Rail Reinvigorators: An Aggressive Local Marketing Effort has Helped the New York & Atlantic Make Freight Rail Relevant Again on Long Island

In this article, the author addresses the privatization, and consequential economic upturn, of New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) long-declining Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), which is now known as New York & Atlantic Railway (NY&A). MTA decided to sell LIRR due to the railway’s steady decline from the booming 100,000 annual carloads hauled to the low-point of 9,500 annual carloads in the mid-1990’s (which is predicted to rise to approximately 25,000 by 2010). The article describes how the principals of the company Anacostia & Pacific turned LIRR around through a rigorous campaign of catering and selling to their idiosyncratic market base: Long Island, New York. This campaign was especially difficult in light of the relatively high affluence of Nassau and Suffolk counties that cover much of the land on which NY&A operates. In addition to personnel and market gains from the Conrail split, NY&A steadily moved into construction and demolition markets and, in a less conventional move, even working with Hollywood and television production groups for additional and diversified gains. The article closes with a brief examination into the possibility of NY&A moving more into the field of intermodal trafficking through the construction of a new facility, which is currently scheduled for completion in 2010.