Gateway Project/New York Penn Station capacity improvement

[B&Ofan]

Looks like if they put in the connection from the Empire tunnel to the ladder track that would help out for the East river tunnel project.

 

[Amtrak25]

I think the East River tunnel project served as a convenient excuse "don't let a crisis go to waste" for NY DOT agreeing to cut service 23%.

 

[Amtrak25]

Looks like if they put in the connection from the Empire tunnel to the ladder track that would help out for the East river tunnel project.

Ladder track is a doube-edged sword. While it looks like they would able to run an Empire and Gateway tunnel trains as far north as Track 18, doing so would block almost the entire station in and out from the west.

 

[zephyr17]

Ladder track is a doube-edged sword. While it looks like they would able to run an Empire and Gateway tunnel trains as far north as Track 18, doing so would block almost the entire station in and out from the west.

Pretty much agree with that as a matter of routine operation. However, I think building the capability into the plant to be able to do it if they have to is wise, just for the sake of flexibility. If some platform tracks/leads go OOS temporarily, which has been known to happen at Penn, having that accesd might well mean the difference between cancelling a train or being able to run it.