Astoria Residents Still Plagued By Flying Rocks

Damn teenagers. For years now, Astoria residents have been living in fear of rock-throwing punks who climb onto Amtrak’s railbed along the Hell Gate trestle and toss projectiles at their houses, cars and yards. Locals like Loretta Csikortos place the blame squarely at the foot of Amtrak, who she thinks should pay for repairs to her son’s Ford Mustang, which has a shattered windshield and dented trunk. Residents are calling on Amtrak to beef up security to stop the miscreants from sneaking onto the tracks, but Csikortos isn't holding her breath: “They’ll do something when somebody gets killed,” she tells the Queens Courier. Yet maybe help is on the way? Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr has written another letter imploring Amtrak to install security cameras.

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By John Del Signore in News on September 9, 2008 8:43 AM

Comments [rss]

ART!

Heres an issue to deal with! Deal with this kinda crap, NOT graffiti! See, these kinds of crimes HARM people, but does graffiti ART? NO!

Control

at least one vandal already was electrocuted on some equipment up there maybe 2 or 3 years ago.

Splicer

Answer: Electrified fence. Enough voltage to make them burst into flames. A few of them lit up will warn the others away.

babyhitler

why do punks need to throw rocks on a railbed? couldn't you just throw rocks anywhere and it would cause damage and you could run away?

mocanlagunas

yeah, punks throw rocks and blame amtrak... I guess amtrak has more money...

pete

It will be a while before anyone finds the corpse up there of the thugs. Vultures will eat it.

ides_of_march

I'm glad to see the feds are guarding important infrastructure. If a bunch of juvenile delinquents can easily wreak havoc on the bridge, so can terrorists.

Wait till one of these punks gets run over by a train and the parents sue the pants off Amtrak.