I regret that the exten- sion of the railroad lay-up track will trouble the resi- dents of Thomaston. It will indeed make a lot of noise during construction and cre- ate some intermittent ron- roning while trains are re- charging there – or whatever strange sounds trains emit while laying up.
However, the one is tem- porary and the other less of a nuisance than the trains that rumble by there now. And certainly some residents will be inconvenienced. This is often the situation when projects are undertaken.
But when the sturm und drang have passed, the re- sults are nearly always rec- ognized as benefiting the community. I believe this
will be the case here. The increased train capacity and flexibility will accrue to the residents of Thomaston as to all who live on the peninsula. It may even raise the value of houses in Great Neck – in- cluding in Thomaston.
I do not know whether the new construction will raise or lower the village’s income from taxes. But I cannot imagine that either way life there will be much affected.
People talk as if the pres- ent Colonial Road bridge – formerly known as the Grace Avenue bridge – has been there for ages. It has not been. When in the 1930s I rode my bike from Kensing- ton School – still lamented — to the home of my friend,
Alan L. Gleitsman (recently deceased, he who endowed a scholarship for Great Neck High School students) on Terrace Road in Thomaston, I crossed that bridge. It had a black iron structure and wooden planks for a roadbed that bounced and rattled as I crossed. It was upgraded to its present form probably in the 1950s or ‘60s.
Whatever complaints about noise that may have been made at the time of construction were rapidly overcome by the benefits of the new steel bridge. The same will happen again, not only with a newer bridge, but also with the lay-up track.
David Kahn
Great Neck
