Alfonso A. Castillo

Education: Queens College, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

I’ve lived next to the Long Island Rail Road’s tracks since I was 6 years old. By the age of 14, I joined the ranks of the LIRR’s daily commuters, taking the train each day to Brooklyn, where I went to high school. So I was familiar with the LIRR well before I came to Newsday 23 years ago as the first recipient of the Joseph W. Queen Internship — a program named after a gritty Newsday beat reporter who grew up in Queens, like me, and died of cancer in 1996.

It feels good to know my work can make life a little bit better for people who take the train to work each day.

Today, I cover transportation, having started on the beat in 2008. But, like many commuters, I didn’t fully understand how big a role the railroad played in the lives of Long Islanders until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, and most people stopped using it. No longer stuck on a train two hours or more each day, hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders had more time to spend with their families, to get a workout in, to sleep. Life on the rails had been taking people away from what really mattered — life at home.

Now I never take for granted when commuters reach out to share their experiences riding the railroad, whether it’s because they believe they’ve got a story or they just want to vent. I get it. When you spend so much of your life on a train, you want it to be as painless as possible. Every train delay or fare hike can make an already stressful experience that much worse. That’s where I come in, as a “voice for the voiceless.” It reminds me of a story I wrote last year about the LIRR rarely opening many of its station waiting rooms, even in the dead of winter. I spoke with several commuters who recounted shivering on a station platform as they stood outside recently renovated, but locked waiting rooms.

The same weekend the story published, the LIRR sent emails to customers about extended waiting room hours. It feels good to know my work can make life a little bit better for people who take the train to work each day, especially considering I’m often seated next to them.

Honors and Awards: First place, 2012, 2019 New York Press Club, Best Continuing Coverage; First place, 2011 Long Island Press Club, Best Daily Reporting, Non-Deadline; 2007 Loyola University Journalist Law School fellow