NYA serves about 80 customers. Lumber, building products, scrap metal, construction & demolition debris, bio-diesel fuel, food, beer, gravel, propane, chemicals, structural steel, plastics and recyclable cardboard/paper are NYA's main traffic. Occasionally, NYA transports utility poles and electrical transformers to the LIPA facility in Hicksville, which has its own spurs. NYA also moves municipal solid waste in sealed containers on COFC trains. NYA serves Belmont Park, delivering boxcars, usually BNSF's, full of feed for the race track's horses. For occasions such as the Super Bowl or St. Patrick's Day, the NYA transports 30 rail cars of beer per week, with each car holding 3,500 cases. Some NYA customers are located off-line, and make use of NYA's team tracks to receive or ship products. Team tracks are located in Bay Ridge, Hicksville, Huntington, Greenlawn, St. James, Islip, Richmond Hill, Maspeth, Speonk, Medford, Southold, and elsewhere on the Long Island Rail Road lines that NYA serves. Most of NYA's customers have their own spurs, making the use of team tracks unnecessary. A new 28 acre, privately funded transload facility in Yaphank, Brookhaven Rail Terminal, opened in 2011. In 2014, work was underway to build a transload facility for vegetable oil, food products and construction material at NYA's Wheel Spur Yard along Newtown Creek near Long Island City. NYA expects the facility to support construction of the replacement Kosciuszko Bridge. The yard reopened in 2015. Other products shipped to Long Island via the NYA include bentonite and rock salt. NYA carries nearly 1 million tons of gravel a year from Connecticut quarries. The LIRR and the New York City Transit Authority occasionally receive new rail cars, and ship out old, retired equipment for scrapping by way of the Bay Ridge Branch.
Traffic
NYA moved 30,000 carloads in 2018, up from approximately 9,200 when it began operating in May 1997. The majority of its deliveries take place during the night, when fewer commuter trains are running. About 15 percent of freight cars transported by the NYA are floated across New York Harbor from Jersey City to NYA's railyard in Sunset Park on the Brooklyn waterfront. The barge operation is managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but the number of cars transferred to NYA by that method has been restricted by the use of only one aging barge that has a 14-car capacity. The Port Authority is adding two new barges, each with a capacity of 18 cars, and by 2023 the cross-harbor system is expected to transport 25,000 cars annually, up from 5,000 per year circa 2018.
Crewing
NYA has about 60 employees, including eight train crews. The railroad has substantially different crewing agreements than the Long Island Rail Road, allowing it more flexibility to match the needs of freight customers. NYA has two crewbases, one in Glendale, Queens and another near the former LIRR station Pine Aire on the main line, between Deer Park and Brentwood. On a typical weekday, NY&A operates six crews.
Equipment
The NY&A currently operates eleven diesel locomotives, most of which were built between 1976 and 1977. The roster includes the following locomotives:
March 15, 2015 - 1 car of a NYAR train derails while entering a siding in Wyandanch, New York July 8, 2015 - A NYAR freight train smashes into a tractor trailer after the crossing gates were slowly going down in Maspeth, Queens, the truck driver escaped with minor injuries September 15, 2015 - 2 cars of a 16 car NYAR freight train derail, causing delays on the LIRR in Hicksville, New York
Gallery
New York and Atlantic Train Coming Into Jamaica LIRR station.jpg|Freight Train passing through Jamaica LIRR station New York and Atlantic Train at Jamaica LIRR station 1.jpg|Freight Train at the Jamaica Station NYAR RS40 at Richmond Hill Station.jpg|Train at Richmond Hill New York and Atlantic railroad branch in Farmingdale NY.JPG|Industrial branch in Farmindale, NY
