Photo of the Week: 5/27/2011

About a month ago, I did a Photo of the Week post where I talked about Long Island Railroad equipment. Today, after coming back from a trip to Long Island again, I am going to talk about some more LIRR equipment. While it rained most of the time I was there, the sun came out for a few hours one day, just in time for a work train full of rail to come through Mineola. With my camera ready, I ran down to the station and watched it creep through at a snail's pace, while rails were being pulled off the flat cars and dropped between the existing rails for future use. Here is the train:

The train was powered by MP15s, the last switcher-type diesel produced by EMD. Long Island Railroad used them on their diesel passenger trains before the C3 coaches and the DE30AC and DM30AC locomotives came onto the scene. They wore a dark blue and white paint scheme, still visible through the aging light blue and silver they are wearing today. After the railroad replaced the diesel fleet, most of the diesels were sold off. The old cab units, which by that point had been turned into nonpowered cab cars for push pull operation, were scrapped. The GP38s went to New York & Atlantic Railroad, which took over freight operations on Long Island. Some of the MP15s went to NYA as well, but some remained in work service on the LIRR and got a new paint scheme. Many of the coaches were scrapped, but some went to Cape Cod for tourist operations. I believe one or two found their way to museums as well.

Behind this trio of EMDs is a long string of flat cars with racks mounted on them, full of rails. The train would stop, the workers at the end would pull some rail off the train, and the train would creep ahead while the rails were being pulled out. After the rails were pulled out, the train would stop again, and the process would repeat. The rails were being placed between the existing rails, presumably to be installed later. The train moved at less than walking speed, and the brakes made a horrendous screeching sound. It was quite the show.

This photo was taken at the west end of the Mineola platform. The train was heading east on the westbound track, and all the other main line trains were routed around it on the westbound track. This was in the early afternoon, the work train was gone before the afternoon rush hour when both tracks are used for eastbound trains.