The Long Island Rail Road will install a new, taller railroad trestle across Accabonac Road in East Hampton Village on Monday, according to a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the L.I.R.R.
Crews have been working around the clock at the site this week. On Oct. 16, they removed the century-old, 11-foot-high trestle, which was too low for large trucks to clear. On Monday night, the new trestle, with 14 feet clearance, which was fabricated in Pennsylvania and then shipped to Mattituck, arrived by truck. Today through Sunday, a pre-cast concrete beam on which the trestle will sit will be attached to a caisson foundation.
Once the new trestle is in place, the spokeswoman said, crews will repave Accabonac Road, and the street will be reopened. The focus will then shift to removing and replacing the trestle across North Main Street. That new section is expected to arrive on Monday, and the road will be closed starting Wednesday.
Train service between Southampton and Montauk is shut down through Nov. 10. East Hampton Town has been p ro The Long Island Rail Road will install a new, taller railroad trestle across Accabonac Road in East Hampton Village on Monday, according to a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the L.I.R.R.
Crews have been working around the clock at the site this week. On Oct. 16, they removed the century-old, 11-foot-high trestle, which was too low for large trucks to clear. On Monday night, the new trestle, with 14 feet clearance, which was fabricated in Pennsylvania and then shipped to Mattituck, arrived by truck. Today through Sunday, a pre-cast concrete beam on which the trestle will sit will be attached to a caisson foundation.
Once the new trestle is in place, the spokeswoman said, crews will repave Accabonac Road, and the street will be reopened. The focus will then shift to removing and replacing the trestle across North Main Street. That new section is expected to arrive on Monday, and the road will be closed starting Wednesday.
Train service between Southampton and Montauk is shut down through Nov. 10. East Hampton Town has been pro viding bus service for those who use the South Fork Commuter Connection.
At a village board meeting earlier this month, Daniel Knote, a project manager for the L.I.R.R., said that after both trestles have been installed, work to raise and resurface the railroad track will continue through Nov. 10. Then, Mr. Knote said, “We’ll be on cleanup duty, restoring everything so you can have your beautiful community back.”
Two village residents who live near the site, however, have told the M.T.A. they fear the work may have had a long-lasting impact on the structural integrity of their homes.
Sue Rakowski, a Talmage Lane resident, says her house began shaking during an earlier phase of construction when trains passed by. “Never before in my years on Talmage Lane have I experienced the shaking, and audible rumbling, from the train in my home,” she wrote in an email to Vanessa Lockel, a government and community affairs liaison with the L.I.R.R. “Can the L.I.R.R. engineers . . . assure me this vibration and rumbling from passing trains — not workday construction — will cease once the trestle is secured and the work is completed?”
Rhoda Malamet, who lives in a 19th-century house on Accabonac Road near Collins Avenue, told a reporter that her home was shaking early last week as work was being done nearby. “It felt like an earthquake, and I’m from Los Angeles so I know what an earthquake feels like,” she said.
The floor of Ms. Malamet’s house has a slant that gets progressively steeper toward the living room. It was that way when she bought the house 25 years ago, she said, but an engineer had told her the building “would last my lifetime unless something extraordinary happens.”
The slant has not gotten worse during construction, she said, “at least not noticeably,” but she is still worried about the house’s stability.
“I don’t even care if my house vibrates, as long as the railroad will be financially responsible if some damage is done,” she said. “That’s all I care about.”
In an email response to Ms. Malamet and Ms. Rakowski, Ms. Lockel apologized for the inconvenience of the ongoing work. She told Ms. Rakowski that M.T.A. engineers were investigating the potential causes for the rumbling at her house, and she said construction was not creating excessive vibrations. “We set vibration monitors in the area to ensure that we never exceed vibrations levels permitted by law,” she said. She also provided a phone number for those seeking to make a claim against the L.I.R.R.
Ms. Malamet said she met with Ms. Lockel on Monday, and was told that the work that caused the disturbance at her home was completed on Oct. 19. Ms. Malamet said her house has not shaken since early last week, but she intends to have an engineer examine it after the trestle work is over.
Bruce A.T. Siska, an architect who lives near the North Main Street trestle, said he has frequently noticed his 18th-century house vibrating during the construction, but that he is not concerned about its integrity. “I don’t see any reason to worry,” said Mr. Siska. A plate-glass window, like the one at East Hampton Bagels down the street, would be far more likely to be damaged by the vibrations, he said.
Bob Schepps, the owner of East Hampton Bagels, said the construction had not disturbed either his window or store. He has been far more concerned, he said, about the barriers the L.I.R.R. periodically puts up to block off his stretch of North Main Street. The last time it happened, Mr. Schepps put a makeshift sign on the street to let customers know they can park there.