The agreement with CSX was reportedly signed late on Friday, but there was some news about the projects over the weekend. US DOT has put out a news release at
http://www.fra.dot.gov/roa/press_releases/fp_FRA%2026-11.shtml
The Empire Corridor projects that were obligated were all at Schenectady or east of Schenectady. The projects that had their funding finally locked into place were:
-$91 million for the 17 miles of second track between Albany and Schenectady which is a major single track bottleneck. Quoting from the news release: "The existing single track causes significant delays, requiring trains to wait up to 26 minutes for the rail line to clear when another train is traveling in the opposing direction. Construction is expected to begin in late summer 2012."
-$58.1 million for a 4th track and platform improvements at Albany-Rensselaer, replacing the Schenectady station, relocation of signal wires on the Hudson Line which have been prone to outages.
I saw last week that another Empire corridor project had been obligated: $2.4 million for Grade Crossing Improvements from CSX MP 75 to 143 (Hudson line).
The only major selected NY state projects that have not been obligated are:
-the $58 million for 11 miles of 3rd track from MP 323 to 334 which was supposed to be 110 mph track for passenger trains. This may get stuck in limbo for some time if NY state, the FRA, and CSX can't reach an agreement on max passenger speeds and minimum track separation.
-$18.5 million for crossovers and reconfigure signals at Syracuse station and DeWitt yard. This is a FY 2010 grant (with at least 20% state matching) which means it has more time to get signed off on and the work started. If there are no 110 mph issues here, can't see why CSX would not agree to the project once the design and EIS documents are in place.
I looked at some of the many projects that NY state submitted applications for and there were other congestion and signal improvements projects between Schenectady and Buffalo. If NY state can't reach an agreement with CSX on a high speed 3rd track west of Schenectady, perhaps they should put their focus on the congestion improvements and selected 90 mph 3rd track segments at the bottlenecks for reliability & modest trip time improvements with what state rail money they have and whenever the federal HSIPR funding is turned on again. Put the emphasis on making the NYP to Schenectady section the "high" speed rail part for now.