Idea for alternate NEC routings

[E60JPC]

Does anyone know if Amtrak ever considered these ideas? If not, would they be feasible?

1. Divert NYC/DC NE Regionals from NY Penn Station to Hoboken, NJ via NJT's Waterfront Connection. There are currently 8-9 roundtrips weekdays and 4-5 on weekends. Could 5 of the weekday and 3 of the weekend NE Regional roundtrips run Hoboken to Washington? This could act as a "safety valve" relieving some of the traffic through the Hudson River tunnels until the Gateway tunnels are someday operational.

2. Divert NYC/Harrisburg Keystones over an alternate route between Hoboken, NJ to Harrisburg. There are currently 9-10 weekday roundtrips and 6 weekend roundtrips. Could 5 of the weekday and 3 of the weekend roundtrips be diverted as above for the NE Regionals, thus further reducing trans-tunnel traffic to/from Penn Station. This option would come with a re-route though. Hoboken, NJ to Newark via the NJT Waterfront Connection & NEC, Newark to Bound Brook, NJ via NJT's Raritan Valley line, Bound Brook, NJ to West Trenton, NJ via the old Reading Lines route (now CSX), West Trenton to Philadelphia via SEPTA's West Trenton line to 30th Street Station (upper level), then west on the present day Keystone route to Harrisburg.

WB trains would run with a diesel locomotive on the rear of the train, facing towards Hoboken, then switch to an electric locomotive on the front of the train the rest of the way to Harrisburg. EB trains would run cab car forward with the electric locomotive at the rear Harrisburg to West Trenton, then exchange for a diesel locomotive on the front of the train from West Trenton to Hoboken.

On this route, Hoboken would replace NYC, Bound Brook would replace Metropark, Belle Mead would replace New Brunswick, Hopewell would replace Princeton Jct., West Trenton would replace Trenton, Jenkintown-Wyncote would replace Cornwells Heights, Temple University would replace North Philadelphia and Suburban Station would return to the Amtrak map. Newark Penn Station would continue to be served by both Keystone routes. Furthermore, Bound Brook, NJ would be a much more convenient place for NJT Raritan Valley passengers to transfer to Keystone's than going all the way into Newark. Jenkintown-Wyncote would be a convenient place for Lansdale-Doylestown, Warminster, and West Trenton SEPTA commuters to transfer to Keystones. And Temple University would be a more convenient place for SEPTA Chestnut Hill and Norristown line commuters to change to Keystones.

3. Originating/terminating Acela Express trains at Philadelphia Suburban Station. There are 4 stub-end tracks serving Suburban Station which don't get that much use as most SEPTA trains are run-throughs to Jefferson Station and beyond. There are at least 6 weekday NYC/DC roundtrips, 8 BOS/DC weekday roundtrips, 2 NYC/DC Sa roundtrips, 2 BOS/DC Sa roundtrips, 3 NYC/DC Su roundtrips, and 1 BOS/DC Su roundtrip. Would it be possible to replace 1 daily NYC/DC roundtrip with a NYC/PHS roundtrip, replace 1 daily NYC/DC roundtrip with a PHS/DC roundtrip, replace 1 daily BOS/DC roundtrip with a BOS/PHS roundtrip, replace 1 PHS/Harrisburg Keystone with an Acela Express, replace 1 NYC/DC roundtrip with a NYC/Harrisburg roundtrip via the NY-PGH subway and North Philadelphia station, and 1 daily NYC/DC roundtrip with a DC/Harrisburg roundtrip via 30th Street Station?

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Some variety would be nice but I doubt Amtrak will consider reroutes over any routes in or near the NEC on tracks they don't own. Why would they? Why pay for usage fees and track rights when you don't have to?

 

[Thirdrail7]

Some variety would be nice but I doubt Amtrak will consider reroutes over any routes in or near the NEC on tracks they don't own. Why would they? Why pay for usage fees and track rights when you don't have to?

To add on the Philly Amtrak Fan's comment about fees and usage, why would the OP expect Amtrak to divert riders away from its busiest passenger station in the system and force them to transfer to get to where they obviously want to go (hence the congestion.)

Additionally, why would Amtrak want to tote around a diesel and create an engine change for HAR service, when Pennsylvania and Amtrak spent an enormous amount of money to speed up the Harrisburg-NYP schedule to create a one seat ride?

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD and even though you could physically do most of what the OP system wants, doesn't mean these ideas aren't ludicrous and unnecessary. You can put a diesel on the Acela and send it to Spokane, Washington if you want to.

I'd like an answer as to why the OP even thinks this is a good idea and what compelling reasons exists before I address (pick apart) the logistics.

 

[west point]

This plan could be an option if one of the North river bores is closed before the Gateway bores are open ?

 

[CCC1007]

This plan could be an option if one of the North river bores is closed before the Gateway bores are open ?

The solution for this is to reduce NJT because the commuters CAN use a ferry to do last mile, and NJT doesn't own the tracks to NYP.

 

[Thirdrail7]

This plan could be an option if one of the North river bores is closed before the Gateway bores are open ?

Again....why? Why not just...you know...divert a bunch of NJT trains to THEIR terminal in Hoboken to make room? Why do you need to send trains OFF the high speed NEC that has parts of it being upgraded to accommodate 150 mph operation to joyride down a freight line?

Why go to Suburban Street station, a station Amtrak used to service and they gave the associated route to SEPTA some years ago to save space in the tunnels?

Even in a dramatic emergency, I can barely see Hoboken for Keystones, but the rest isn't adding up.

 

[PRR 60]

This plan could be an option if one of the North river bores is closed before the Gateway bores are open ?

Again....why? Why not just...you know...divert a bunch of NJT trains to THEIR terminal in Hoboken to make room? Why do you need to send trains OFF the high speed NEC that has parts of it being upgraded to accommodate 150 mph operation to joyride down a freight line?

Why go to Suburban Street station, a station Amtrak used to service and they gave the associated route to SEPTA some years ago to save space in the tunnels?

Even in a dramatic emergency, I can barely see Hoboken for Keystones, but the rest isn't adding up.

What service out of Suburban did Amtrak give to SEPTA?

 

[Thirdrail7]

This plan could be an option if one of the North river bores is closed before the Gateway bores are open ?

Again....why? Why not just...you know...divert a bunch of NJT trains to THEIR terminal in Hoboken to make room? Why do you need to send trains OFF the high speed NEC that has parts of it being upgraded to accommodate 150 mph operation to joyride down a freight line?

Why go to Suburban Street station, a station Amtrak used to service and they gave the associated route to SEPTA some years ago to save space in the tunnels?

Even in a dramatic emergency, I can barely see Hoboken for Keystones, but the rest isn't adding up.

What service out of Suburban did Amtrak give to SEPTA?

I didn't say they gave the service to Septa. I said they gave (or more likely sold I suppose) the associated route to Septa.

 

[PRR 60]

This plan could be an option if one of the North river bores is closed before the Gateway bores are open ?

Again....why? Why not just...you know...divert a bunch of NJT trains to THEIR terminal in Hoboken to make room? Why do you need to send trains OFF the high speed NEC that has parts of it being upgraded to accommodate 150 mph operation to joyride down a freight line?

Why go to Suburban Street station, a station Amtrak used to service and they gave the associated route to SEPTA some years ago to save space in the tunnels?

Even in a dramatic emergency, I can barely see Hoboken for Keystones, but the rest isn't adding up.

What service out of Suburban did Amtrak give to SEPTA?

I didn't say they gave the service to Septa. I said they gave (or more likely sold I suppose) the associated route to Septa.

What route?

 

[jis]

I can't find any evidence that they gave any route to SEPTA. They just stopped running to Penn Center station and terminated their Harrisburg service at 30th St. instead. That was the genesis of the travel to Suburban Station using an Amtrak ticket arriving in or departing from 30th St. station. One could I suppose interpret that as giving the 30th St. - Suburban Station service to SEPTA, but it was just short bit of the through service from Harrisburg. The rest was never Amtrak. It went straight from PC/Conrail to SEPTA.

Of course I am happy to be corrected.

 

[PRR 60]

Another possible for this mystery route, and one that is associated with this topic, is the former Reading/Jersey Central service between Philadelphia and New York via West Trenton, Bound Brook, Jersey City and ferry to Lower Manhattan (until terminus move to Newark). However, that route:

• Was never in Amtrak (no Reading passenger services were deemed "intercity," thus none entered Amtrak);
• Originated at Reading Terminal, not Suburban Station, and was discontinued with the opening of the Center City Commuter Connection, and;
• Never served Penn Station New York, thus no North River tunnel slots were involved (in the early days served the CRRNJ terminal in Jersey City, in later days Newark Penn).

The old Reading trains to New York (via ferry) had a loyal following, particularly in eastern Montgomery County, PA. The two trains, the Crusader and the Wall Street, stopped at Jenkintown making those especially convenient trains for those living in that area. That convenience was slowly eroded by the terminus move to Newark (and PATH), the downgrade of equipment from pretty nice trainsets with food and beverage options (and true observation cars) to RDC's, trips times from Reading Terminal stretching out to nearly two hours, then finally SEPTA dropping the through service requiring a change of trains at West Trenton to a once-a-day NJ Transit train. The death by a thousand cuts succeeded, and service east of West Trenton was dropped in 1982.

 

[Hal]

I can't find any evidence that they gave any route to SEPTA. They just stopped running to Penn Center station and terminated their Harrisburg service at 30th St. instead. That was the genesis of the travel to Suburban Station using an Amtrak ticket arriving in or departing from 30th St. station. One could I suppose interpret that as giving the 30th St. - Suburban Station service to SEPTA, but it was just short bit of the through service from Harrisburg. The rest was never Amtrak. It went straight from PC/Conrail to SEPTA.

Of course I am happy to be corrected.

Harrisburg trains ran to North Philadelphia, not 30th St station and stopped at Suburban. After they were connected to 30th St the stops at Suburban Station were eventually ended.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[jis]

I can't find any evidence that they gave any route to SEPTA. They just stopped running to Penn Center station and terminated their Harrisburg service at 30th St. instead. That was the genesis of the travel to Suburban Station using an Amtrak ticket arriving in or departing from 30th St. station. One could I suppose interpret that as giving the 30th St. - Suburban Station service to SEPTA, but it was just short bit of the through service from Harrisburg. The rest was never Amtrak. It went straight from PC/Conrail to SEPTA.

Of course I am happy to be corrected.

Harrisburg trains ran to North Philadelphia, not 30th St station and stopped at Suburban. After they were connected to 30th St the stops at Suburban Station were eventually ended.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I present the following timetable page from the July 1971 timetable countering your statement excerpted above:

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19710712r&item=0015

According to it Harrisburg trains ran to Penn Center Station (today's Suburban Station) via 30th St. Only the Duquesne and the Broadway Limited (which were the two beyond Harrisburg trains eastern O/T New York) ran via North Philadelphia (New York Subway) to New York, bypassing 30th Street.

 

[PRR 60]

The small number of trains between Harrisburg and New York that ran via the Pittsburgh Tunnel (Zoo) made their only Philadelphia stop at North Philly.

The Harrisburg trains that operated to and from Suburban Station were, at least for much of the time, actually run by SEPTA (then with Conrail) for Amtrak using Silverliner EMU commuter cars. I had the "pleasure" to ride those on numerous occasions in my PennDOT days when I had a central office meeting in "The 'Burg." My office was in downtown Philly, the T&S Building (then PennDOT HQ) was an easy walk from Harrisburg station, so it was a no-brainer.

Those who are riding the AEM7 farewell train will have the pleasure experiencing the Pittsburgh Tunnel during the wye movement. Now, if they would run the train up to Cynwyd just for old times sake, that might entice me to ride.

 

[Hal]

I can't find any evidence that they gave any route to SEPTA. They just stopped running to Penn Center station and terminated their Harrisburg service at 30th St. instead. That was the genesis of the travel to Suburban Station using an Amtrak ticket arriving in or departing from 30th St. station. One could I suppose interpret that as giving the 30th St. - Suburban Station service to SEPTA, but it was just short bit of the through service from Harrisburg. The rest was never Amtrak. It went straight from PC/Conrail to SEPTA.

Of course I am happy to be corrected.

Harrisburg trains ran to North Philadelphia, not 30th St station and stopped at Suburban. After they were connected to 30th St the stops at Suburban Station were eventually ended.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I present the following timetable page from the July 1971 timetable countering your statement excerpted above:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19710712r&item=0015

According to it Harrisburg trains ran to Penn Center Station (today's Suburban Station) via 30th St. Only the Duquesne and the Broadway Limited (which were the two beyond Harrisburg trains eastern O/T New York) ran via North Philadelphia (New York Subway) to New York, bypassing 30th Street.

Should have said ended at North Philadelphia and Broadway Limited was what I was thinking about too, but it was after they extended the Harrisburg trains beyond North Philadelphia that they stopped the stop at Suburban.

 

[PRR 60]

The only Amtrak trains that ever called at Suburban Station were Harrisburg trains, and all terminated at there. Trains operating between Harrisburg and New York (including the Broadway) either ran to 30th Street (and changed ends) or ran via the tunnel at Zoo with the only Philadelphia stop being North Philly. The Broadway never called at Suburban.

 

[jis]

I can't find any evidence that they gave any route to SEPTA. They just stopped running to Penn Center station and terminated their Harrisburg service at 30th St. instead. That was the genesis of the travel to Suburban Station using an Amtrak ticket arriving in or departing from 30th St. station. One could I suppose interpret that as giving the 30th St. - Suburban Station service to SEPTA, but it was just short bit of the through service from Harrisburg. The rest was never Amtrak. It went straight from PC/Conrail to SEPTA.

Of course I am happy to be corrected.

Harrisburg trains ran to North Philadelphia, not 30th St station and stopped at Suburban. After they were connected to 30th St the stops at Suburban Station were eventually ended.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I present the following timetable page from the July 1971 timetable countering your statement excerpted above:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19710712r&item=0015

According to it Harrisburg trains ran to Penn Center Station (today's Suburban Station) via 30th St. Only the Duquesne and the Broadway Limited (which were the two beyond Harrisburg trains eastern O/T New York) ran via North Philadelphia (New York Subway) to New York, bypassing 30th Street.

Should have said ended at North Philadelphia and Broadway Limited was what I was thinking about too, but it was after they extended the Harrisburg trains beyond North Philadelphia that they stopped the stop at Suburban.

That still doesn't make any sense to me in the light of the timetables I am seeing. So we are mis-communicating somewhere.

Which trains terminated at North Philadelphia? Certainly the Duquesne or the Broadway did not, and all of the other trains from Harrisburg went to 30th St. and then on to Suburban Station. They did not go to North Philadelphia after A-Day at least. And as PRR says they were most likely SEPTA trains carrying Amtrak passengers back then Or actually perhaps Penn Central trains funded by PennDOT or some such. I don;t know the details off the top of my head.

 

[Hal]

I can't find any evidence that they gave any route to SEPTA. They just stopped running to Penn Center station and terminated their Harrisburg service at 30th St. instead. That was the genesis of the travel to Suburban Station using an Amtrak ticket arriving in or departing from 30th St. station. One could I suppose interpret that as giving the 30th St. - Suburban Station service to SEPTA, but it was just short bit of the through service from Harrisburg. The rest was never Amtrak. It went straight from PC/Conrail to SEPTA.

Of course I am happy to be corrected.

Harrisburg trains ran to North Philadelphia, not 30th St station and stopped at Suburban. After they were connected to 30th St the stops at Suburban Station were eventually ended.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I present the following timetable page from the July 1971 timetable countering your statement excerpted above:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19710712r&item=0015

According to it Harrisburg trains ran to Penn Center Station (today's Suburban Station) via 30th St. Only the Duquesne and the Broadway Limited (which were the two beyond Harrisburg trains eastern O/T New York) ran via North Philadelphia (New York Subway) to New York, bypassing 30th Street.

Should have said ended at North Philadelphia and Broadway Limited was what I was thinking about too, but it was after they extended the Harrisburg trains beyond North Philadelphia that they stopped the stop at Suburban.

That still doesn't make any sense to me in the light of the timetables I am seeing. So we are mis-communicating somewhere.

Misread an old Amtrak schedule that had connecting trains and the Broadway with the Broadway stopping at North Philadelphia and not 30 th. The Harrisburg trains ended at Suburban. Sometime after they extended the Harrisburg trains to New York they eliminated Suburban.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[jis]

Now we are on the same page! Thanks! I was wondering if I was somehow losing my mind

 

[Thirdrail7]

****pulls out an old bulletin order for Jis and PRR60 and paraphrases since I'm not typing the whole thing**

Effective 12:01am, Monday, June 8th, 2009.

Amtrak gave control of the route governing movements through Zoo to the upper level of 30th station to Septa. Amtrak no longer controls 2 or 3 Suburban tracks, 2 or 3 Harrisburg at Mount Vernon, the Mount Vernon Section of Zoo interlocking, the 36th street tunnel, or the portion of the Rundown track that has been reassigned to SEPTA and is now named Kay Interlocking (the area formerly known as the K ladder at ZOO.) Amtrak will control the Rundown track from a signal located on 34 Street OHB to Penn Coach Yard.

The Portion of the ML PHL-HAR from KAY to 30th is now controlled by Septa Section 5 Train Dispatcher.

I can go on typing this two page bulletin, but the bottom line is Amtrak used to control movements through Zoo interlocking, which included the Mount Vernon section, the 36th Street tunnel and 2 and 3 Harrisburg. This effectively allowed Amtrak to control movements into the upper level of 30th and into/out of Powellton Yard from the NYP line and the PH Line.

Amtrak forked it over to Septa since they no longer use the upper level.

Even though this is off topic, the mileposts from PHL-HAR were measured from Suburban Station to Harrisburg since the HAR train used to originate there. Earlier this year, Amtrak abolished the line formerly known as the 36st connection, which led from the lower level of 30th street to ZOO. From there, you could continue to HAR or NYP. It has been incorporated into the PH line and the mile posts are now measured from the lower level of PHL instead of Suburban Station. This effectively eliminated the final link to the old route.

 

[jis]

All your typing is unnecessary since at least I don't disagree with you. I was talking of trains not track segments. Sorry.

 

[Anderson]

Reading over this, the most compelling arguable point for this is slotting issues with the tunnels (e.g. God help us if we drop even one of the extant tubes). Now, I do not have information on peak-hour load factors PHL-NYP and I know ridership has been flat-ish for a while, but IIRC there's very little room to expand service even in the face of substantial-unmet-demand-at-a-reasonable-price (and bear in mind that in spite of claims about wanting Amtrak to make money if the E-bucket [the "discount advance purchase" one] WAS-NYP winds up at $99 next week there would be howls of complaint). I also suspect there would be enough demand to support such service at some level of frequency as well (even if it was on par with a more modest corridor's demand levels).

Really, this isn't practical at the moment; however, if the dual-mode locos Virginia wants to acquire ever do come to pass it might make sense (VA is very keen to get rid of the locomotive change at WAS...doing so would probably cut 20 minutes from most or all trips past DC) since you could also run those locomotives along the same lines.

By the way, remind me...the upper tracks at 30th Street run through. Do the Main Line SEPTA trains use the upper level or the lower level (as a rule)?

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

And here I was thinking this was going to be about an alternate routing inland to add robustness to the NEC in the event of, god forbid, such events are massive blackouts or storm surges somewhere along the route.

 

[Hal]

And here I was thinking this was going to be about an alternate routing inland to add robustness to the NEC in the event of, god forbid, such events are massive blackouts or storm surges somewhere along the route.

The Hoboken route proposals probably were a joke. That was too goofy. Harrisburg to Suburban station was almost as goofy.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

And here I was thinking this was going to be about an alternate routing inland to add robustness to the NEC in the event of, god forbid, such events are massive blackouts or storm surges somewhere along the route.

The Hoboken route proposals probably were a joke. That was too goofy. Harrisburg to Suburban station was almost as goofy.

Was trying to throw a bit of levity in there. I was thinking a while back that there should be an alternate rail route (non-freight obviously) to Boston in particular in the even of a hurricane or natural disaster in CT or NYC such as a storm surge or tunnel/bridge failure. Obviously everything went to New York back in the day and the Hudson Valley and environs are difficult to build rail in, but is there an alternate route, at least a potential one, should there be a long, I'll say shutdown, in the New York area?