Free Republic

An LIRR rider was slashed in the face on a train in Queens on Monday in a horrifying, caught-on-video attack — days after an armed straphanger launched violence that ended with himself shot in the head. Monday’s crime occurred when a 27-year-old man tried to board a Long Island Rail Road train at the Locust Manor station around 3:50 p.m. and a 32-year-old male suspect was blocking the entrance, a witness told ABC. The victim asked the guy to move and was able to eventually board the train. But he was soon approached by the suspect, who asked him if...

An LIRR rider was slashed in the face on a train in Queens on Monday in a horrifying, caught-on-video attack — days after an armed straphanger launched violence that ended with himself shot in the head. Monday’s crime occurred when a 27-year-old man tried to board a Long Island Rail Road train at the Locust Manor station around 3:50 p.m. and a 32-year-old male suspect was blocking the entrance, a witness told ABC. The victim asked the guy to move and was able to eventually board the train. But he was soon approached by the suspect, who asked him if...

Despite the troubling and ever-increasing number of COVID-19 cases in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams is urging corporations and financial institutions to end their reliance on telecommuting and bring their employees back to work. He says the city’s economic health depends on it,

A Long Island Rail Road worker who raked in more than $280,000 in pay last year — more than half from overtime — was busted hanging out at home while on the clock, according to a report obtained by The Post. But he was allowed to retire before he could be punished — and collect his full pension on the public dime. Raymond Murphy, a foreman with the LIRR’s Buildings and Bridges department who’d been at the agency since 1996, was caught by the MTA’s Inspector General at or near his home on 10 occasions when he was on duty...

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have subpoenaed pay records for a recently retired Long Island Rail Road official who has emerged as the MTA reigning overtime king — as well as more than a dozen other workers at the LIRR and New York City Transit, according to a new report. Thomas Caputo, who retired recently as the LIRR’s chief measurement operator, raked in $344,147 in overtime for 2018 by logging 3,864 extra hours — bringing his total take to $461,646, according to data from the Empire Center. The watchdog group also found that one LIRR track worker, Marco Pazmino, more than...

LONG ISLAND, New York (WABC) -- Friday marks the 25-year anniversary of a deadly shooting on a Long Island Rail Road train. A man from Brooklyn named Colin Ferguson opened fire inside the commuter train to Hicksville on December 7, 1993. Six passengers were killed and 19 others were hurt. Ferguson is serving a 315-year prison sentence. Survivors of the deadly shooting are still comforting each other a quarter of a century later to talk about the day the gunfire rang out and how their lives have changed.

It's rare for a president to pull funding from a sweetheart transportation project. But on the final Friday of 2017, the Trump administration announced that it was backing away from an Obama-era plan to lavish billions in federal aid on the Hudson Tunnel project. Billed as "the nation's most urgent major infrastructure project" by its proponents, the venture envisions a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River along with repairs to an existing rail tunnel damaged by Hurricane Sandy. All of this would mostly serve to increase rail transit service within the New York City metro area. Given the huge...

Truckers entering New York City by bridges and tunnels operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) will receive a 50 percent discount on tolls during overnight hours this summer. From July 10 and Sept. 1, trucks will receive the discount between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. at the Henry Hudson Bridge, Whitestone Bridge, Throgs Neck Bridge, RFK Triborough Bridge, Queens Midtown Tunnel, Hugh L. Carey Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge and Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge. The move is part of an effort to alleviate “the near-term summer crisis,” MTA said in...

The train derailed at the busy Atlantic Terminal at rush hour; all of the injuries were considered minor A Long Island Rail Road train derailed at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn at the height of Wednesday's morning rush, injuring more than 100 people and riddling the track area with shattered glass and debris.

Police are investigating after a man reportedly committed suicide by jumping in front of a Long Island Rail Road train after brutally beheading a woman on Long Island Tuesday. A woman in her 60s was found dead on Secatogue Avenue in Faramingdale, near the LIRR station, officials said. Witnesses say she was the victim of the beheading. They told PIX11 News they originally believed it was a Halloween prank.

NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) - Credit card reading devices and tiny hidden cameras attached to ticket vending machines were discovered at the Baldwin train station during a routine inspection last week, said the Long Island Rail Road. MTA police are investigating and have reportedly identified a suspect.

The board of mediators appointed by President Barack Obama to help resolve a 3½-year contract dispute between the Long Island Rail Road and most of its unions rejected the LIRR’s claim that it can’t afford to give workers raises. […] The presidential board recommended annual raises for workers averaging 2.83 percent over six years, and increased health care contributions for all workers. It did not call for any changes in LIRR pension plans or to any work rules. […] The MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) would agree to raises, but only if they were funded by other concessions. That includes the...

A New York grand jury has indicted 15 Long Island Rail Road workers and two others accusing them of participating in the theft of copper wiring. The suspects surrendered Friday and said nothing as they turned themselves in to face charges, 1010 WINS’ Mona Rivera reported. Eight of the defendants pleaded not guilty on Friday morning. The remainder will be arraigned later in the day. … Some of the workers accused in the scheme are accused of ripping up old copper wire as it was being replaced in Jamaica, West Islip and Babylon yards and instead of handing it over...

Employees of the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) have defrauded that organization of over $1 billion over the last seven years. In as many as 500 cases, LIRR employees falsely claimed disability benefits to supplement their pensions, employing a sophisticated scheme involving special “facilitators” and doctors operating “disability mills.” Eleven defendants have been named so far, including a former president of the railroad union; each has been charged with conspiracy to commit health-care fraud and mail fraud. There were three doctors who participated in this scheme, and in return they received cash payments between $800 and $1,200 — along with millions...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Officials say the Long Island Rail Road is going to be cleaner and greener, thanks to an influx of federal economic stimulus money. Gov. David Paterson announced Saturday that $25.5 million in stimulus money will finance a new, environmentally friendly train wash for the commuter railroad's electric fleet. The facility will be built in Babylon, replacing an old train wash that was demolished. Another facility in Ronkonkoma also washes electric trains, which make up a large part of the LIRR's fleet. The Babylon train wash will recycle some of its water and get some of its...

A Long Island man confessed to feeding Al Qaeda information about New York's subways and LIRR trains, triggering last year's Thanksgiving Eve terror alert, the feds say. Bryant Neal Vinas, 26, the son of South American immigrants and a convert to Islam, was captured in November in Pakistan after he joined in a rocket attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to court papers unsealed Wednesday. He confessed his treason almost immediately and began cooperating, offering information of potentially great value because he had met with high-level operational leaders, sources said. Vinas is one of a handful of Americans charged...

As the Long Island Rail Road began warning its workers not to file fraudulent claims for private disability insurance, interviews with insurers this week revealed a fuller picture of how some of the railroad’s retirees and current employees have been able to collect an array of disability payments. At least five federal and state agencies are investigating the legitimacy of disabilities at the L.I.R.R., where in recent years more than 90 percent of career employees have retired early and claimed disability payments from the federal Railroad Retirement Board. But many of the railroad’s workers also secure disability policies from private...

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) -- Like many commuters, Ron Marino is incredulous about revelations that nearly every employee who asked for disability benefits after retiring from the nation's largest commuter railroad was granted them. But Marino isn't the only one who is venting these days about the Long Island Rail Road. Four separate investigations are under way after it was reported last month that more than 90 percent of Long Island Rail Road employees were granted disability payments by an obscure federal board, allowing them to collect huge payments every year. The New York Post has dubbed this the ''Gravy Train...

To understand what it’s like to work on the railroad — the Long Island Rail Road — a good place to start is the Sunken Meadow golf course, a rolling stretch of state-owned land on Long Island Sound. During the workweek, it is not uncommon to find retired L.I.R.R. employees, sometimes dozens of them, golfing there. A few even walk the course. Yet this is not your typical retiree outing. These golfers are considered disabled. At an age when most people still work, they get a pension and tens of thousands of dollars in annual disability payments — a sum...

NY's Penn Station shut down due to "police activity"