Long Island City Locals Short On Patience For Idle Trains
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Residents of a building in Long Island City, Queens say they are near their wits' end over the noise from train engines that idle all day in a nearby yard, and want the MTA to put the brakes on it. Borough reporter Ruschell Boone filed the following report. For some Long Island City residents, the sound of idling train engines plow through their day.
"I'm not here to observe it all day. I wouldn't want to be here five days a week," said resident Mark Goetz.
"It's really horrible. I mean, like I wake up to this noise every morning," said resident Lillian Marchena.
Marchena's apartment is directly across the street from the Long Island Rail Road rail yard. She says residents have been complaining for years about the diesel engine trains that sit idling during the day.
"It's actually gotten a little bit better from the beginning when I first moved in, but it's still a big problem," she said.
Over the last two years, the LIRR has turned off some of the engines during the day and placed some trains in other parts of the rail yard as part of a compromise, but some residents said the noise is starting to increase again.
"From 7:30 in the morning 'til 5:30 at night, Monday through Friday," said Community Board 2 Chairman Joe Conley.
It is a harsh reality for new residents moving to the once-industrial area. The rail yard has been there for more than 100 years, but residents want the diesel engines turned off during the day.
LIRR spokesperson Joe Calderone said while the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been addressing some of the community's concerns, shutting down all the trains during the day is not going to be possible.
"It can take up to two hours to get it started again. If you shut it off for a four-hour period, you need to do a brake test under federal rules," said Calderone. "Those are just a couple of the reasons we can't just shut them off and turn them back on."
Still, springtime could bring some relief to residents.
"When the temperature reaches above 50 degrees, we don't have as much reason to idle a train because we are not as worried about some of the elements," said Calderone.
Once it gets cold again, however, LIRR officials say it will be back to business as usual.