March 1, 2023 Breakfast Meeting Notes

Gueests: Steve Knox and Jason Neenos 

50/50 was won by Alicia

Card game: Ken Evans  won the right to draw but selected the ace of hearts. The game continues.

As usual we started with Tony trivia: I’ve been working on the Railroad edition!

Our speaker today was Tony, speaking on the new Grand Central Madison Station in New York.

Construction was first proposed 50+ yrs ago; it is the largest new station built since 1967. Construction started in the 1970s with a tunnel under the East River. Cost of the project was $11.1 billion. The new station is located directly under Grand Central, 140 feet below street level, and is twice the size of original Grand Central. It is a two level tunnel; the subway runs above LI Railroad in the tunnel. The tunnel was built in 4 prefabricated sections that were floated in and dropped into river. The subway started running in 1989 and the Long Island  Railroad just started this year on January 27.

Long Island Railroad bought new electric diesel locomotives to run on the new system. The Cannonball is their only named train, a summer Friday evening train that goes to Mauntauk. The new concourse is 1/4 mile long and it takes the escalator 1 minute 40 seconds to go from the concourse down to train level. Tickets are sold in vending machines, online by phone, and they still have 5 booths for paper tickets. Artwork abounds; there is an 80 foot long mural made of colored glass designed by a 90 yr old Japanese artist, and Kiki Smith has four glass mosaics decorating the station. The escalators are 243 feet long and drop 91 feet. The marble in the lower level matches color of the marble in the original Grand Central. There is a mezzanine 120 feet below street level and you can pick up subway trains just above or Long Island Railroad trains just below this level. The platforms are 1020 feet long, just long enough to accommodate a Long Island railroad standard train. 

First rush hour carried 47, 000 people. Tunnels under the East River were bored by tunneling machines and the machines were left buried because it would have been extremely costly to bring them back to the surface. The speed limit is 45mph out of station, 65 mph under the river. A yellow textured flooring strip next to the tracks is mandated by federal law as a safety measure; it helps keep people from falling onto tracks. 55% of the trains still go to Penn Station, 45% to Grand Central Madison but this may be adjusted later. Grand Central Madison is owned by the state of New York, while Penn Station and the original Grand Central are owned by Amtrak.

Mike: Styrofoam:project is coming along. He will get people on the committee to meet via a zoom call.

Next week is the area speech contest round. Maureen Polimeno wants one judge from each club for the contest. Sharon volunteered to represent us.

Rabies clinic will be held this Saturday regardless of weather. Arrive between 12-12:30 for setup. The clinic will be held from 1-2.

Respectfully submitted,

Lora Miller, secretary