St. Maarten PLAYER DEVELOPMENT - TRAINS
Player Development is an all-volunteer free reading and homework after school program for at risk and special needs children on the Island of St. Maarten
 

Our logo is a train engine. We first started reading Thomas the Tank engine so the logo had to be a train. A little research led to the GG1. It was one of the most innovative and long lasting engines made in the United States. Trains are a fun way Player Development encourages the children to work hard, learn and then play.

The little ones start out reading Thomas the Tank engine. When they finish a book, they get to play with one of the four trains sets we have. Set one is a wooden Thomas that can be pushed around the track but also has a battery. As the reading level improves so does the quality and size of the train set. Set two is just an oval with a hand car with two railroaders pumping away to get to work. Set three is a double track O gauge set. We model the Long Island railroad passenger service but can sneak in a freight train if we pretend it is evening time.

The last set is HO. There we have both steam engines and some diesel power. From the beginning, trains played a big part in encouraging the children to work. Originally, we thought of Thomas as our logo, but it is copyrighted. We did some research and found the GG1. A unique engine. Streamlined, first without rivets, and electric. Best of all it was a double ender so could change direction easily.

The story we found said the engineers were working on building submarines. They were worried that after the war they would be out of a job, so they designed the GG1 in 1939. The war would not end till 1945. Now that is some advanced planning. Thus, we decided the GG1 should be our logo. We also had a suggestion of a baseball with crossed bat and pencil. You guessed it, the train won easily.

We are fortunate that tourist have become friends and help us. Conductor Steve, yes a real conductor on the LIRR has taught the children all about ticket punching, making announcements and some safety rules on trains.

Now when the children play trains, they have a dispatcher who uses a walkie-talkie to tell the engineer when he can proceed to the next stop. Then the conductor makes the announcement, closes the car doors and off they go. He is also the webmaster for the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum Facebook page. He lets the children write train stories and he posts one a week. The stories have to be well researched and about the Long Island Rail Road.

We have Big Roger a modeler from Pennsylvania. He brings kits to the island and shows the children how to assemble them. He taught the children they could name their own railroad and helped design the P & D Railroad Logo and came up with the slogan Home of the Great Salt Pond Route. Mr. Don from Canada use to be in the railroad maintenance equipment production.

He has visited several times and talked with the children about speeders and high rail trucks. Those are tracks that have both metal train wheels and rubber wheels. Using hydraulics to raise and lower the wheels the truck can drive on the road or the tracks. Forklift Gary is a volunteer at the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum. He drives the forklift to help set up outside displays. He sends us videos on the equipment there and how it was used. The children have raised more than $6,000 to help restore the museum's steam engine 35.

Pilot John was a U.S. Navy pilot who landed on aircraft carriers. He was also a manager of a race car team.  He does not know a lot about trains, but he reads a lot of magazines and sends us cool stories about trains.
Ms. Debbie and her husband Barry live in New Hampshire. She sends us information about their mountain climbing cog railroad. Mr. Joey is a model railroader and a professional photographer. He is teaching the children long distance through the internet how to take pictures of the model trains and make them look real. He is also the editor of the Mainline Train Magazine and has encouraged the children to do research and write about Bangor and Aroostook Trains from Maine.

More recently we have met Steven Lynch of Trains are fun website. We found the site by doing research on the LIRR. Now we have become friends. He has put up this Player Development Web Page and asked the children to write stories to fill it.
 

Player Development is a committee under the Little League Baseball Association. Character, Courage and Loyalty is the motto of the Little League and thus the foundation of this program. We aim to provide a safe and fun learning environment outside school hours for kids in need.

Coach Tom’s efforts, which began in 2002 as a high-performance team, focus on pulling children off the streets and providing them with a safe environment where they can have fun and learn basic life lessons. In 2012 PD changed direction and put more emphasis on the education and behavior. We had members certified to teach Aggression Replacement Training and we began working directly with the Court and SJIS to help get the children in the biggest need off the streets.

St. Maarten Railroad (SMRR)

The SMRR started in 1928 as a freight carrier for harvested salt from the Great Salt Pond to the Philipsburg and Marigot Ports for export shipment worldwide.

The railroad was bankrupt in 1967 when salt harvesting stopped on the northern French side. The Dutch side had previously ceased operations in 1949.

Player Development sits on top of the old SMRR rail yard. We are in the process of restoring some of the yard, as the tracks were never ripped up just covered with sand from the harbor dredging project.

Once the track is uncovered, we want to restart the salt water evaporating plant and have the school vocational program run the salt production. They would be able to sell salt to the tourists and run their own export business.

Research can be fun! by Isaiah   The Kids Herald 9/21/2022

Long Island Rail Road helps prevent fatal accidents with T.R.A.C.K.S. by Malik, age 15

Every three hours someone is hit by a train in the United States. It does not matter if you are in a car or walking too close to the tracks, the result is severe injury or death. According to the Federal Railroad Administration there were 236 fatalities and 662 injuries on and around railroad tracks in 2021.

As bad as that sounds it used to be worse. In 1972 there were 12,000 collisions at highway-rail crossings.  Fifty years ago, the state of Idaho started Operation Lifesaver.  Just 12 months of educating people about train crossings and the dangers associated with being near train tracks led to a 43 percent decrease in accidents. Soon more states began the Operation Lifesaver. By 1986 the safety program had expanded  national wide.

"Operation Lifesaver has been committed to preventing collisions, injuries and fatalities on and around railroad tracks and highway-rail grade crossings, with the support of public education programs in states across the U.S.,” according to their website https://oli.org/.

Founded in the west, Operation Lifesaver placed a lot of importance on safety at the crossings. Public service advertisements told people they should not try to beat the closing gates or drive around them trying to avoid long trains.  Waits of 20 minutes or more are common.  The adverts tell people that although the trains may appear to be going slowly, they are usually moving up to 50 miles per hour and that it takes a train nearly a mile to stop.

In 1989, LIRR initiated the Together Railroads and Communities Keeping Safe (TRACKS) program, along with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Police Department.

"The TRACKS program provides customized training to schools, camps, day cares, libraries, and community groups, stressing the importance of safety at grade crossings and on our platforms and trains." Not surprisingly, the TRACKS program is geared toward children, educating them to stay away from the red flashing lights and signal bells of a railroad crossing.  It offers age appropriate information on how to travel safely using the system; and the hazards that exist on or near the tracks, this is according to their website, https://new.mta.info/agency/long-island-rail-road/lirr-tracks.

The main differences between the trains out west and on Long Island are speed and people. The Long Island Rail Road is the busiest commuter railroad in North America, It moves about 301,000 customers each weekday on 735 daily trains.  The New York and Atlantic Railway handles rail freight on the Long Island Rail Road. The freight line averages just six trains each night. In general, passenger trains are much shorter than freight trains and can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour. That means the wait time for drivers sitting at crossing gates is usually much shorter.

The LIRR also has posted Emergency Notification Signs at crossings. The signs tell drivers if their vehicle gets stuck on the train tracks at a crossing, they should get out of the car and call the number on the sign. They should give the locator number to the operator. The locator number tells the railroad  exactly which crossing is blocked, so the train engineers in the area can start to slow down the train.  This way they can avoid a tragic accident before it occurs.

The LIRR and the MTA offer train safety coloring books and videos. In addition, the LIRR gives to free talks to students, usually involving the Metro Man Mascot (a silver looking robot).  Toy manufactures have even got involved with  track safety making toy trains reminding children to be extra careful around train tracks. One toy LIRR boxcar  has printing that says: Stop, Look and Listen!

It has flashing red lights on a railroad crossing sign along with the railroads yellow Dashing Dan logo. One last piece of caution.  Realize the train is wider than the track it rides on. In fact. the train can overhang the track by as much as three feet.  So do not walk on the tracks or even near them, or else you might be one of the people hit and hurt by a train every three hours.

Red is a strong color. It is so strong it can stop a speeding car. It can even stop a freight train that is miles long. But, Blue is stronger and more powerful. Red can stop a train. But Blue prevents the train from even being started!

Traffic lights first appeared in the United States around 1920. Nearly 90 years before the traffic light, Railroads already saw the need for signals to safely control traffic. They devised a flag system to direct engineers when to stop or move the trains. It took a few years for the signals we know and use today to become standardized. Red means stop. Yellow means caution and Green means go. But blue means do not touch a thing.

The term 'flag' was carried forward even after the signals became lights for night use. The railroads were not satisfied with red means stop and green go. They needed more. “Railroading is a very dangerous job and people are hurt or killed every year in simple accidents. Some of the worst used to come from fellow employees moving trains while people were working on them,” explained Steven Torborg a Conductor on the Long Island Rail Road who frequently visits St. Maarten.

Basically, there are two times workers go between cars. Workers have to add cars to or take off cars from a train. This is called coupling or uncoupling and is done with an engineer on the train who knows workers are between the cars. The second and potentially more dangerous situation is when work needs to be done on a train before the engineer arrives.
It was clear a sign was needed to tell the arriving engineer someone is working on or under the train. Blue was the assigned color for the flag. “Virtually every railroad in the United States uses blue signals, though the designs vary,” said Conductor Steve. First came the Blue flag. But of course, the Carman needed a place to hang it.

Other signals included lanterns and then flashlights for night use. Some railroads used a piece of plastic on a metal rod that could be clipped to the track out in front of the engine. There were fold up and down blue barriers, like those used on St. Maarten for reserve parking.

For added safety plastic blue signals were made and left inside the engine on the start-up controls. Today the carman has a blue ID badge that they can take off and place on the engine control panel, so the engineer not only knows someone is working on the train, but exactly who is on under or between the cars.

“The Railroad motto is Safety is of the first importance in the discharge of duty," said Conductor Steve. That is why Blue is the strongest color on the railroad.

M7 interior cab with Employee blue flag ID: "DO NOT OPERATE - MY LIFE IS ON THE LINE"

Circus train Blue Flag at Garden City Secondary, Quentin-Roosevelt Blvd. - View NW 5/23/2017 Photo/Archive: Marc Glucksman.

Diamonds Can Be Dangerous by Collis, age 12:

Trains with Three Rails Which came first: 3-rail toy trains or the LIRR? by Roger, Age 11:

Steam engines were the power for early trains. They burned coal, oil or even wood in the locomotive's firebox to boil water to make steam. The steam would build up so much pressure that it was enough to get the wheels to turn and the trains to move along the tracks. Steam engines made a lot of smoke and dust, so everything around and on the train ended up dirty. In those days there were two tracks, and many train tracks are still two rails.

But, when trains evolved into a new source of power – electricity – they tried different ways to get the electricity to the train. The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) was one of the first roads in the United States to switch to electric. Ideas for how to get the electricity to the train engine included above-ground wires, although many people thought that the above-ground lines looked ugly. Plus, the wires were prone to breakage in high winds, and especially during winter ice storms.

So in 1905, when the LIRR replaced dusty, dirty steam engines with modern, clean electric locomotives, they decided to use a three rail system. The two tracks already laid down were one side of the electric connection and the other electrical line went to a third rail placed outside the pre-existing ones. This was done in part so the rail could be covered to avoid accidental short circuits or electrocutions.  Some of us kids at Player Development think the LIRR got the idea of a third rail from model trains. Yes, believe it or not, toy trains were electrified before real trains.

Model trains, made from wood, and later metal, started appearing in 1860. By 1891 train sets were being manufactured and sold.  The first sets required the child to just push or pull the train around on the tracks. Next came toy trains that the child could turn a crank and wind them up, then let them run on their own, until they wound down and had to be cranked up again.  Electrical toy trains were first designed in 1896, but these still used a two rail system. In 1901 the Lionel Train company came out with their first electric train sets. Some early train makers experimented with and liked third rail operations. A few manufacturers actually had the third rail outside the main rail and used a “shoe” pick up similar to the ones used by the LIRR. But the familiar 3-rail O-gauge train sets were sold as sets starting in 1906.

That means Lionel had to be working on 3-rail system at the same time that the LIRR was switching to electric. Of course, we do not know if the designers at LIRR ever played with the toy electric trains. The Lionel train set has the third rail in the center of the two tracks with a special roller pick up on the bottom of the trains. The wheels making contact on the outer two rails complete the circuit. So we cannot tell who had the idea of a three rail system first but we are sure glad they did because these are like the ones we have here on St. Maarten at Player Development. They are fun to drive around the track and imagine you are an engineer driving a real train.

Making new toys look antique   By Roger, age 11:

Imaging taking a brand-new toy , perhaps a shiny red sports car, out of the box and getting it dirty right away, on purpose. Your mom might get a little made. Maybe not let you bring the toy in the house. Yet that is what model railroaders do. They buy new trains, and make them look old sometimes even before they put them on a track and run them around a bit.

The process of making a train or anything look old is called weathering.  There are many ways to do this but today I am going to talk about using chalk.  At Player Development, the after-school program at the Little League Ballpark on St. Maarten that helps kids do better in school, we have five train sets.

You need to know railroads try to keep the passenger trains looking good. They have wash stations that the cars pass through, so they shine.  So we weather just the freight cars.

You start with chalk. We use brown and black. Rub the chalk on some 400-grit sandpaper. We do this over a small plastic bowl. The chalk is turned into a fine dust.  Next get a small soft bristle paint brush. Dab it into the pile of chalk then dab it on the car. Note we take the car shell off the chaise so as not to get the wheels dirty.  On one end of a boxcar there is a wheel on it. It looks like a steering wheel but it is really a brake. Any way it is the back of the car. Once you dab the chalk on the car paying close attention to the ribs of the car you will put more chalk on the brush and lightly start at the front and draw the brush to the back of the car.

Riley, at  left, and Collis busy weathering the freight cars!