just heard on the news there was a weak tornado that hit along with the storms last night in Glen Cove. There was considerable damage to trees in the area, which probably explains the LIRR outage.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE UPTON NY
730 PM EDT SAT AUG 13 2005

...A WEAK F1 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN IN GLEN COVE IN NASSAU COUNTY LATE
FRIDAY NIGHT AUGUST 12 2005...

NWS UPTON/NYC CONDUCTED A STORM SURVEY THIS AFTERNOON IN CONJUNCTION
WITH EMERGENCY MANAGERS FROM NASSAU COUNTY AND GLEN COVE. AN F1
TORNADO WAS CONFIRMED IN THE GLEN COVE AREA.

THE TORNADO FORMED IN A THUNDERSTORM THAT HAD FORMED ON THE WESTERN
END OF AN OUTFLOW BOUNDARY OF A THUNDERSTORM COMPLEX THAT HAD MOVED
SOUTHEAST ACROSS LONG ISLAND SOUND. IT WAS A SHORT LIVED TORNADO
THAT FOR THE MOST PART STAYED ABOUT 20 TO 25 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND
AS IT MOVED NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST OVER THE NORTHERN TO CENTRAL
SECTIONS OF GLEN COVE. HOWEVER IT CAUSED CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE TO
MANY OF THE LARGE TREES IN THE AREA. MANY LARGE TREES IN THE
NEIGHBORHOOD TO THE SOUTH OF THE WELWYN PRESERVE CAME DOWN AND DID
CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE TO HOMES AND PROPERTY. DAMAGE WAS WIDESPREAD
FROM HERE AND INCLUDED TREE AND POWERLINE DAMAGE SCATTERED
THROUGHOUT THIS REGION AND TO THE SOUTHEAST AS FAR AS THE NORTH
SHORE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL.

Where LIPA is involved, it always takes a long time. According to their foremen, since NY State took over LILCO, they have deeply cut overtime and have hired scab companies to do much contract work. When they get an emergency, the workers sometimes take full advantage of the opportunity to make the overtime to which they feel entitled.

In all fairness, there is lots involved in safely handling high tension wiring. Forces from both LIPA and the LIRR (they both have wires on the poles) must respond with the proper equipment. The Railroad's high tension department generally only works business hours and most of their supervisors are not qualified to do the work. They have to call people from home who often, because of overtime cuts, do not wish to respond. Once the forces are amassed, power has the be de-energized, often manually down the route. This can take several hours.

Then both sides of the line have to be grounded, usualy with wires clamped between the overhead wires using a bucket truck that needs to get access or by climbing the poles and hoisting the wires up with a boom.

Then LIPA has to secure their tree people who are contract workers, often from outside the state.

Only then can the actual work begin.

You can see how this proceedure can go on for hours if not days.

Clem

If I'm not mistaken LIPA has high tension wires (subtransmission) running from Glen Head out to Oyster Bay along the railroad.
It still suprises me they put such wires on wooden poles instead of stronger fiberglass.
LIPA is alot less reliable than LILCO. LIPA uses contractors alot. If the railroad can't get them to move fast on downed wires, then the regular consumer must really be getting screwed.
I assume signal power was knocked out too so the railroad cannot operate. Unless they give train orders?
The blackout was 2 years ago from today and I wonder what LIRR did with the diesel lines when it happened. How would a diesel know about a power loss (except for signal outages)? Also couldn't LIRR run diesel w/o power in the area, as long as train orders are given (ala Patchogue) and gates are manned?

Signals and signal power were fine. In this case, there was a huge tree fouling the tracks which was hung up in LIPA's lines.

The LIRR as well as most utilities have so many different ways of feeding power to points that one disruption of a line usually doesn't present a problem once it's found and isolated. Often this is done automatically.

Normally railroad forces would cut the tree, but since LIPA was involved, we had to wait and wait and wait for them.

Clem