What's With All The Delays In The NEC Today?

[AlanB]

Also furthermore the real problem with building just a link from NYP to GCT which then does not further connect to anything or provide any additional run through possibilities is just simply not a good use of money IMHO. It is better to spend that money doing something more useful. As things stand even if NYPSE were connectable to ESA, nothing that NJT owns today will be able to run through to Harold via the ESA tunnel because they will all get stuck like a cork in it if they tried. And nothing that LIRR owns that can pass through the ESA tunnels will be able to go beyond NYPSE, if they can even make it to NYPSE that is, which will require installation of third rails in NYPSE.

Hasn't Metro-North's New Haven Line demonstrated that dual mode third rail / catenary equipment is possible? I realize the New Haven Line has the wrong third rail shoe for LIRR, but isn't it the case that there would be nothing difficult about buying equipment that was identical except for having the opposite style third rail shoe?

I believe that Jishnu was referring to the fact that the NJT equipment will get hung up on the ceiling of the tunnel because the equipment is too tall for the tunnel, not that there would be a power problem. Although power is also an issue.

Alternatively, if we ended up with ESA running through to NYPSE, the New Haven Line running through to the old NYP, and the other Metro-North lines terminating at GCT, it ought to be possible to convert two tracks of the Metro-North mainline through Manhattan to LIRR style third rail and convert the New Haven Line equipment, and then NJT could have dual mode catenary / LIRR third rail equipment that could run through to both LIRR and the New Haven Line.

First ESA is just East Side Access, the ability to get the LIRR into GCT. ARC is the plan that dreamed about a connection between GCT and NYP or NYPSE.

Second, no it wouldn't be possible to convert two tracks of Metro North's trunk line between Woodlawn and GCT to LIRR style rail. First, New Haven line trains stop at Fordham, as do Harlem line trains. That would cancel that. Then one cannot run the current Harlem and Hudson line schedules without being able to use the express tracks. The local track can't handle the volume. Next, if something goes wrong, now you've cut off whatever flexibility you might have had to divert to another track. You don't do that on a RR that moves 275,000+ passengers a day. And that's before talking about the cost to redo the third rail and replace all the shoes on the current fleet.

The problem in NYP is not the lack of platform faces but the lack of platform surface area attached to those faces and a woeful shortage of ingress and egress stairways. That is why run throughs will not work as well as it would if there was adequate platform surface area and stairs. This has been modeled many times and established over and over again, and is ignored only by those who have some other axe to grind. Such is life. You just have to arrive on a 10 car MLV and watch how long it takes for you to get off the platform, even if the other track adjacent to the platform is not in use, which in itself is a questionable good luck situation during the rush hours.

Could some of the track spaces be filled in with more platform to address this?

Not without taking out tracks and rebuilding the station. And then you'll have cut the capcity of the station.

 

[jis]

Also furthermore the real problem with building just a link from NYP to GCT which then does not further connect to anything or provide any additional run through possibilities is just simply not a good use of money IMHO. It is better to spend that money doing something more useful. As things stand even if NYPSE were connectable to ESA, nothing that NJT owns today will be able to run through to Harold via the ESA tunnel because they will all get stuck like a cork in it if they tried. And nothing that LIRR owns that can pass through the ESA tunnels will be able to go beyond NYPSE, if they can even make it to NYPSE that is, which will require installation of third rails in NYPSE.

Hasn't Metro-North's New Haven Line demonstrated that dual mode third rail / catenary equipment is possible? I realize the New Haven Line has the wrong third rail shoe for LIRR, but isn't it the case that there would be nothing difficult about buying equipment that was identical except for having the opposite style third rail shoe?

I believe that Jishnu was referring to the fact that the NJT equipment will get hung up on the ceiling of the tunnel because the equipment is too tall for the tunnel, not that there would be a power problem. Although power is also an issue.

That is correct. Even LIRR's own C3s (their MLVs) and the DMs will not fit through the ESA East River tunnels. The only thing that will fit are M-7s. As soon as you put a pantograph on top of them to make them M-8s they cease to fit anymore. Indeed as soon as you put an HVAC air intake that protrudes on top of the roof line like in the MNRR M-7s they cease to fit in those tunnels.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

So train 1 gets disabled, pax get on train 2, that gets disabled, so pax transfer to train 3 (and 4) and 3 gets disabled? WOW That's seriously messed up

Conductor: "All right, which one of you brought the black cat on board?"