Andy Byford's plan for Penn Station

[jis]

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.

In normal operation no consist is really stabled on the through tracks in NYP. They all pull out to Sunnyside if they are not just turned around and sent on return service. That is also the case on the stub end tracks. The entire argument is whether that can be done in six minutes or not as far as I can tell. That is the whole argument about how to allegedly get increased throughput.

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.

Agreed, this is a separate issue, and it really is a nice to have thing but not essential, since anyone can change trains and complete their journey from one side to the other.

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.

How does the statement about MU cars become inaccurate because a push pull train operated? They were not MU cars, so you claim is fallacious. Of course any train of unpowered cars pulled by an electric locomotive can operate on the NEC line. But that is not what the statement about MU cars was about. Similarly a train of unpowered cars powered by a dual mode ALP45DP could operate almost anywhere provided the PTC system used is compatible with what the locomotive has. There may be a problem operating them on LIRR unless the ATC code incompatibility issue has been fixed.

I think a single pair of lines run through between NJT and LIRR could be run without much additional work and equipment acquisition. It could be a simple overlay of half hourly service over a short segment on both sides, just as a random example Rahway to Jamaica where there are facilities to turn a train without interfering too much with the flow of the rest of the traffic, of course using a push-pull set using dual mode ALP45-DP and see how that goes, before starting to tear up NYP in a $10 Billion reconstruction project, which IMHO in any case should not be started until most major SOGR work is funded and completed on the NEC as currently defined by the NEC Commission.

Even where there is run through, usually all trains do not run through. Many trains terminate at terminals on both sides of the CBD. In Paris even though RER-B runs through does not mean significant Banlieu service does not terminate in Gare du Nord. Likewise RER-C and Austerlitz and Montparnasse, and RER-D at Gare du Nord and Gare de Leon. etc. In London, just because there is Thameslink, does not mean suburban trains in large numbers do not terminate at London Bridge and Kings Cross. Or for that matter even after the completion of the Elizabeth Line significant number of Suburban Service still terminate at Paddington and Liverpool Street. So this run through is not a cut and dried either all of it or none of it thing either.

 

[jamoldover]

How does the statement about MU cars become inaccurate because a push pull train operated? They were not MU cars, so you claim is fallacious. Of course any train of unpowered cars pulled by an electric locomotive can operate on the NEC line. But that is not what the statement about MU cars was about. Similarly a train of unpowered cars powered by a dual mode ALP45DP could operate almost anywhere provided the PTC system used is compatible with what the locomotive has. There may be a problem operating them on LIRR unless the ATC code incompatibility issue has been fixed.

The statement was "Neither railroad has a single MU car OR locomotive that can operate on each other's system and none are planned" (emphasis mine). My response was not "there are MU cars that will work". My response was that a claim that there was no compatible equipment of any kind was an incorrect statement. Push-pull implies at the very least a locomotive.

 

[PVD]

Labor agreements would be a joy to work out. Qualifications as well.

 

[Amtrak25]

Labor agreements would be a joy to work out. Qualifications as well.

As it is, NJT is divided into two divisions: the former Erie Lackawanna (who can enter the Newark Division east of Kearny) and all else. They would change crews in any case. But I doubt Nothink has given that much thought, as much as they don't have a clue how complicated and congested Harold interlocking is judging by their silly Vignelli schematic style map of the area, which they would thoughtlessly exacerbate, thinking this can be run just like the subway, and they have said as much. PTC prep takes 10 minutes and that is in LIRR contracts, maybe other railroads. So again Nothink strikes out with 5 minutes dwell time in one direction, 6 minutes in the other. Now their whole calculus of capacity claims to replace NYPS-South starts to collapse.

Even at Amtrak, Empire Corridor crews do not go east of Penn Station. NY Division crews deadhead the equipment to Sunnyside and back even though this has been a thing since 1991.

 

[cirdan]

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.

The Great Western main line was not electrified at all when the project for the Elizabeth line first began (with the exception of the Heathrow Express service, which was a bit of a standalone thing, and all the rest was diesel). The subsequent electrification of virtually all suburban and intercity services out of Paddington was coordinated with the Elizabeth Line project, even if these jobs were packaged as nominally separate and unconnected endeavors. So yes, this project did involve rethinking the railway on a huge scale. Which is something that very rarely happens in the UK, and is thus worthy of a lot of kudos.

In another part of London, two previously incompatible electrification systems and networks were previously connected when the abandoned Snow Hill Tunnel was reopened in 1990 (this line had been closed to passengers during WW1, but continued to see freight usage for several decades, with the tracks finally being taken out in the 1970s). The reopened line permitted thru running between the commuter lines north and south of the capital, for which dual voltage trains had to be specially commissioned. The lines in the north used 25kV from overhead lines whereas those to the South used 750V from third rail (and I believe at that time even 600V in places). This project was much cheaper than the Elizabeth line as it could largely re-use pre-existing infrastructure (although some heavy rebuilds were carried out at some of the stations, including realignments of the ROW and building new platforms as well as turning dead end platforms into thru platforms). It did serve as a demonstration of the utility of a cross city connection and thus served as a model or proof of concept for what later became the Elizabeth Line.

 

[jis]

The key in the success of both Thameslink and Elizabeth Line is that the entire system was rethought and train patterns were drastically changed, e.g. for Thameslink all the way out to Brighton in the south and Bedford, Cambridge and Kings Lynn and such in the north to make effective use of the link. Similarly signifcant pieces of Suburban service were gobbled up by Elizabeth Line stretching from Reading in the West to Shenfield in the East.

In New York the current problem is not really one involving digging new tunnels and stations though that would no doubt help, but creating an administrative structure that would allow the sort of coordinated redoing of suburban service out in NJ and LI. A lot can already be done to introduce meaningful subset of service involved in through running and the rest remaining as is.

Afterall Penn Station at present is mostly a through running station except track 1-4. The thing is through run suburban trains go to Sunnyside Yard and John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard, and not to other destinations. Currently it is primarily a problem of political will and organizational setup which if dealt with would create the environment for ordering appropriate equipment. Unless the socio-political problem is handled the rest won't happen.

This whole business of tens of billions of dollar project to tear down the track structure in Penn Station to replace it with fewer tracks and wider platforms, something that will take decades to achieve as it will have to be done with trains operating through the station throughout the construction period, is theoretically good, but practically a distraction which should not be funded while large chunks of SOGR issues in NEC as itemized by the NEC Commission remain unaddressed.

I think a better way to do clean through running is to create a deeper 4 or 6 track station just for through running suburban service and let Penn Station be as it is. This is the approach taken by for example the Elizabeth Line at Paddington and Liverpool Street, or the RER system in Paris at Gare du Nord, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'le Est, Gare Austerlitz etc. Again, all that after the SOGR issue on NEC are fixed. It really is a nicety more than an immediate necessity.

 

[west point]

In normal operation no consist is really stabled on the through tracks in NYP. They all pull out to Sunnyside if they are not just turned around and sent on return service. That is also the case on the stub end tracks. The entire argument is whether that can be done in six minutes or not as far as I can tell. That is the whole argument about how to allegedly get increased throughput.

I always observed NJT operations at NYPin the afternoon. As inbound would most often arrive tracks 1 - 4, A quick discharge of the few passengers then announced train #xxxx to yyy load and go . 10 - 15 total time.

 

[Amtrak25]

On weekends, there are 5 NJT trains per hour, fleeted eastbound in 23 minutes, then all westbound. Four arrive on tracks 1 thru 4, a 5th, generally an NEC one, is a random draw to tracks 9 thru 15.

I like the latter, as I can walk out the eastern end onto the LIRR concourse if track 13 and up and grab a LIRR train in 2 minutes.

Currently Track 2 does not exist, being rebuilt from the ground up.

 

[nferr]

Both NJT and the LIRR are commuter rail lines. I really don't thinks there's a massive need to have them run from LI into NJ and vice versa. Especially since they both end at the same station NYP. It's not that hard to switch trains there. Same goes for Metro North which is soon to run some trains into NYP from Connecticut. If I'm traveling past NYC from Connecticut I'm taking Amtrak.

 

[MARC Rider]

Both NJT and the LIRR are commuter rail lines. I really don't thinks there's a massive need to have them run from LI into NJ and vice versa. Especially since they both end at the same station NYP. It's not that hard to switch trains there. Same goes for Metro North which is soon to run some trains into NYP from Connecticut. If I'm traveling past NYC from Connecticut I'm taking Amtrak.

I would tend to agree with this. However much of annoyance the current setup on the trains is, driving fom New Jersey to Long Island is orders of magnitude worse. Thus I imagine that there aren't a whole lot of people who regularly travel between New Jersey and Long Island.

 

[jamoldover]

I think the point of a regional system with through-running is that it allows people who might not be willing to drive across the city to be able to live on one side of it and work on the other without increasing the amount of traffic on the roads or requiring them to have access to a reliable car.

 

[Amtrak25]

Rethink's point is to pretend LIRR and NJT can be run like a 3-boro subway line increasing thru-put to avoid building Penn Station South. In their little minds, Penn Station should be like W4th Street or Dekalb Avenue. I don't think they much care about someone's ability to take a single seat ride from Metuchen to Massapequa. That is a selling point as they have also said of travel between Murray Hill (NJ) and Murray Hill (Queens). It is to bamboozle the masses to win them over.

As much as they don't propose changing so much as a crosstie east of 7th Avenue, which would be the case if Gateway were actually a Regional Rail plan like Crossrail, and even that is not comprehensive of everything at Paddington and Liverpool St, which they don't understand either, they haven't done any NJ/LI O&D analysis.

They are simply NIMBYs, masquerading as Planners. They opposed ripping down the Hotel Pennsylvania dump, a battle they lost, and they lament the destruction of the abandoned Pennsy power house on Block 780, which they worship as the last remnant of the original Penn Station. They regard Moynihan Concourse as wonderful urban repurposing, yet don't mind at all having Amtrak passengers shlep to west of 8th Avenue, farther away from subway lines, NJT, and LIRR tracks 17 to 21, to a concourse with very limited seating that disproportionately loads the west end of trains.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

https://pennstationcomplex.info/penn-capacity-expansion/
Penn Station needs a larger footprint if is going to double its capacity. That has been the headline from the report this week by the official Station Advisory Group. The 19-page Exec Summary sums it up well enough, since there's not much plowing through endless pages of process and obscure mandates like in environmental reports. Also no real criticism of the sponsors, Amtrak, MTA and NJT. (I'm forever hopeful about those people, and even the PANYNJ. The last project at Penn, the LIRR concourse, was "on-time and on-budget," according to Gov. Hochul.)

They just let it rip, which doesn't mean it's right, but it's clear and easy to read and informative. It lays out four alternatives without more footprint, and they all fail.

1. Sneaking a second level of tracks under the current level. They call this "underpinning" and confusingly call it "single-level." OK, it's clear besides that! Adds 14tph.
2. Boring caverns to create a better second level of tracks. They call this "mined" and "single-level." Adds 20tph.
3. Through-running and platform reconfig, the max version. Adds 24tph, the goal, but it degrades commuter rail capacity. I guess this is no-level, and they certainly don't like it.
4. Through-running and platform reconfig, the min version. Adds 16tph, degrades commuter rail capacity.

That's it for "Penn Station Capacity Expansion" for now. The Station Advisory Group's other current project is called "Penn Station Reconstruction." No report yet. The MTA gets huffy about planning work at this level of the station, and did not share its engineering drawings of the existing station with the firms that released a competing plan. On the whole it was similar, leave Madison Square Garden on top.

 

[jamoldover]

The engineering drawings (see Appendix A) for adding a second level of track underneath Penn Station are revealing - they create a stub-end 10-track terminal that would only be used by NJT. Of course that's not going to get to the number of trains/hour they want to have.

If they're going to go to the trouble of digging out a new level for track underneath the existing one, they should at least look at the possibility of connecting it up to Sunnyside Yard as well. Otherwise they're deliberately handicapping the effort.

Let's face it - if you're planning on spending millions or billions of dollars to do this, let's start by completing the full original Penn Station track design with the third pair of East River tunnels and eliminate stub-end operations on tracks 1-4.

 

[jis]

The engineering drawings (see Appendix A) for adding a second level of track underneath Penn Station are revealing - they create a stub-end 10-track terminal that would only be used by NJT. Of course that's not going to get to the number of trains/hour they want to have.

If they're going to go to the trouble of digging out a new level for track underneath the existing one, they should at least look at the possibility of connecting it up to Sunnyside Yard as well. Otherwise they're deliberately handicapping the effort.

From the studies done culminating in the Macy's Basement plan of NJT we already know that you cannot dig under Penn Station due to what they called "Incompetent rock structures". Until that discovery, the original ARC Plan P was to do exactly that, and it was abandoned due to geological infeasibillity caused by a broken rock structure associated with a minor underground fault.

 

[jamoldover]

That may well be the case - but it's irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. If you're going to spend billions of dollars doing this (no matter how it gets done), you shouldn't pretend to consider an alternative that's been deliberately handicapped to make it fail to meet the requirements.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

The report says they don't want any of the four options. They are trying to prove the only way to get another 24tph and maintain commuter capacity is to expand the footprint. Recently that has meant the block south of Madison Square Garden. Does NJT still have the most crowded trains? A naive solution would be to have the PANYNJ build this bistate enterprise! (Penn Station South, that is.)

 

[Amtrak25]

The engineering drawings (see Appendix A) for adding a second level of track underneath Penn Station are revealing - they create a stub-end 10-track terminal that would only be used by NJT. Of course that's not going to get to the number of trains/hour they want to have.

If they're going to go to the trouble of digging out a new level for track underneath the existing one, they should at least look at the possibility of connecting it up to Sunnyside Yard as well. Otherwise they're deliberately handicapping the effort.

Let's face it - if you're planning on spending millions or billions of dollars to do this, let's start by completing the full original Penn Station track design with the third pair of East River tunnels and eliminate stub-end operations on tracks 1-4.

Penn Station South Plan I believe now is 9 stub tracks and it would add 18 trains per hour. It would work like LIRR Grand Central Madison, which is accompanied by Midday Storage Yard in LIC, adjacent to Sunnyside Yard, though does not touch it, and getting to it bypasses Harold Interlocking, which has its own tunnel portals. A "Boonton Yard" in the Meadowlands likewise would be used for NJT. Sunnyside Yard can no longer be expanded for a variety of reasons.

As for extending stub tracks 1 thru 4 to Queens, according to an e-mail I have from one of Amtrak's civil engineers who designed Gateway, even though that was the 1910 plan, that easement was relinquished in 1933 by 11 Penn Plaza. Forget it.

The only way to get east of 6th Avenue now is to not only to build Penn Station South, but a lower level to it. NYCTA IND 6th Avenue express tracks, built in the 1930's, are in the way and they have to dive under them and at a grade nowhere near 3.5%. Otherwise Penn South has to be 12' deeper, and that would end its inter-operability with legacy tunnels and Penn Station. It would also be very difficult to find a path from them once in Queens given LIRR East Side Access.

Those who complain the most about Penn South costing $17 Billion never mention that the new PABT (bus terminal) will cost $15 Billion and will not increase capacity since it will not do anything about the I-495 bottlenecks in Weehawken, though they plan on building a parking deck in Manhattan for 500 buses. About 1,800 come in each AM rush hour.

 

[jis]

That may well be the case - but it's irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. If you're going to spend billions of dollars doing this (no matter how it gets done), you shouldn't pretend to consider an alternative that's been deliberately handicapped to make it fail to meet the requirements.

That has to do with the required analysis which involves having a bunch of alternatives including a "No Build" one and then systematically rejecting all except the one that you want. Starting with handicapped alternatives makes that easier I suppose.

In case of any Penn Station expansion plan, almost any alternative is handicapped in some way or the other. The thing that has to be done is to find the least handicapped alternative. In their case, if expanding the footprint is what they are looking for, then they have to make a convincing case that (a) They have taken into consideration all plausible, or at least most of the most plausible alternatives into consideration and that (b) All the rejected alternatives are all more handicapped than the chosen one. Ergo ....

To change this one will need to plow through multiple legislation and sets of resulting regulations governed by EPA, FRA and other alphabet soup. I think time is better spent to game the existing system to ones advantage than to try to fix it, that is one is interested in getting anything done in as timely a manner as possible. There used to be a time when I was an idealist, but alas after arm wrestling this stuff for decades now I have been beaten into being a pragmatist and just get things done ASAP.

Trains has an interesting article on the subject...

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-rev...-expansion-will-be-required-to-handle-growth/

Interestingly, this latest round of Penn Station design contains surprisingly little of anything that was not already in the ARC MIS document 50 years back! Those guys must have been quite brilliant back then to have covered all bases in that document.

 

[eldomtom2]

That the report writes absolute nonsense about Thameslink is not a good sign!

 

[Amtrak25]

If anything, Thameslink proves the need for Penn Station South because Thameslink has its own King Cross station alongside the ancient stub end one. There was no BS about widening its platforms by cappng over tracks that would magically increase capacity and whining about political feifdoms. Thameslink also used the abandoned Snow Hill tunnel that hadn't seen a passenger train since WWI nor a freight train since the 1970's. Manhattan does not have the luxury of an abandoned tunnel to repurpose.

 

[eldomtom2]

If anything, Thameslink proves the need for Penn Station South because Thameslink has its own King Cross station alongside the ancient stub end one.

Thameslink no longer has a King's Cross station and when it opened no new platforms were constructed for it.

 

[BlackDiamond]

This comparison with Thameslink in London seems to me to be a bit of a red herring. Thameslink was a new service that was routed through the city center by cobbling together bits of existing unused infrastructure such as the Snow Hill tunnel and the Metropolitan's City Widened Lines right of way. There is no such equivalent in NYC that could be used.

 

[Amtrak25]

This comparison with Thameslink in London seems to me to be a bit of a red herring. Thameslink was a new service that was routed through the city center by cobbling together bits of existing unused infrastructure such as the Snow Hill tunnel and the Metropolitan's City Widened Lines right of way. There is no such equivalent in NYC that could be used.

Of course, you'e right. But that is what thru running fans do (Rethink, TSTC) - deflect attention away from here to Europe. Many a times I have brought up, such as to Liam Blank at Tri-State lately on Linked In (he must have thought that was a safe space from criticism) how it would be done here. I wrote my 1,250 words of operational, equipment, capacity, slot ownership issues - but he responds only with more hypothotheses word salad and European examples, but as for my points - crickets.

What Mr Blank also brought up is a plan to extend some MARC diesel trains to Virginia. He immediately thought that meant universal through running of both systems with each other, and "forgot" to mention the expansion that would have to happen on the Virginia side. Nonetheless, he said, if that can happen there, LIRR and NJT can do it here, all that blocks it are bureaucracy, politics, and feifdoms. I have read elsewhere he wants to relay all the tracks in NYPS and have 30MPH switches so that trains can zip in and out (like CTA "L" cars ?) with just a few minutes dwell time. How do we handle PTC reset of 10 minutes minimum, late running, cancelled trains, tri-voltage equipment that does not exist and LIRR could never run on half their electric system (Grand Central Madison and Brooklyn) - not a clue.

Request a "3rd party review" is the latest response from Rethink's Sam Turvey after they were told by both MTA and later on by Amtrak to go pound sand and lack any grasp of reality. MTA was more brusk about it. IOW, Rethink doesn' t have a clue, so go consultant shopping until they get the answer they want. They are Chelsea area NIMBY's posing as professional planners. Who might the 3rd party be ? FRA ? They'll defer to Amtrak. Parsons ? They like to build things, like new stations and infrastucture. Neither will pretend that NJT/LIRR can be jointly run like a subway and Penn Station can be just like West 4th Street or Dekalb Avenue.

They love to quote Andy Byford, and his goofy, off the record You Tube interview in July 2023 about it. The fact is, "Train Daddy" has zero experience with NYPS, LIRR, and NJT, and we have not heard a peep since. No doubt Amtrak told him to shut his yap about our plans, you had nothing to do with them, and focus on your day job. Given the 4 year rollout of Avelia, he doesn't seem to be doing a great job at that and there have been no "You Tube" interviews.

 

[jis]

If anything, Thameslink proves the need for Penn Station South because Thameslink has its own King Cross station alongside the ancient stub end one. There was no BS about widening its platforms by cappng over tracks that would magically increase capacity and whining about political feifdoms. Thameslink also used the abandoned Snow Hill tunnel that hadn't seen a passenger train since WWI nor a freight train since the 1970's. Manhattan does not have the luxury of an abandoned tunnel to repurpose.

Thameslink no longer has a King's Cross station and when it opened no new platforms were constructed for it.

Thameslink has St. Pancras International instead. The point that @Amtrak25 was making still stands. Thameslink at its north end serve both the lines emanating from Kings Cross and St. Pancras, which both continue as terminal stations for suburban service while Thaneslink adds an additional layer of crosstown service. This is very different from what the dreamers of crosstown impractical ideas of reorganization of Penn Station try to sell consisting of "everything" running through..

So today there is both Kings Cross - Cambridge Express, and Brighton - Cambridge/Cambridge North Thameslink service. The terminal function of Kings Cross did not disappear just because Thameslink was built. Similar is true for St. Pancras, and to boot they added the London to Southeast of England high speed suburban service terminating at St. Pancras while they were at it. Admittedly it would have been kind of silly to try to stuff it into Snow hill Tunnel, which besides being an engineering impossibility, would have also served little purpose, if any to justify the enormous cost.

Bottom line is trying to equate Thameslink with the Penn Station run through is a bit of a stretch and does not help make any real point. They really should have picked something like Berlin Hauptbahnhof instead and would have been closer to the mark.

Interestingly, not all stations with all platforms equipped with through running tracks actually host significant amount of through running traffic. Case in point New Delhi in Delhi, India. All platform tracks can be used for through running but only about 15% of the actual trains run through. Most trains terminate there. Also most of the terminal station is Paris that are also served by RER, e.g. Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare Austerlitz. All have terminating service and in addition through running RER service using different sets of platforms.