It's April and it's the spring holiday season. Of course it's starting out as a rainy holiday season and that is never fun. Of course going out doors isn't exactly fun when it rains but I'd rather have rain than snow.

In any case, I've done alot of doodling over the last couple of weeks and the doodling involves track arrangements and car floats. I still haven't gotten to the mockup of the car float aprons (probably because I've been unconsciously avoiding it) but I am going to have to takle that area soon. I do have the the current track arrangement for the 65th Street Yard as it is still used today as an interchange point by the real New York and Atlantic Railroad and the tracks still lead to the two float bridges that are still there and could be used (after some extensive rebuilding and maintenance) since they have never been used despite plans that were made in the 1980s to shift all car float operations to that location instead of at Bush Terminal which just up the line from there. The car float operations are still at Bush Terminal and since there is seldom more than one run a day between that area and Greenville Yard in New Jersey, new facilities just aren't in the works.

In any case, back in 2004, a plan was made to eliminate all car float operations and renew the line from 65th Street Yard though Brooklyn and Queens and over the Hell gate Bridge to Oak Point Yard in the South Bronx. A tunnel was to have been built a cost of several billion dollars to connect Greenville Yard and 65th Street Yard by rail. The tunnel was to have covered the 3 1/2 miles between the two yards and bring new rail traffic into a very congested area and take some of the trucks off the roads in the area. It hasn't happened yet but who knows what the future will bring.

In any case, the concept of connecting the 65th Street Yard to the Greemville yard is very viable because the problem with tricks is that they are not poluting the atmosphere but also create lots of congestion on the roads. Their cargoes would in many instances be better carried in freight cars and thus provide better service to the various Long Island customers now served only by truck but in the past have been served by rail.

So how do rail cars get to long Island now? Well they either come by car float or the go to a yard near Albany and have to wait for a train to take them back to Long Island and that can take as many as 8 days. So restablishing either car float services or building the rail tunnel can not only cut days from the delivery of product to the customer but aslo reduce traffic congestion.

But in NYC we have a third problem. Rail operations are hidden from the public and many ways. Some of this makes sense since we don't to have drivers distracted from the road by watching trains but most of it is in response to an idea that trains are old hat, smelly and dirty things. Yet trains do make it possible for us NYC residents to get fruits and bvegetables from other parts of the country while they are still relatively ripe and edible. Many of these woud be non-existent with trains to deliver them but no one talks about that.

Why? Because it isn't fashionable. And just like kids today think that chicken is something you buy at the local supermarket and have nop concept of what chickens actually look or sounded like, they have the same impression of trains.

If you want to keep the hobby alive for new generations, you've got to let the kids know exactly how important trains are in the modern world.

Irv