Andy Byford's plan for Penn Station

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eldomtom2

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Apr 30, 2023
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Andy Byford recently made some comments on Penn Station. They've already attracted a lot of attention.
Amtrak's plan to tear down a block in Midtown to expand Penn Station is facing unexpected criticism from a high-profile executive within the agency.
Andy Byford, the former NYC Transit president who joined Amtrak in April as an executive overseeing high-speed rail, said last month that the plan was unnecessary.
“It would break my heart to see beautiful buildings torn down on Eighth and Seventh Avenues when they don’t need to be,” said Byford, whom New Yorkers nicknamed “Train Daddy” when he worked for the MTA from 2018 to 2020.
He made the comments — which were first covered by the Daily News editorial board — during a July 20 Zoom meeting held by the group ReThink NYC on the future of Penn Station.
During the Zoom meeting, Byford said his remarks reflected his views as a “railway professional,” not those of Amtrak’s leadership.
Byford also laid into Gov. Kathy Hochul's and the MTA's $7 billion plan to overhaul the existing Penn Station.
The redesign would add higher ceilings, more natural lights and new entrances to the station — but Byford said officials should instead force Madison Square Garden to relocate to allow for a complete overhaul of Penn.
“It’s not just about building something that’s more aesthetically pleasing — important as though that is, Penn Station is kind of an embarrassment — but you can’t fix it by just putting in a few light boxes, by just heightening the ceilings, by just widening a few corridors,” Byford said.
Byford also argued that expanding Penn Station a block south would not be necessary if the train hub employed “through-running,” or consolidated NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road service so each railroad wouldn’t need to stop and turn around after reaching Midtown.
He said he oversaw similar changes as the head of London’s transit system from 2020 to 2022 through the completion of the Elizabeth Line that now runs through the city’s center.
“Why not take the opportunity to fix the damn thing once and for all, which is, I’m going to say: get rid of the pillars, which means move MSG, but at the very least, do something with the track configuration to enable through-running,” Byford said.
Amtrak spokesperson Jason Abrams said the railroad was looking at “a range of options to add capacity at Penn Station while minimizing impacts on existing Northeast Corridor service,” but said creating a through-running station would involve too much work on the existing infrastructure.
“These improvements would cause a significant amount of disruption to existing Amtrak, NJT and LIRR service, as well as service up and down the NEC, which supports some 20% of the nation’s GDP,” Abrams said.
Abrams also noted that officials expect to double the number of NJ Transit and Amtrak trains that run between New York and New Jersey once the new Gateway tunnels are finished and the old Hudson River tunnels are repaired, a process that’s scheduled to take more than 12 years.
“You can’t just add more capacity in terms of trains without more capacity in terms of station footprint,” Abrams said.
Still, as part of the federal requirement for expanding Penn Station a block south, officials said they are required to take a closer look into through-running as an alternative. .
“The MTA, along with Amtrak and NJT, is studying the concept of through-running as part of an ongoing feasibility study on Penn Station expansion,” said MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan.
 
I wish Andy Byford would focus on his primary responsibility, that is High Speed Rail on the NEC, for which he has been hired, and at least get those darned Acela 21s running to establish his credentials as a good HSR manager, instead of spending time on these side hobbies of his. ;)
 
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Of course through running at Penn Station is quite a different animal than the Elizabeth Line. The latter added new services that run on existing infrastructure east and west of London. What he is talking about would be the equivalent in London of having GWR trains run through to Shenfield or Greater Anglia to Reading. There are big technical issues in the Penn Station case that did not exist in the London case, such as the fact that LIRR is 600V DC and NJT 12 KV 25 HZ AC so you would need all new dual voltage equipment (like Metro North) for both railroads.
 
Actually tri-voltage equipment, with 25 and 60 cycles, because of NJCL to Long Branch, the M&E, and the Pennsy to South Amboy and Trenton.

LIRR MU operations would have to be bifurcated whereas their MU fleet circulates all over all week, often out from one Manhattan terminal, back to the other. Nothing with a roof hump, pantograph, or anything protruding higher than 12'10" roof line designed for the Budd M-1, now replaced with Bombardier M7 / Kawasaki M9, will fit through the 63rd Sreet tunnel and Grand Central Madsion. The Brooklyn operation will give you 13'6". There is also no place to run all those NJT trains east of the East River tunnel portals, which would be reverse peak on the LIRR.

So Byford ought to stick to his day job, otherwise shut is yap and not waste time talking to these Rethink NIMBY snake oil salesmen. But the damage has been done - Byford has been taken for a sucker. See what Amtrak does with him now.
 
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The evidence is they want Penn Station South portion of Gateway killed. With it goes the rest of the project. Gateway is a project to increase to trans Hudson train volume by 18 trains per hour. It is not a Regional Rail plan as much as they want to make it one, yet propose doing nothing to the rail infrastucture east of 7th Avenue, but throw around thru-ruunning hyperbole to make capacity increases sound credible with 6 minutes dwell time at NYPS, which is laughable on its face.
 
I've heard this conspiracy theory about the true motives of RethinkNYC plenty of times but never seen any evidence for it.
So your say there not NIMBY. “Not in my back yard” organization. What evidence do you need? Funding source by a know anti tax group or a written manifest on the groups website. Astro turf is the word that comes to mind reading up on this issue. Your mileage may vary, but I will stick with conspiracy theory of anti taxation, and anti transit when reading stuff like this.

That said no shade on Mr. Andy Byford, I do like to hear different opinions. However RethinkNYC feels like Astro Turfed NIMBY. Funded by big oil, and there friend the pipeline.
 
Between Byford's day job of his inability get to Avelia out for revenue service while accepting delivery of 6 of them all dressed up and nowhere to go, or document what's wrong with them, then defying mananagement commiserating with the Rethink knuckleheads including tearing half the tracks out of Amtrak's own NYPS, playing train with NJT & LIRR, further displaying Train Daddy's inpetitide, I think he has shortened his tenure at Amtrak.
 
Through running at Penn Station isn't a new idea, it's been proposed a few times. Whether it'll be considered is beyond the scope of everyone's knowledge. Question I have for everyone, do you guys think Penn Station should become a through running station? If not, what are your solutions to resolving the capacity issues at Penn Station?
 
Through running at Penn Station isn't a new idea, it's been proposed a few times. Whether it'll be considered is beyond the scope of everyone's knowledge. Question I have for everyone, do you guys think Penn Station should become a through running station? If not, what are your solutions to resolving the capacity issues at Penn Station?

Through running was designed for New Haven - Pennsy intercity trains and to get Pennsy trains to Sunnyside yard, bypassing Harold interlocking, nothing more.

As for your second question, it was spelled out 12 years ago by the Gateway plan - it's called Penn Station South.
 
As an an aside to the whole Byford thing, in terms of clearing platform space, what is the trade off to NJT looping trains at Sunnyside? That way they could make their stop, pull out, no need to brake test or any of that, run the loop and return. It might slightly increase ops costs, but may well be cheaper long term than leveling a block of midtown and all the associated costs. It wouldn’t be a panacea, but could it offer any improvemen?
 
No use of stub tracks 1 through 4,
No NJT trains operate through the East River tunnels in the rush hour peak LIRR direction (AM west, PM east),

You are dealing with both station slots and tunnel slots under each river.
 
Tunnel slots under the Hudson River will be taken care of by Gateway. Regarding tunnel slots under the East River, why not build out the third set of tunnels that space was reserved for (and designed for) 100 years ago that would have turned Tracks 1-4 into through tracks as well? The capacity need may not have been there when the station was first built, but it was planned for. That would solve the tunnel capacity issues. As it it, having any stub-end tracks in a busy facility with limited room and capacity is a wasted opportunity.

If you're already planning on spending billions, why not spend them on something more useful (additional East River tunnels) than more dead-end tracks?
 
Tunnel slots are not of much use without station slots. Gateway project means 4-tracking Newark Penn to 7th Avenue. Anything east of there is out of project scope.

You can't route station tracks 1 thru 4 thru East River tunnel lines 1 & 2 - they are a block south. Even if there were to be a 5th and 6th East River tunnel, then what ? Where are you going to send the trains ? If this is to be turned into a Crossrail type of project, there would have to be a 5th and maybe 6th LIRR track to Jamaica, a 3rd Amtrak track over the Hell Gate, and a 4th LIRR Main line track to Hicksville. That is all beyond anyone's imagination, and these Rethink guys don't have a clue either. They think commuter rail is a subway, so NJT and the LIRR can be run like the A, B, D, F, N,, Q and R trains without lifting a finger for the infrastucture.
 
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Adding the two additional tunnels between Penn and Sunnyside opens up four station slots, since the trains that use them currently can then be run to Sunnyside and turned. The ROW already exists at Sunnyside for this - it was part of the original plans. As it is, tracks 1-4 are essentially useless once the first trains of the day arrive. If you make those available to serve multiple trains throughout the day, that eliminates almost all of the need for additional stub-end tracks at the new Penn South. Why build a terminal yard at Penn Station when there's a perfectly good existing one three miles further east?
 
Tunnel slots are not of much use without station slots. Gateway project means 4-tracking Newark Penn to 7th Avenue. Anything east of there is out of project scope.

You can't route station tracks 1 thru 4 thru East River tunnel lines 1 & 2 - they are a block south. Even if there were to be a 5th and 6th East River tunnel, then what ? Where are you going to send the trains ? If this is to be turned into a Crossrail type of project, there would have to be a 5th and maybe 6th LIRR track to Jamaica, a 3rd Amtrak track over the Hell Gate, and a 4th LIRR Main line track to Hicksville. That is all beyond anyone's imagination, and these Rethink guys don't have a clue either. They think commuter rail is a subway, so NJT and the LIRR can be run like the A, B, D, F, N,, Q and R trains without lifting a finger for the infrastucture.
Isn't SEPTA regional rail in Philadelphia an example of how to do that? When they connected the former PRR and RDG system terminals under Center City, and thru routed most trains?
 
Yes, but that was much easier because both legacy systems used the same voltage at the same frequency and we’re under the control of the same political entity. It works very well. I think the same principle would apply running NJT through to Sunnyside to be looped. Dwell times would fall considerably, opening new track slots. With East Side Access done, there should exist ample room in the East River tunnels to accommodate that, at least to a significant extent. There is no need for six tracks to Jamaica or anything like that, because there will be no increase in traffic past Sunnyside. I grant that it could be possible to need additional East River tunnels, but there is currently capacity for roughly 100 trains per hour under the East River, which is a lot. Even if this were to become a Crossrail 2.0 type project, you still wouldn’t need any of that because the absolute number of trains would remain unchanged. You definitely would not need more tracks under the East in that scenario.
 
Philly didn't have any choice. They were determined to get rid of Reading Terminal. New York is not Philly. Service planning between two complex and delay prone railroads with all their constraints and schedule changes for engineering work between LIRR and NJT would become impossible. Their schedules are anything but constant. LIRR is constantly tweaking and shifting western terminals of their trains.

Sunnyside yard has finite capacity, and it has been reached as it is. BTW, Rethink also wants Sunnyside yard demolished and moved to the Bronx. A tunnel slot is 3 minutes, 20 trains per hour.

LIRR East Side Access slots that have been freed have been transferred to Metro North for their Penn Station Access for New Haven line trains. They will operate in and out of Penn Station and West Side Yard just as though they were LIRR trains. Those station and tunnel slots belong to MTA. There will still be no place for NJT trains in East River tunnels in the peak direction of the LIRR.

As I said, nobody is proposing doing a thing east of Seventh Avenue. Forget about tunneling across Manhattan at a billion dollars per avenue block (and that rule of thumb number is from 15 years ago) and then out to Queens. Given how long things take here, that would take another 30 to 50 years if they were to start tomorrow.

All of this was analyzed when Gateway was designed over a decade ago. There is no more just do this or that.
 
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Maybe they want to give First Class passengers a better and quieter ride?

Between Byford's day job of his inability get to Avelia out for revenue service while accepting delivery of 6 of them all dressed up and nowhere to go, or document what's wrong with them, then defying mananagement commiserating with the Rethink knuckleheads including tearing half the tracks out of Amtrak's own NYPS, playing train with NJT & LIRR, further displaying Train Daddy's inpetitide, I think he has shortened his tenure at Amtrak.

I'm reasonably sure Byford, and a host of others know what is up with the Aveila sets, what entity has them parked and why they are sitting around. Indeed, just because they were removed from the factory premises, does not mean they were accepted.

No use of stub tracks 1 through 4,
No NJT trains operate through the East River tunnels in the rush hour peak LIRR direction (AM west, PM east),

You are dealing with both station slots and tunnel slots under each river.

So, you want to add more, useless stub end tracks, that will create congestion?


Sunnyside yard has finite capacity, and it has been reached as it is. BTW, Rethink also wants Sunnyside yard demolished and moved to the Bronx. A tunnel slot is 3 minutes, 20 trains per hour.

LIRR East Side Access slots that have been freed have been transferred to Metro North for their Penn Station Access for New Haven line trains. They will operate in and out of Penn Station and West Side Yard just as though they were LIRR trains. Those station and tunnel slots belong to MTA. There will still be no place for NJT trains in East River tunnels in the peak direction of the LIRR.

As I said, nobody is proposing doing a thing east of Seventh Avenue. Forget about tunneling across Manhattan at a billion dollars per avenue block (and that rule of thumb number is from 15 years ago) and then out to Queens. Given how long things take here, that would take another 30 to 50 years if they were to start tomorrow.

All of this was analyzed when Gateway was designed over a decade ago. There is no more just do this or that.

Let's work backwards. Gateway was designed over a decade ago, and a LOT of things have changed. One of the things we need to do is think LOOOONG term and create an infrastructure with a vision that can accommodate future growth and technology. With this level of building, the vision should be 50-100 years down the road. It shouldn't be "ESA" is for LIRR, "Gateway" is for NJT, "PSA" is for Metro North and Amtrak piggybacks on the scraps of all of the projects. Even if the railroads aren't regional, the projects should be able to benefit the entire Northeast.

Hybrid trains are available now. Even right now, Siemens has offered and is perfectly capable of building a trainset that offers AC/DC and diesel propulsion. Years down the road, perhaps they will have third rail shoes that they can change on the fly. After all, years ago, a lot of tap changers were manual. Now, they change on the fly, which allowed the Midtown Directs to enter NYP.

Regarding improvements east of Seventh Avenue, they started years ago. One of the first was redesigning JO interlocking to allow a few simultaneous routes and of course the best (and biggest) projects is ESA and redesigning Harold and F. Part of that project that most people forget about is the high density signal system that will increase capacity in the East River tunnels in the same manner that increased capacity in the North River tunnels. That project has largely been sidelined because they need to refurbish the East River tunnels. That is **supposed** to start within a year. I believe Line 2 is going first, and when they complete the work, there will be additional capacity. Indeed, one of the long term goals(for some reason) is for Amtrak to travel out to Long Island. That is going to be during peak hours.

As for Metro North, they are indeed planning to bring the New Haven Line trains into Penn but they are also looking to establish through running with the Hudson Line. The plans for the Empire Connection to reach 15 track in Penn is complete and waiting for someone to implement them.

I would also like to point out (as I have to others) that Sunnyside Yard was once the biggest yard in the country, and it is indeed at capacity during the day. While it may be at capacity right now, there is PLENTY of room for expansion. The entire area by the old 68 spur is largely unused, except for a bit of track equipment. It wouldn't take much to remove all of the garbage and remnants of yesteryear and restore some of the tracks. Indeed, the area between LIRR's new layover yard and Amtrak's territory will be filled in with tracks in the next few years, to accommodate the new intercity trains. Someone just has to make the decision to do it.

The bottom line is there is always a reason to do nothing or maintain the status quo. Sometimes, there are good reasons to maintain the status quo, However, if you're building a massive piece of infrastructure, you should think leaps and bounds ahead. Tearing down buildings to build a glorified shed to store trains for part of the day shouldn't be a long term goal. The goal should be to keep things as fluid as possible. Amtrak has a long term goal of through running too. When the new intercity trains start arriving, you may see them do quick turns in the stations. As an example, WAS-ALB. ALB-BOS, MTR-WAS. In the next year or so, you may see a HAR-SPG train with the existing fleet. Turns or through running in the station would reduce the peak slots through the East River Tunnels.

Therefore, I believe through running shouldn't be summarily dismissed. Dwell times in NYP have dropped over the years. With the 7th Avenue, 8th Avenue, West End and Moynihan exits in full operations, the platforms clear in minutes.


Reading my above post, you'd think I'm a fan of MoveNYC's proposal. I'm actually not, but it isn't infrastructure related. I believe the infrastructure limitations can be overcome if the proper people open their minds and wallets to commit to the future.

I'm open to being flamed, but I'm against through running of the commuter services for this reason:


. Service planning between two complex and delay prone railroads with all their constraints and schedule changes for engineering work between LIRR and NJT would become impossible. Their schedules are anything but constant. LIRR is constantly tweaking and shifting western terminals of their trains.

Even without through running, the delays on one railroad can ripple through the region, impact other railroads. Commingling the equipment through the various agencies is a recipe for disaster. It's hard enough for them to right their own ship when their own railroad is afflicted with a service disruption. Imagine if the wires are down on Amtrak and a host of NJT trains eventually that become LIRR or Metro North trains are stranded. Imagine a LIRR train getting into a grade crossing collision, and the equipment that is needed for through running is stuck behind it.

I think that is too big of a risk because the money comes into play. Someone once mentioned if one agency took over, it would eliminate these problems. I mentioned that it worked like a charm for Conrail, and that is how we ended up with these state agencies. That way, they can be accountable for their budget, their passengers, their operation instead of it being piecemeal....kind of like Amtrak.

I can't imagine the three states agreeing on costs or allocations to make through running and equipment manipulations probable.....for now. That may change and if it does, and since there is heavy investment in these projects, we should have the infrastructure in place to enable the operation.
 
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Through running? Not possible.
1. More LIRR passengers Still going to NYP than planned. Amtrak really cannot start work until LIRRR and Amtrak can come up with a 2 tunnel morning schedule and 2 outbound in the afternoon. See item #2.
2.Amtrak is going to start rehabbing east river tunnel bore #1 shutting it down for who knows how long. When that is complete tunnel #2 is started then #3, & then #4.
 
I think only tunnel lines 1 & 2 are to be shut down for rebuilding, each for 18 months. 1 or 2 will likely be run directionally with the LIRR peak so there will still be 2 tunnels in that direction and they have West Side Yard to stash 30+ trains. They will probably bump a few rush hour LIRR trains to Grand Central and Brooklyn for the duration and LIRR will have to do a lot better than now to right-size their consists.

But it has nothing to do with the thru-running argument. Neither railroad has a single MU car or locomotive that can operate on each other's system and none are planned.
 
There are two issues that thru-running is intended to address - the first is simply platform space within Penn Station. Having a place outside of the station itself to store trains instead of needing to use station tracks for train storage and having a way to get those trains to those storage locations (be it Sunnyside or any other yard) will significantly address that issue, even if none of the railroads/agencies who provide service to Penn Station ever agree on a common piece of equipment that's usable on everyone's system.

The second issue thru-running potentially solves is transport of people from one part of the overall region to a different one. That does require common equipment standards. However, that's also separate from the first issue.

I don't think the statement "Neither railroad has a single MU car or locomotive that can operate on each other's system and none are planned." is accurate, though - the fact that MNCR and NJT were able to (even on a limited basis) run through trains from Connecticut to the Meadowlands indicates that there's at least some equipment that is capable of running on both systems.
 
The "other system' I was referring to was the LIRR.

Neither LIRR nor NJT "stores" train in Penn Station platforms. NJT may relay for a good half hour, still not worth their while to head to Sunnyside to loop back, but LIRR mostly flows through to West Side Yard, inbound generally on track 20 & 21 from their exclusive East River line 3, which do not even lead to the Hudson tunnels, or they had back east in 10 minutes or so if they come in on other tracks.

Nothing taller than 12'10" will fit into LIRR East Side Access, which is 40% of their service, and their trains roam all over their branches and city terminals every day, so there will never be any such thing as universal equipment. There is nothing to agree to.

For the tiny minority of people who are travelling between LIRR & NJT, you don't up end the operations, reliability, and equipment rosters of both systems to accommodate. And even then, with 10 LIRR branches and 7 NJT lines, 70 permutations, the odds of satisfying anyone’s need with route pairings ranges from infinitesimal to none. Transferring and walking from track 4 to track 18 can be done in 2 minutes. For anyone headed from New Jersey to western Queens, there's also the subway for $2.90.

The NJT-equipped trains between New Haven and Secaucus for those special events had about 300 people on board each of the 10 car trains east of Manhattan. They have long since been discontinued as a marketing failure. OTOH, the thru-ticketing arrangement between LIRR and the Meadowlands was used by thousands.
 
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