FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On the waterfront,

trains take stage

Article taken from The Star-Ledger - July 8, 2007

Researched By: Eric Townes

    Longshoremen operate all sorts of unusual and imposing machines. From gantry cranes that rise 150 feet above the docks to straddle carriers that look like the Imperial Walkers in "The Empire Strikes Strikes Back," They figured they'd done it all along the waterfront.  At least until recently, when four dock workers at New York Container Terminal in Staten Island began getting final instructions on how to run freight trains. That's something no other longshoreman on the East Coast has done, according to company officials.

At other shipping terminals, engineers and conductors working for freight railroads run the trains. But Jim Divine, president of the Staten Island terminal, decided to have his longshoremen operate the trains for the half-mile trip from his facility to the railroad yard so he could maintain more control over the operation. 

(Foreman Joseph Lapore sits at the controls of a locomotive at the New York Container Terminal)

Devine hired two freight rail veterans - conductor Frank Rose of Bayonne and engineer Tony Merola of Edison - to train his longshoremen and oversee the operation. Longshoremen weren't exactly fighting to get picked for the train work, especially not those with seniority and the six-figure paychecks that come with working 70 to 80 hours some weeks. The train operators are regulated by the Federal Railroad Administration, which limits them to 12 hours per day, including lunch.  The rail crew are not sure how much - if and - paid downtime they will get.

(Joseph Marchese, a longshoreman, flat switches a train as he and his co-workers learn to operate freight trains)

At the end of June, The Staten Island Terminal began its freight rail operation in conjunction with CSX International, a freight railroad. After the longshoremen drop off the rail cars at Arlington yard in Staten Island, CSX crews will take them to Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, Detroit and Chicago.