Should I worry about finding my train in Penn Station?

[PRR 60]

Maybe some day Amtrak will even give up their hiding of track numbers until the last minute and/or find a way to avoid disrupting everything by shoving ticket checkers in front of the mob right at crunch time.

Never going to happen. They have good reasons for not putting up the numbers sooner. Things like: too many last minute track changes, and it happens a lot; platforms that are too small to hold 100 passengers waiting for an arriving train and still have room to receive 200 passengers from an arriving train; confusion with trains heading to the yard vs. the train that people are actually waiting for; can't leave the escalator running down for too long as it's needed to get arriving passengers off the platform; and probably a few others that I haven't thought of.

I can second that with first-hand experience. I was on a evening rush hour NJT inbound train that had the misfortune of arriving across the platform from an outbound that had just started boarding. It was a nightmare. 800 passengers trying to get off a train while 800 passengers were coming down. For those who don't know Penn, the platforms are very narrow and the stairs and escalators are also narrow and few in numbers. Dump 1600 people into that situation heading in different directions, and it's not pretty. It was shoulder to shoulder packed. You had to push to get through. People pushing to get down, people pushing to get up. It must have taken 20 minutes just to get off the train and up the stairs. Had anything happened down there that would have panicked that mob, no matter how innocent, it would have been a disaster. I'm not easily disturbed by things, but that scene had me shaken.

Basically, Amtrak is a victim of the constraints that resulted in the original PRR design of Penn. The platforms are too narrow, and there are not enough stairs and escalators. For safety, you simply can't have a trainload of departing passengers waiting on the platform and coming down when a trainload of passengers is coming in and wanting to get off. Even with through trains, the vast majority of passengers get on and off at Penn.

That is why I suggested that a newbie might want to consider getting a Red Cap. The Red Cap can get you down to the platform before they call the train for boarding. It bypasses the cattle call and can make the experience a whole lot less stressful.

 

[afigg]

I can second that with first-hand experience. I was on a evening rush hour NJT inbound train that had the misfortune of arriving across the platform from an outbound that had just started boarding. It was a nightmare. 800 passengers trying to get off a train while 800 passengers were coming down. For those who don't know Penn, the platforms are very narrow and the stairs and escalators are also narrow and few in numbers. Dump 1600 people into that situation heading in different directions, and it's not pretty. It was shoulder to shoulder packed. You had to push to get through. People pushing to get down, people pushing to get up. It must have taken 20 minutes just to get off the train and up the stairs. Had anything happened down there that would have panicked that mob, no matter how innocent, it would have been a disaster. I'm not easily disturbed by things, but that scene had me shaken.

Basically, Amtrak is a victim of the constraints that resulted in the original PRR design of Penn. The platforms are too narrow, and there are not enough stairs and escalators. For safety, you simply can't have a trainload of departing passengers waiting on the platform and coming down when a trainload of passengers is coming in and wanting to get off. Even with through trains, the vast majority of passengers get on and off at Penn.

Yes, the narrow platforms and limited number of access points for the tracks and platforms Amtrak uses are what drives much of the traffic jams and passenger waiting approaches they utilize at NYP. The long center platforms were designed over a 100 years ago for LD trains, not heavy commuter traffic. If NYP were being built today, it would probably be at least a two track level station with 4 tunnels under the rivers on either side with much wider platforms. of course, the price tag for an entirely new station and track complex in a built out NYC would be mind-boggling.

The access to the platforms will be improved as the main part of the $268 million Phase 1 of Moynihan Station project. The West End Concourse will be widen and extended to the full width of space for the 21 tracks along with an expanded walkway under 8th Avenue to NYP. The extended West End Concourse will provide access to 9 of the 11 platforms and new entrances from the street at the Farley Building at 8th Avenue and 31st & 33rd streets. There are supposed to be track assignment display in the greatly expanded West End Concourse which will allow those familiar with the NYP layout to get to the Amtrak trains directly from the street without having to go into the NYP itself. The current completion date for Phase 1 is 2016. Wouldn't be surprised if that date slips given the complexity of construction limited to night and weekends in the middle of a very busy station.

 

[Julie]

"The track level is one level below the lower level and many tracks can be reached both directly from the upper level and from the lower level. There are a few tracks that can be reached only from the lower level but typically Amtrak trains do not use those tracks."

When you say that the tracks can be reached both directly from the upper level and from the lower level, do you mean that you can get to the boarding area from either level? If I understand the layout, you can only BOARD from the lower level (the Exit Concourse).