Work at New York Penn

[dlagrua]

It appears that NYC will finally start construction on a new Penn station maybe even later this year to be completed by 2020. The drawings look nice but I haven't read how Amtrak will be included in the plans. Good info here:

https://ny.curbed.com/2017/6/16/15821866/penn-station-governor-cuomo-redevelopment.

 

[west point]

The time was pushed back to allow one of the silvers to be the feeder from the north.

Some or all of the cars will stay in WAS as protect.

So why not have a thru sleeper from silver to Crescent ?

If Crescent #20 late just attach sleeper to next NEC regional ?

 

[railiner]

It appears that NYC will finally start construction on a new Penn station maybe even later this year to be completed by 2020. The drawings look nice but I haven't read how Amtrak will be included in the plans. Good info here:

https://ny.curbed.com/2017/6/16/15821866/penn-station-governor-cuomo-redevelopment.

Nice article, thanks for posting it!

One of the rendering's shows an aerial view of the new glass roof over the courtyard of the post office...All the times I've been into that post office, and deep below it on the diagonal platform, I never knew it existed. I thought it was just a solid building....

 

[Blackwolf]

Those renderings are getting quite a bit of use right out of the gate. Just watched a 30-second commercial paid for by the State of New York that used those exact graphics as a large part of their presentation. Mixed in with other large-scale projects either finished, under way or proposed all around the State, it gives the impression that New York City and State are the best places to do business and visit because they're so much more advanced and modern than the rest of the country.

The only issue I had with an otherwise enticing commercial is the impression that projects like Moyinhan were very much finished and one could expect to take a train into NYC and visit that rendered station tomorrow. Could certainly lead to some serious head-scratching for some visitors when they are instead treated to the catacombs of NYP.

On the track work, I'm cautiously wary of any overruns in the project timeline since I'll be using the station in mid-September. The LSL is not mentioned in any of the amended timetables, so I presume it should not be impacted by the work in any negative way. On the other hand, with the return to California being made by flying cigar tube, I'm not so comfortable that the work won't impact the Long Island JFK shuttle service from Penn to Jamaica. Just one of those things to be aware of once in the City.

 

[railiner]

If you're worried about LIRR service to connect with the Airtrain at Jamaica, you could take the subway instead, ('E' train), and save some money too, although it does take about twice the time....

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

The LIRR has enough frequencies that getting to JFK should not be an issue, although the trains may be more crowded than normal. The subway option is also available, as stated by railiner.

 

[MARC Rider]

I grew up in a no car household, and had relatives living in Baltimore, going out of Penn was how we got there. I'm sure it was a wonderful place at one time, but I don't remember it being so nice in the 60's, PRR let it get pretty bad, and the neighborhood was dicey. While many of us wax nostalgically about "the great old Penn Station" if half the number of people who say today how terrible it was to get rid of it and build MSG were against replacing it then, it might still be there. Like the WTC, until it got knocked down, most people I know would tell you how they couldn't stand it. Luckily, its (Penn Station) demise led to a changed attitude about landmarks preservation, and we still have GCT.

Now that's funny, because I used to go through Penn Station quite a bit during my teenage joyriding years in the late 1960s, and I actually thought the newly-built rat's maze was kind of cool, like something out of Star Trek. There was actually a reasonably impressive entrance from Pennsylvania Plaza where the cabs dropped you off, down some escalators into a rotunda which contained a large electronic departure board you could read as you descended the escalator, which took you right to the large bank of ticket counters. Of course, back then, everything was sparkly new, and the place wasn't as dingy as it is today. I think the crowds were lesser to, so the place, while busy, wasn't the zoo it is today. And you also had to be into modernist architecture.

 

[jis]

Moorman fires back at threats to withhold payments to Amtrak...

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Amtrak-Fires-Back-as-LIRR-Declares-It-Wont-Pay-Rent-During-Penn-Station-Work-429944213.html

I think Moorman has got it right and the two Governors are just indulging in political posturing one upmanship that does not help in improving the situation for any user of the system.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

You are absolutely right, jis.

I am glad to see in the article that Mr. Moorman sounds tougher than he usually does--he's a true gentleman, but he's dealing with a crowd that is not used to civility.

A very annoying part of this situation is that his energy and Amtrak's resources are being drained by just one city. Yes, New York is an extremely important city, but this mess is taking resources and focus away from saving the long-distance trains and from other cities served by train that get one train a day if they are lucky.

Would it be at all possible for Amtrak to just get rid of NY Penn? Have it privatized or have NJT and LIRR take it over? And for Amtrak trains that must go through New York to use Grand Central Station again? Then the commuters who are complaining now about NY Penn would have a real mess there, and those of us who just want to get in and out of New York as fast as possible on our way to somewhere else would not.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Grand Central Terminal (not station) is stub-ended. You can't go through it.

jb

 

[PVD]

It is the busiest station in the Amtrak network (for Amtrak, without the commuters). There is no practical way for GCT to serve anything going West-South, or requiring regular SSYD access. Like it or not, the NEC carries a huge portion of Amtrak's passengers and generates a major chunk of its revenue in a relatively small segment of it's overall network. Much of it is owned and not at the mercy of freight railroads.

 

[Thirdrail7]

As I stated above, there are a lot of people that are in for a surprise. He's not some politician that is looking for exposure. He ran a for profit railroad that didn't think twice about canceling trains to get the work done. While he marveled at NYP congestion and operations, he regarded it as another piece of infrastructure. In his mind, the delays are on the back burner. The infrastructure must be tackled, regardless of the pain.

I particularly love these statements:

"The only rent the LIRR currently pays to Amtrak for Penn Station New York, under its 1988 lease, is some $148,000 a year for exclusive use of its Level A Concourse and three platforms serving six tracks," according to Moorman.

That lease, which runs for 99 years, "must be among the best deals in New York City."

Source: Amtrak Fires Back as LIRR Declares It Won't Pay Rent During Penn Station Work | NBC New York http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Amtrak-Fires-Back-as-LIRR-Declares-It-Wont-Pay-Rent-During-Penn-Station-Work-429944213.html#ixzz4kkDLzE3N
Follow us: @nbcnewyork on Twitter | NBCNewYork on Facebook

Finally, Moorman points out, Amtrak actually leases a portion of the MTA's own Metro-North infrastructure. And when Metro-North experienced its own string of failures and outages in 2013, Amtrak never sought to recoup the $50 million it invested in the Metro-North infrastructure, or the revenue it lost during the service failures and delays.

"During these incidents, Amtrak did not disparage Metro North, or seek to gain advantage from the situation," Moorman wrote. "Instead, Amtrak offered assistance to restore Metro-North's infrastructure, and has not to date pursued claims for the millions in losses we have incurred as Amtrak regularly experiences the worst on-time performance for our trains on any section of the Northeast Corridor -- currently in the low 80 percent range -- which is far below the performance levels regularly achieved by LIRR on our railroad."

Moorman emphasized that "all users" at Penn Station need to make sufficient investments to improving Penn Station, and working together will make a better case for additional federal, state and private funding.

Source: Amtrak Fires Back as LIRR Declares It Won't Pay Rent During Penn Station Work | NBC New York http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Amtrak-Fires-Back-as-LIRR-Declares-It-Wont-Pay-Rent-During-Penn-Station-Work-429944213.html#ixzz4kkDBsnJ7
Follow us: @nbcnewyork on Twitter | NBCNewYork on Facebook

He's not going to run and hide. If I'm Gov Cuomo, I'd tone down the rhetoric before someone calls it like it is. This is a smoke screen to distract everyone from the subway meltdowns, the LIRR ESA overruns and Metro-North's 20 year catenary project.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

Thank you, John and PVD, for correcting me on the GCT name and also reminding me that New York is the busiest Amtrak station. As you can tell, even though I live just an hour or so south of New York City, I never, ever visit there (haven't been there for 40 years). When I have to go through it on Amtrak to get to New England, I just cross my fingers and close my eyes til we're through it.

I see why GCT can't be used for Amtrak, but isn't there some other possibility for a different station? It just seems to me that having to deal with NY Penn is too much trouble.

 

[railiner]

What a nightmare this is becoming.... unless you happen to be a lawyer, that is, and get a piece of the action...

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

He's not going to run and hide. If I'm Gov Cuomo, I'd tone down the rhetoric before someone calls it like it is. This is a smoke screen to distract everyone from the subway meltdowns, the LIRR ESA overruns and Metro-North's 20 year catenary project.

To say nothing of the smoke screen on the NJ side from Gov. Cuomo's counterpart to distract from years of miserable funding for and neglect of NJ Transit. Plus of course NJ Transit's own miserable performance in recent years.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Thank you, John and PVD, for correcting me on the GCT name and also reminding me that New York is the busiest Amtrak station. As you can tell, even though I live just an hour or so south of New York City, I never, ever visit there (haven't been there for 40 years). When I have to go through it on Amtrak to get to New England, I just cross my fingers and close my eyes til we're through it.

I see why GCT can't be used for Amtrak, but isn't there some other possibility for a different station? It just seems to me that having to deal with NY Penn is too much trouble.

There isn't. Only the Pennsylvania railroad built tunnels under the Hudson River, and they lead right to Penn Station through the interlocking where the heavy work is to be done.

Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station are the only railroad passenger facilities in Manhattan.

jb

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

Thank you, John and PVD, for correcting me on the GCT name and also reminding me that New York is the busiest Amtrak station. As you can tell, even though I live just an hour or so south of New York City, I never, ever visit there (haven't been there for 40 years). When I have to go through it on Amtrak to get to New England, I just cross my fingers and close my eyes til we're through it.

I see why GCT can't be used for Amtrak, but isn't there some other possibility for a different station? It just seems to me that having to deal with NY Penn is too much trouble.

There isn't. Only the Pennsylvania railroad built tunnels under the Hudson River, and they lead right to Penn Station through the interlocking where the heavy work is to be done.

Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station are the only railroad passenger facilities in Manhattan.

jb

Okay, I see--thank you. My horoscope this morning said to make my point quickly then be quiet, so I will bow out gracefully now (having definitely not taken its advice!)

 

[A Voice]

I see why GCT can't be used for Amtrak, but isn't there some other possibility for a different station? It just seems to me that having to deal with NY Penn is too much trouble.

Yes, and in fact that is the only real and complete long-term solution. Even with completely rebuilt infrastructure (much more than the current work) and Gateway tunnels, you cannot just continue stuffing more and more trains into Penn Station. But it would take years, and the cost for a new station, tunnels, and other necessary infrastructure would be utterly staggering (dwarfing even Gateway's price tag). Of course, with the lack of infrastructure investment in this country, a proper solution is not going to happen.

 

[west point]

Let us face it. Underground infrastructure is not sexy. It will always be ignored until a crisis happens. Look at the Flint MI water line problems. Even my own city is ignoring a major problem. Only about 5% of population that includes many civil engineers acknowledge the problems.

 

[MARC Rider]

Considering the whole cluster surrounding this, I'm sort-of surprised that Amtrak didn't open up any of the LD trains to bookings NB with a note of "Look, this train is coming from New Orleans/Miami/Chicago and OTP may stink." Axing three Regionals is nothing to sneeze at (even if I incessantly forget which Regionals got cut) and for once I have to presume that they really need the capacity (even if they might need to lock some of the space). Normally I do understand why this isn't done, but this isn't "normally" either.

Back around 1975 I was about to buy a regular unreserved coach ticket from Baltimore to New York and ride one of the equivalents of todays Northeast Regionals. The agent played around with his computer terminal and told me that there was a late train coming up from Florida, and would I mind (for the same price) taking that one which would leave earlier and get me in earlier. i did so, and not only was the train faster, not making as many stops, the room in the coach seats was enormous with incredible legroom (plus the car was half empty), and I had much more luxurious ride than usual.

In 1972 I rode the Southern Crescent from New York to Philadelphia. I think it was still a Southern Railway train at the time, but Amtrak tacked on a few coaches for local travel between New York and Washington. I believe that's the time I rode a Penn Central green P70 heavyweight coach at 100 mph.

When did Amtrak stop selling seats between New York and Washington on the long-distance trains?

 

[PVD]

For a myriad of reasons (most valid), the present Penn Station is not well liked. Things were very different in the 60's, and what was not great but adequate for the traffic patterns of that era quickly fell out of date, and because of the decisions of that time, like siting MSG on top of it, really constrains the ability to make things better without a huge capital expenditure. The Moynihan plan helps with appearance and passenger flow, but without additional tunnel and track/platform capacity you are merely putting lipstick on a pig. I take Amtrak trains out of NYP on a regular basis, and as a NY Rangers ticket holder, take the subway or LIRR and go through fairly often. Certainly no oohs and ahs like looking up in GCT, but considering the volume I think it does a better job than it gets credit for. (I'm talking about the passenger flow perspective, not rail ops)

 

[west point]

PVD does seem to be on the correct track ! The Penn Station crisis can only be solved by constructing the Gateway tunnel bores, Building Penn south station to handle the extra passengers . Once all the Gateway projects are complete ( 2 new bores, present north river tunnel bores repaired, Portal north and Portal south bridges, 4 tracking Newark - NY, Secaucus loop ) Penn south has the potential to allow for double the number of passengers from the south ( NJT and some Amtrak ). How much new station space ? Not defined yet ! Just 8 new tracks and 4 platforms ( much wider ) ? Not enough IMHO.

Penn south needs the tracks and platforms to be at least 18 cars long + 2 locos so maybe two trains can be parked on one station track. The other item is East river tunnel bores 5 &6 need building to allow for Penn south trains to continue to BOS or Sunnyside ( that is on hold until water tunnel #3 is complete in queens and loops to south Manhattan ).

In our opinion MSG has to go to allow for passenger space to be built above present NYPS.

 

[jis]

I think people are a bit confused about the whole Penn South story. There are several parts (not necessarily in chronological order) to the Penn South plan.

Part 1. Penn South Upper level station with six tracks terminating just around 7th Ave. together with connections to the Gateway Tunnels and the original North River Tubes. The connection toe the Gateway Tunnel through the tunnel boxes that have been discussed in this forum elsewhere, at length I might add, actually connect through a bellmouth, one for each tunnel. More on the reason in Part 2. These bell mouths will be near the river bank for later additional construction.

Part 2. Penn South Lower level station, a four track deep station built using TBMs deep below Penn South Upper, this one with four tracks, connecting to the Gateway Tunnels via the bellmouths mentioned in Part 1, and no connections to the original North River Tunnels, together with deep bored tunnel exiting to the east. The exact routing to be determined by NEC Futures plans.

Part 3. Possible eastward tunnel from Penn South Upper to Queens under the East River. This has also been mentioned as something that will be decided later, but the vertical placement of the tracks in Penn South Upper is carefully designed so that such an eastward breakout will not interfere with the 7th Ave and 6th Ave Subway Lines and 6th Ave PATH Station.

There are no water tunnel issues with the breakout from Penn South Upper. It is relatively shallow tunnel at 6th Ave and follows the same contour as the 33rd and 32nd Street eastward exit tunnels from Penn Station. It is just that they would be under 31st St. The water tunnel issue was with an eastward breakout from the ARC terminus station which was designed to be much deeper than the proposed Penn South Upper station. There may be an issue with it with respect to the Penn South Lower station, but the details of it are fuzzy enough to know for sure. In any case that is way out in the future as far as anyone can tell.

It looks like at least the 6 terminating track South extension to Penn Station, making it a 27 platform track station will become reality. The rest of it is stuff that is being designed in, but whether it will be built or not is a separate issue. Penn Station South will be almost exclusively used by NJ Transit according to early operating plans that have been mentioned, and they will not have any direct access from Moynihan concourse. There may be a long tunnel built along the edge of 31st St to connect the M Concourse to the Mezzanine concourse to access those platforms, or it may just be something tacked onto the proposed passageway from the M Concourse to the platforms for tracks 1-4.

 

[west point]

JIS thanks for the Penn south clarifications. However believe Wiki states water tunnel 3 is being routed thru Queens to connect at Manhattan south. Then it will connect to water tunnel 1 which runs the length of Manhattan and will allow for restoration of Water #1 and allow for additional RR tunnel bores under the east river.

 

[jis]

You are most welcome!

That Water tunnel 1 was an issue with extension to the east from the ARC station. If Wiki says that water tunnel 1 has anything to do with Penn Station South it is simply wrong/confused. Actually it was Water Tunnel 1 that was one of the major issues that got ARC killed, among several others, including no connection from the old North River Tubes.

I and several others actually have sat with the gentleman who was in charge of the Gateway Penn South Capital Plan development and gone over the charts and diagrams. Water Tunnels were never an issue with breaking out to the east from Penn South. The big issue was weaving the tunnel among the 6th and 7th Ave Subway tunnels and PATH. Considerations of those actually caused the plan to be modified to place the Penn Station South tracks at alevel several feet lower than tracks 1-4 specially at the east end, so that they could safely pass under the 6th and 7th Ave Subway and PATH as they are extended to the east. That has now been fully addressed in the design and nothing stands in the way of eastbound extension to Queens, should such be decided at some point. Extending to Grand Central OTOH is a completely different kettle of fish and it is pretty difficult to achieve that without causing extreme disruption to the Lexington Avenue Line apparently, so it is unlikely to happen from Penn South Upper at least.