Parents say LIRR should do more to plug gaps

Parents who ride the Long Island Rail Road said yesterday

that they hold their children tightly when boarding and exiting trains, but the

railroad should do more to prevent falls such as that of 4-year-old Brittany

Walker, who slipped through a gap Wednesday at Penn Station.

"It's not enough to warn people," Joyce Novick, 49, of Jericho, said at

Christine Kim, 43, waited for a train at Hicksville station with her son,

Alex, 6.

"I always hold his hand," Kim said. "I say, 'Be careful. Hold on to Mommy.'"

At Penn Station yesterday on Track 18 - where Brittany fell while boarding

a train to Huntington - a Babylon-bound train chugged to a stop shortly before

3 p.m., leaving gaps from 6 inches to more than a foot between the train and

the slightly curved platform.

Newsday measured five spots along the track yesterday afternoon, finding

the largest space - just over 12 inches - at the back of the train, where the

platform curves most noticeably. Near the front and middle of the train, the

gaps measured between 6 and 8 inches.

Some passengers at Penn Station yesterday, even those riding other rail

lines such as New Jersey Transit, said the latest incident spooked them.

Brittany was rescued with only minor injuries.

"It's a little scary," said Simone Butler of Montclair, N.J., who carried

her 16-month-old daughter Isabella in one arm and a stroller in the other. "I

had never thought about that as a possibility before."

But Sheila Hernandez, 43, of Roosevelt, who came off a train with her

6-year-old son, Kaymal Branham, said, "It doesn't bother me a bit. We've been

boarding those trains forever. Just so long as you hold onto your child, you're

fine."