Rail freight transportation in New York City and Long Island

From the start of railroading in America through the first half of the 20th century, New York City and Long Island were major areas for rail freight transportation. However, their relative isolation from the mainland United States has always posed problems for rail traffic. Numerous factors over the late 20th century have caused further declines in freight rail traffic. Efforts to reverse this trend are ongoing, but have been met with limited success.

The New York and Atlantic Railway currently operates all rail freight on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s rights-of-way on Long Island. CSX Transportation also operates within New York City, as do several shortline railroads including a car float across the harbor.

History

Early days

In part because of its easily accessible harbor and its canal connections to the interior, New York City and its surrounding area early on became the largest regional economy in North America. As railroads developed in the 19th century, serving New York City market was vital, but problematic. The Hudson River, a mile-wide (1.6 km) estuary near the city, a section also called the North River, presents a formidable barrier to rail transportation. As a result, most railroads terminated their routes at docks on the New Jersey shore (see 1900 map).^[1] Ferries brought rail passengers to and from the city, while car float barges carried freight cars across the Hudson—on the order of one million carloads of freight per year.^[2]

One exception was a New York Central Railroad line on the east bank of the Hudson that extended into Manhattan for freight service. The West Side Line, as it was called, brought freight cars to docks, warehouses and industries along Manhattan's west shore. Its southern portion included the High Line, a grade-separated viaduct that replaced the street-level railroad tracks on what was then known as "Death Avenue".

In the early 20th century, the

The peak of rail freight came during

Industry developed highly efficient logistics based on strategically located distribution centers, often serving an entire metropolitan area with a single center. Goods in long distance containers, whether shipped by rail or sea, typically must be unpacked at a distribution center outside the city before being sent to an end destination, such as a retail store.^[2]

Heavy industry migrated out of the city. The Navy Yard closed in 1966. The

Starting in the late 20th century, government officials have sought to increase the amount of freight to New York City and Long island that arrives by rail. To this end, several private and public sector initiatives have been undertaken:

• Construction of the
  Hunts Point Market in 1962, with extensive rail facilities connected to the Oak Point Yard
• The State of New York's $375 million "Full Freight Access Program" to allow cars with higher, TOFC clearance (but not double-stack) to reach Queens and Long Island, including construction of the
  Harlem River Intermodal Yard in the Bronx. The link opened in 1998.^[2] The Harlem River Intermodal Yard was intended to handle intermodal containers but none were ever lifted there.^[2]
  ^: 21 Instead, it is being used for loading containerized trash onto trains for remote disposal.
• The restoration in 2006 of freight rail service to Staten Island via the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge at a cost of $72 million.
• The ExpressRail System, a $600 million investment in improved intermodal rail facilities at the container terminals on the west side of the Upper New York Bay and Newark Bay in New Jersey, and on Staten Island.^[5] The last yard of the project, next to Greenville yard, opened on January 7, 2019.^[6]
• The grant of a concession in 1997 to a private short haul railroad, the New York and Atlantic Railway, to handle all rail freight on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s rights-of-way.
• The rebuilding of the
  Bush Terminal at 50th Street, instead. The 65th Street Yard was restored by the Port Authority for use by New York and New Jersey Rail, which it acquired in 2008.^[8][9]
• The use of $4.8 million of
  American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to rehabilitate an NY&A rail spur at Enterprise Park at Calverton (EPCAL), an industrial park located at Calverton, Long Island
  .
• The acquisition of the New York and New Jersey Rail cross harbor car float operations by the Port Authority in 2008 for $16 million. The Port Authority then acquired the New Jersey Greenville Yard in 2010 and awarded a contract for its reconstruction as a rail to barge facility in 2011. The authority's board authorized $118.1 million for the overall project.[10] The State of New Jersey has budgeted $89 million in its 2012 budget to bring the Greenville Yard and Lift Bridge to a State-of-Good-Repair.^[11]
• The opening, in September 2011, of Brookhaven Rail Terminal (BRT), a privately financed $40 million, 28-acre transload facility. It is projected to take 40,000 trucks off Long Island roads and transfer 1 million tons of freight a year by 2016.^[12] The terminal includes three tracks for construction material, such as lumber, asphalt and concrete, and six tracks for merchandise, such as flour and biodiesel.^[13] Plans to expand the yard have generated community opposition.^[14]
• Rehabilitation and reactivation of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT) along the Bay Ridge Channel in Sunset Park in late 2012. The terminal includes a 77-acre roll on/roll off automobile import and processing facility at the 39th Street pier, and an 11-acre, recycling facility for the city's plastic, metal and glass waste stream at the 30th Street pier. Both facilities are served by newly built rail connections to the 65th Street yard.^[15]
• Construction in 2014 of a transload facility for vegetable oil, food products and construction material at NYA's Wheel Spur Yard along Newtown Creek near Long Island City. NYA expects the facility to support replacement of the nearby Kosciuszko Bridge. The NYA also received permission from the LIRR, which owns most of the tracks on which NYA operates, to handle cars weighing up to 286,000 pounds (130 t), the top load limit for railroads in the eastern U.S. The previous LIRR limit was 263,000 pounds (119 t).^[16]
• New York City's 2006 municipal solid waste plan. Under the plan, most of the city's non-recyclable solid waste is placed in intermodal containers and transported by rail to disposal sites. Some of the containers are loaded onto rail cars in the city, while others are first moved across New York Harbor by barge to transfer stations in Staten Island and New Jersey.^[4]

Status

Routes

As of late 2013, most rail freight to New York City moves over lines on the west side of the Hudson and is unloaded in New Jersey, where it is brought by truck to the city. Railroad freight cars that enter the City or Long Island do so via the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Staten Island.^[17]

The Bronx

The main mainland rail connection to New York City and Long Island from the national rail network is via tracks on the east bank of the Hudson.

The sole remaining car float operation in the area, New York New Jersey Rail, carries railroad cars from the Greenville Yard in Jersey City to Brooklyn, where cars either go to local customers or are picked up by the New York and Atlantic and moved over the Bay Ridge Branch to Fresh Pond Junction.^[17] In 2004, when it was still run by a public company, New York Regional Rail, it carried 3400 carloads (a carload being one loaded rail car), charging between $250 and $1,500 per carload, and estimated that it needed to handle in excess of 4200 carloads per year to be profitable.^[21] The operation, now run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, began using the 65th Street Yard in Brooklyn in July 2012 and hopes to increase annual traffic from 1600 carloads to 23,000 by 2017.^[19][22] On September 17, 2014, the Port Authority announced that it was funding a major redevelopment of the Greenville Yard, to include a new container terminal, two new rail to barge transfer bridges, two new car float barges, each with 18 rail car capacity, and three new KLW SE10B ultra low emission locomotives.^[23] In November 2017, the first of the new barges was delivered.^[24] The second was delivered in December 2018.

Staten Island

Measured by ton-miles, about 40% of freight in the United States is moved by rail.[26] However there are significant regional variations. In the west, 65% of freight moves by rail, while in the north-east only 19% moves by rail.^[2]p. 14 Much of U.S. railroad freight consists of heavy commodities that are not significant in the New York economy, for example coal is 44% of total national rail tonnage. Intermodal tonnage is only about 8.9%.^[27] In addition to highway and rail, cargo arrives in New York City by air, barge and, of course, ship, the port being the largest on the East Coast of North America. A major source of freight leaving the City is trash. The closing of the Fresh Kills Landfill in 2001 forced the city to transport its waste material to distant sites. New York City's Solid Waste Management Plan^[28] calls for each borough to ship its own trash, the Bronx and Staten Island using rail directly and the rest of the city using barge to rail.

The Panama Canal expansion project, which opened in 2016, was expected to bring more container traffic from Asia directly to the Port of New York, instead of coming via the railroad "Land bridge" from U.S. West Coast ports. The Port Authority has spent over $1 billion to raise the deck of the Bayonne Bridge to allow the larger New Panamax ships that now use the expanded canal to reach its existing container terminals in New Jersey, and has spent $235 million to buy a 130 acres (53 ha) portion of the former Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne, which is not obstructed by the Bayonne Bridge.

Proposals to increase freight rail use

A number of proposals have been put forward to increase the share of rail freight movement within the City and Long Island:

• Construction of an intermodal rail-to-truck yard at a 100-acre (40 ha) site in the West Maspeth section of Queens. The location is near the intersection of Interstate 278 and Interstate 495. The project has received intense opposition for neighbors concerned about increased truck traffic on local streets that lead to the highway interchange. A City University of New York (CUNY) study pointed out that "no current demand for a containerized truck-rail facility has yet been demonstrated" in part because intermodal containers generally must be unloaded at major distribution centers, few of which are located on Long Island.^[2]: 22 The study also noted that standard double stack rail equipment is too wide to run on tracks where third rail is used, as it is on much of the Long Island Rail Road's passenger routes.
• Construction of a
  Pilgrim State Hospital. This project has also been stymied by local opposition, though Governor Paterson vetoed a 2008 bill that would have killed the project by incorporating the site into a nearby state park. The same CUNY study, commissioned by the state after the veto, concluded that "there is an immediate demand for bulk service"—rail-shipped commodities such as building materials, plastics, paper, and food—that was unmet due to a lack of transloading facilities on Long Island. It identified 12 additional candidate sites besides Pilgrim State, including the Brookhaven Rail Terminal that has since opened.^[2]
  ^{: 3, 5, 8, 16}
• Rebuilding parts of the Hunts Point Cooperative Market in the Bronx, already a major rail freight destination, to facilitate greater rail use. The market received a $10 million grant in 2012 for this purpose.^[29]
• Construction of a double-stack-ready
  Cross Harbor Rail Tunnel from Greenville, New Jersey to Brooklyn, at a cost estimated in 2004 at between $4.8 and $7.4 billion, depending on whether one or two tracks are provided.^[30] The Port Authority is preparing a new environmental impact statement for the project,^[30] which has come under criticism because of its high cost (all the US freight railroads combined spent $10.7 billion on capital expenditures in 2010^[31]
  ), modest projected impact on overall truck traffic (around a 5% reduction) and potential impact on local communities, such as West Maspeth.
• Building a new container port on Brooklyn's Sunset Park waterfront with a rail link to the proposed tunnel. Brooklyn currently has a container operation at Red Hook, but it has no rail connection. (Sea access to Brooklyn is not obstructed by the Bayonne Bridge.)

A proposal would use right-of-way that now carries freight, including the Bay Ridge Branch, to build a new

In July 2018, the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced a $100 million plan called Freight NYC to improve the flow of freight into and out of New York City.^[34][35] The plan's rail component includes:

• Constructing up to four new transload facilities in Brooklyn and Queens^[34][35]
• Constructing more passing sidings^[34][35]
• Supporting the Port Authority's Cross Harbor Freight Program (CHFP)^[35]
• Supporting the Metropolitan Rail Freight Council (MRFC) Action Plan aimed at increasing rail freight service to locations east of the Hudson^[35]

The Freight NYC plan also includes a marine component that would build more barge terminals and an effort to support greener trucking.

Impact of electronic commerce

The rise of

Active freight rail yards in New York City and Long Island

Active freight rail yards in New York City and Long Island include:^[17]

• 65th Street Yard – Brooklyn shore, reopened in 2012 after being refurbished for cross harbor car float barge, which connects to Greenville Yard in New Jersey.
• Arlington Yard – Staten Island, small yard servicing the island
• Brookhaven Rail Terminal – facility for bulk commodities, in eastern Long Island
• Harlem River Intermodal Yard
  – the Bronx, intended for intermodal container traffic, used for trash containers instead
• Hunts Point Terminal Market
  – the Bronx, largest food distribution center in New York
• Industry City – Brooklyn shore, used for car float operations
• Fresh Pond Junction – Queens, main freight yard on Long Island, hub of NY&A
• New York Container Terminal
  – Staten Island, includes an intermodal rail yard
• Oak Point Yard – Bronx, largest freight yard in the City, owned by CSX
• Pine Aire Yard – Farmingdale, owned by NY&A and used to serve industries along the LIRR Main Line
• Wheel Spur Yard – Queens, reopened NY&A transload facility in Long Island City used for vegetable oil, food products and construction material.^[37]

The

• New York Connecting Railroad
• Rail transportation in the United States
• Timeline of Jersey City area railroads
• Transportation in New York City
• Vision 2020: New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan

References

Further reading

• Cambridge Systematics, Inc. (June 2013). NYMTC Regional Freight Plan Update 2015-2040 Interim Plan (PDF) (Report). New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 14, 2014.
• HDR Engineering (March 2013). Freight Rail Capacity and needs to Year 2040 (PDF) (Report). North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority.
• Miller, Benjamin (November 2005). "An Evaluation of New York's Full Freight Access Program and Harlem River Intermodal Rail Yard Project" (PDF). CUNY. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

External links

• Flickr New York Rail Marine group, with photos of marine and allied shore rail freight operations
• Industrial & Offline Terminal Railroads of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Bronx & Manhattan at the Wayback Machine (archived January 25, 2020)