[ARC5] Locomotives

[Geoff]

Nope, your not too old Gordon, but I was only 8-9 at the time so dont 
remember it happening from Brooklyn but later on when living in Valley 
Stream it was regularly mentioned in the press during "Bash the LIRR" days. 
I remember one spread in the Long Island Daily Press (I was a paperboy for 4 
years making radio parts money) that did a photo spread of all their 
accidents after the latest one happened.

It would be nice to have those photos on line to view when needed.

I drove stock cars at Freeport 57-61, the latter years intermittently when 
on leave from the USN, on a weekend pass when in the area, or when the ship 
went into the Hoboken Navy Yard for an 8 month overhaul....raced the whole 
season then. Also did double duty at WGBB right down the street as a 5 hour 
part time engineer 2 nights a week and ran back and forth between heats and 
then closed it down. Heck, it paid for gas money and tires for the car. I 
was just the driver and on a bad night I only got one heat, sometimes I was 
lucky and advanced to the final one.

A good friend lives in Freeport on Guy Lombardo Av (formerly S Grove) 5 
blocks from the bay and got hit bad by Sandy, lost almost all his radio gear 
in the basement, quite a bit of WW2 stuff included including a complete NEW 
TCS-12 with everything included, AC and dyno PS, cables, manuals, etc.  His 
mothers place over on Atlantic toward Baldwin got 4.5' on the first floor. 
FEMA wants to give her a fraction of its worth. People Ive known for over 60 
years in Rocky Point, Island Park, and Oceanside lost everything but no 
injuries.

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     Remember - or am I too old - when the two trains crashed in Rockville 
Centre? Must have been around 1949 when they were elevating the rails. 
Temporarily the LIRR used a "gauntlet track" with one rail in the middle of 
the other pair. Signals, etc. should have kept the opposing trains apart, 
but something failed and two trains collided there, slicing the lead cars in 
half, rolling up the center halves like opened sardine cans. Killed 24 as I 
remember. I was a reporter/photographer for the Nassau Daily Review Star and 
I still have two prints I took that night.  If anyone wants to see them I 
suppose I could put them on-line, though I do not know if this site accepts 
photos. Or contact me off-line at gewhite at crosslink.net

I lived in Freeport and both steam and electric trains went past. The tracks 
were at grade in Freeport and at least once a year a driver would get hit 
trying to beat a train at a crossing.

 - Gordon White



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