Three Rivers Appreciation Thread

[railiner]

Lots of good recalls in these posts!

Back in the PRR era, most New York to the west through trains took the "subway" route with the exception of the last departure--The Pennsylvania Limited, which did run backwards from New York to 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, and then continue onward to Chicago.

I don't even know if the bypass at Zoo Tower is even there anymore, it certainly hasn't been used by any regular passenger trains since the last New York to Harrisburg (was it called the Valley Forge?) train used it years ago.

Anyway, I like the idea of a revived train--call it the Broadway if you will, or whatever, running NYP PHL HAR ALT PGH CLE TOL SOB CHI. And yes, for operational convenience run it backwards from NYP to PHL. New York is too big a market to ignore and leave to its Lakeshore only.

 

[sueb]

Yes, but was it like that back in the '70's?

Yes, pretty much. I rode the Broadway Limited to CHI as a graduate student and got on the train at PHN. Felt scary the whole time.

 

[DowneasterPassenger]

Lots of good recalls in these posts!Back in the PRR era, most New York to the west through trains took the "subway" route with the exception of the last departure--The Pennsylvania Limited, which did run backwards from New York to 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, and then continue onward to Chicago.

Why is it called the "subway" route?

 

[DowneasterPassenger]

I recall reading somewhere that PRR once had plans to build a big loop at PHL around where University City is now, so that NYP-CHI trains could stop in PHL without reversing.

 

[delvyrails]

I have no pipeline to Amtrak management's thinking of the moment, but I am familiar with transportation cost structure, having done a lot of study in the past of SEPTA's commuter rail cost model. One of the biggest cost centers in any passenger rail system is the amount of equipment needed, in terms of both capital and operating costs.

It is most desirable to operate an East Coast-Midwest train with just two equipment sets, instead of the three that the Capitol Limited uses. Avoid the two hour run up to New York's Penn Station and Sunnyside Yard with its many inefficiency problems. Without that requirement, a train can be turned at Philadelphia in about seven hours, a little less in Chicago. The average westbound/eastbound run is about 17-1/3 hours between Philadelphia and Chicago, making Philly the closest city in travel time between the four big East Coast cities and Chicago. Amtrak needs to keep its trains in motion doing diferent things without duplication to make money.

So I think this is the wiser alternative, although I will agree that recent history seems to show that New York City has the economic/political clout to get what it wants, which often is more than it deserves!

 

[jis]

It is most desirable to operate an East Coast-Midwest train with just two equipment sets, instead of the three that the Capitol Limited uses. Avoid the two hour run up to New York's Penn Station and Sunnyside Yard with its many inefficiency problems.

Capitol Limited runs upto New York? :unsure:

 

[Jersey Jeff]

I can't say that I remember the Three Rivers "fondly" as indicated by my last trip on that train.

I rode from NJ to Pgh frequently in the 1990s and later, and I recall the Pennsy and Three Rivers stopping in Metropark, New Brunswick or Princeton Junction. Now the Pennsy only serves NWK and TRE in the Garden State.

 

[jis]

I rode from NJ to Pgh frequently in the 1990s and later, and I recall the Pennsy and Three Rivers stopping in Metropark, New Brunswick or Princeton Junction. Now the Pennsy only serves NWK and TRE in the Garden State.

As a matter of fact Pennsy and a preponderance of all Keystone Service trains only serve NWK and TRE in NJ.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I have no pipeline to Amtrak management's thinking of the moment, but I am familiar with transportation cost structure, having done a lot of study in the past of SEPTA's commuter rail cost model. One of the biggest cost centers in any passenger rail system is the amount of equipment needed, in terms of both capital and operating costs.
It is most desirable to operate an East Coast-Midwest train with just two equipment sets, instead of the three that the Capitol Limited uses. Avoid the two hour run up to New York's Penn Station and Sunnyside Yard with its many inefficiency problems. Without that requirement, a train can be turned at Philadelphia in about seven hours, a little less in Chicago. The average westbound/eastbound run is about 17-1/3 hours between Philadelphia and Chicago, making Philly the closest city in travel time between the four big East Coast cities and Chicago. Amtrak needs to keep its trains in motion doing diferent things without duplication to make money.

So I think this is the wiser alternative, although I will agree that recent history seems to show that New York City has the economic/political clout to get what it wants, which often is more than it deserves!

Your information on Septa cost modeling is based on a system doing short runs with more equipment then it needs. Amtrak over-runs its equipment by way too much as it is. You need three sets even to go just PHL-CHI. Plus the whole single-seat ride concept.

Septa trains run slow, they run sets with not much stress, and they are low-complexity trains (hell, they don't even have freakin' bathrooms!) Amtrak trains will do 110 mph NYP to Harrisburg. They are complex, and they will be bouncing over trains that really aren't ideal for passenger trains for about 18 hours each way. They need rest, time to cool down, to be carefully cleaned and maintained, to have problems fixed.

 

[railiner]

Lots of good recalls in these posts!Back in the PRR era, most New York to the west through trains took the "subway" route with the exception of the last departure--The Pennsylvania Limited, which did run backwards from New York to 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, and then continue onward to Chicago.

Why is it called the "subway" route?

It was a slang term for the underpass the trains negotiated at Zoo Tower especially on eastward trips. It was typical of PRR's famous heavy engineering to make grade-separated crossings of busy junctions to make them faster and safer. It was the "New York and Pittsburgh subway", as that was the primary user of that route.

 

[railiner]

I have no pipeline to Amtrak management's thinking of the moment, but I am familiar with transportation cost structure, having done a lot of study in the past of SEPTA's commuter rail cost model. One of the biggest cost centers in any passenger rail system is the amount of equipment needed, in terms of both capital and operating costs.
It is most desirable to operate an East Coast-Midwest train with just two equipment sets, instead of the three that the Capitol Limited uses. Avoid the two hour run up to New York's Penn Station and Sunnyside Yard with its many inefficiency problems. Without that requirement, a train can be turned at Philadelphia in about seven hours, a little less in Chicago. The average westbound/eastbound run is about 17-1/3 hours between Philadelphia and Chicago, making Philly the closest city in travel time between the four big East Coast cities and Chicago. Amtrak needs to keep its trains in motion doing diferent things without duplication to make money.

So I think this is the wiser alternative, although I will agree that recent history seems to show that New York City has the economic/political clout to get what it wants, which often is more than it deserves!

We will have to disagree on your last point, other than New York has the "economic clout" simply because that is where people are travelling to and from.

We could use your other point about "short-turning" a train to say cut the through trains from Florida and the Crescent at WAS. Sure, that would perhaps save a trainset, but at what cost? Passengers want a one seat (or bed) ride, and changing trains at WAS would not help boost ridership.

I like the way they are run at present. In case of extreme delays, Amtrak always has the option to turn a train at WAS if necessary.

 

[delvyrails]

I have no pipeline to Amtrak management's thinking of the moment, but I am familiar with transportation cost structure, having done a lot of study in the past of SEPTA's commuter rail cost model. One of the biggest cost centers in any passenger rail system is the amount of equipment needed, in terms of both capital and operating costs.
It is most desirable to operate an East Coast-Midwest train with just two equipment sets, instead of the three that the Capitol Limited uses. Avoid the two hour run up to New York's Penn Station and Sunnyside Yard with its many inefficiency problems. Without that requirement, a train can be turned at Philadelphia in about seven hours, a little less in Chicago. The average westbound/eastbound run is about 17-1/3 hours between Philadelphia and Chicago, making Philly the closest city in travel time between the four big East Coast cities and Chicago. Amtrak needs to keep its trains in motion doing diferent things without duplication to make money.

So I think this is the wiser alternative, although I will agree that recent history seems to show that New York City has the economic/political clout to get what it wants, which often is more than it deserves!

We will have to disagree on your last point, other than New York has the "economic clout" simply because that is where people are travelling to and from.

We could use your other point about "short-turning" a train to say cut the through trains from Florida and the Crescent at WAS. Sure, that would perhaps save a trainset, but at what cost? Passengers want a one seat (or bed) ride, and changing trains at WAS would not help boost ridership.

I like the way they are run at present. In case of extreme delays, Amtrak always has the option to turn a train at WAS if necessary.

1. Don't ascribe to me the idea of "short turning" the Crescent and Silver Service trains at Washington. That's your idea, not mine.

2. A Philadelphia-Chicago train certainly could be run with two equipment sets if the proper scheduling is chosen. A one-night-out train on a 17:20 average run would be turned in 6:40. Look what turnarounds Amtrak does at Seattle and Portland with the two-nights-out Empire Builder: 6:15 and 6:35.

3. In theory, the Capitol could also be run with two sets, but that train has a longer run time and has connections to protect at both ends of its route.

4. Amtrak can't make money while its trains sit still. This two-set Philly-Chicago plan runs each set 834 miles per day per set, better utilization than that of most Amtrak trains.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

2. A Philadelphia-Chicago train certainly could be run with two equipment sets if the proper scheduling is chosen. A one-night-out train on a 17:20 average run would be turned in 6:40. Look what turnarounds Amtrak does at Seattle and Portland with the two-nights-out Empire Builder: 6:15 and 6:35.

You can turn that equipment that fast for one end of its turn, but not both. It needs to be thoroughly maintained on one end of its trip. You need three sets of equipment for this train. Period. Besides, setting up a base for maintaining LD equipment in Philly is nuts too. Any money they saved would be blown on mechanical at Philly.

 

[rile42]

I fondly recall the original PRR Broadway Limited, one of my favorites. Even the Penn Central took better care of it then the rest of their trains.When Amtrak started, they quickly assembled some of their best inherited equipment, and refurbished them for The Broadway. It's first schedule on Amtrak was a still respectable 17 hours, departing NYP 4:55 PM and arriving CHI at 9:00 AM. It ran from New York via the "New York and Pittsburgh Subway" by Zoo Tower, and stopped at PHN to serve Philadelphia. It ran with its splendid GG1's from New York all the way to Harrisburg, changing there to E8's or E9's, and also picked up cars coming up from WAS.

I would love to see Amtrak bring back the Broadway, running NYP-PGH-CLE-CHI, with limited intermediate stops to expedite the schedule.

NO WAY can a train serve Phila using PHN (aka North Philadelphia Station). It is in a horrible neighborhood and you feel like you are in an "after the bomb" movie standing on the platform watching the commuter trains wiz by (most don't stop at PHN). I've been there within the last year and I know whereof I speak. That's what happens if you sleep past 30th St on the Keystone in the morning.

As a kid in the 50's and early 60's my family would take a subway up to PHN from Market St. to catch either the Clevelander or the Penn Texas to Ohio to visit grandparents. I recall the station was kind of nice back then. There was a decent bar off to the side of the ticket places and the platforms were always packed with passengers. Neither of those trains went through 30th St..

 

[battalion51]

2. A Philadelphia-Chicago train certainly could be run with two equipment sets if the proper scheduling is chosen. A one-night-out train on a 17:20 average run would be turned in 6:40. Look what turnarounds Amtrak does at Seattle and Portland with the two-nights-out Empire Builder: 6:15 and 6:35.

You can turn that equipment that fast for one end of its turn, but not both. It needs to be thoroughly maintained on one end of its trip. You need three sets of equipment for this train. Period. Besides, setting up a base for maintaining LD equipment in Philly is nuts too. Any money they saved would be blown on mechanical at Philly.

Is it possible to fast turn equipment on a daily basis? Absolutely. The prime example is Auto Train with a 9:30 arrival and a 4:00 departure. If you look at turn time until boarding it's even shorter. However, when you are constantly tight turning a train one of two things needs to be in place. Either you need to have a large depth of equipment to be able to switch out cars on a regular basis for maintenance needs (as GML said, and they have this available in Sanford) or you need to have a longer turn on the other end, which the EB has. delvy's plan has the depth of equipment in Chicago, but you can't make quick switches in Chicago like the boys in Sanford can. The only alternative that makes short turns feasible is if you rotate the sets with another train that will have a longer turn. So in theory, you could short turn a set at Philly and then flip it around for the Cardinal or LSL (depending on how big the consist is) and then it would have a long turn when it got into New York.

Also GML, don't forget Philly has a very deep Mechanical base. They maintain a decent number of motors there, do work on the Keystone sets, and on Acela sets.

 

[jis]

Does Philly have a Commissary anymore? If so, for serving what train(s)?

 

[battalion51]

That might be the one thing Philly lacks these days since the Keystones don't have Food Service cars. In theory you should be able to stock the train for the round trip out of Chicago. You'd have a total of four meal periods on the round trip, which is what the Silver Trains are stocked for, so it seems to be feasible to do the same with this proposed service we're dreaming up.

 

[jis]

I was chatting with a guy from the mechanical department of Eastern Railway in India who is familiar with the handling of the rakes (as consists are called in India) for the fast overnight trains (Rajdhani Express) between Delhi and Calcutta, which are maintained out of Howrah and Sealdah base in Calcutta. These trains take 16 to 17 hours as per schedule for the 905 mile journey. A rake goes out on day 1 and arrives Delhi in the morning of day 2 and starts back evening of day 2 arriving back in Howrah on day 3 morning. Each rake is 19 cars (2 End on Genrator/brake, 2 ACI Sleeper, 2 Pantry, 5 AC2 Sleeper, 8 AC3 Sleeper capacity about 950 all sleeping accommodation).

If the train arrives late in Delhi making it impossible to meet the scheduled departure, it is turned around ASAP, which usually means 3 hours and sent back on its way. This includes cleaning and re-stocking for the 950 or so passengers, but usually very little mechanical work unless absolutely required. They are basically run as if they were on an 1800 mile two night journey as far as mechanical maintenance is concerned.

Theoretically this could be run using two rakes (consists). But according to this guy experience shows that the wear and tear both mechanical and to passenger amenities through the 17 hour journey is such that it is more reliable to use 3 rakes and as necessary rotate out an arriving rake and replace it with the third rake. This becomes even more critical in the winter when due to fog it is not unusual for the return to arrive 12 to 14 hours late. That at least answered my question on how they manage to run the daily service even in the face of these huge fog delays in the winter with no cancellations almost ever.

So all in all whether such a service can be run with two rakes (consists) or not depends on the operating conditions, dependability requirements, wear and tear and requisite necessary downtime for repairs and maintenance and other factors like weather etc. It does not follow that because SEPTA can turn a train around therefore Amtrak should be able to, or that because it could be done 50 years back it can be done now. One has to look at the overall operating conditions at present and plan accordingly.

Of course the example that I gave above is operated in an environment where people absolutely critically depend on those trains running for their day to day livelihood and business. Those trains are heavily used by both government and business personnel as part of their day to day business, so just canceling them is not an option. These are so called class 1 priority trains which continue running until literally hell freezes over.

Also, the equipment pool to draw from is large. Just to give you a sense they are effectively handling 6 rakes (2 trains per day each way to Delhi and back from Howrah and Sealdah the two main stations of Calcutta) of on an average 18 cars (6x18 = 108 cars + few additional standby cars making the total pool about 120 cars) of which at any time at least 4 rakes are on the road). Cars that would go into forming the third rake may be running around somewhere else (though unusual), but scheduled to be back in town should they be needed. In times of known trouble like winter, they add equipment to the pool to actually keep a third rake available since they know they will need it on most days.

OK now back to the originally scheduled program, and the usual expected few snide remarks about toilets on Indian trains

 

[battalion51]

Good example jis. Is it possible to do it with two, yes. But can it get ugly if things start rolling down hill and you don't have a back up option, definitely. Look at what happens anytime the Auto Train gets catastrophically late, inevitably there's always a day where one, if not both trips are annulled so that the sets can get back into an on time rotation.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Also GML, don't forget Philly has a very deep Mechanical base. They maintain a decent number of motors there, do work on the Keystone sets, and on Acela sets.

Correction: Philly HAD a deep mechanical base. The do basic work on P42s and Amfleet I coaches. But the truth of the matter is, Albany is more equipped to deal with running a daily train to Chicago than Philly is.

Philly has no commisary, they have no mechanical teams capable of handling Amfleet food service cars, Viewliner anything, or Heritage anything (a moot point, I admit). Equipping them to handle this stuff is silly. Actually, I expect that a resurrected Broadway Limited would kill Philly Mechanical, as it has before, and move it to Harrisburg, where it bloody well belongs.

 

[jis]

Philly has no commisary, they have no mechanical teams capable of handling Amfleet food service cars, Viewliner anything, or Heritage anything (a moot point, I admit). Equipping them to handle this stuff is silly. Actually, I expect that a resurrected Broadway Limited would kill Philly Mechanical, as it has before, and move it to Harrisburg, where it bloody well belongs.

I tend to agree with GML. There are very few trains that originate/terminate at Philly anymore and they are basic Keystone trains. So there is very little reason to keep a maintenance base except for doing minor patchups between short runs on Keystones.

It has been interesting to watch Philly get downgraded step by step, to a point where there is very little going on at Race. And now with the CETC moving to Wilmington, another big thing will not be in Philly anymore.

 

[battalion51]

In all reality though you don't need deep mechanical in Philly, you need basic Mechanical that can turn the train. You've got deep Mechanical available in Chicago. There's deeper Mechanical in Philly than there is in a lot of places that turn trains on a daily basis like St. Albans, Savannah, and Charlotte.

 

[DivMiler]

Philly has no commisary, they have no mechanical teams capable of handling Amfleet food service cars, Viewliner anything, or Heritage anything (a moot point, I admit). Equipping them to handle this stuff is silly. Actually, I expect that a resurrected Broadway Limited would kill Philly Mechanical, as it has before, and move it to Harrisburg, where it bloody well belongs.

I live in Harrisburg, and am not as well-versed about what Harrisburg has to offer train-maintenance-wise. Why do you think a mechanical team "bloody well belongs" in Harrisburg?

I know Harrisburg (HAR) is a terminus for the Keystones. Is maintenance done in Harrisburg? It always seems to me that the Keystones come in, and almost immediately turn around for the return to New York.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

It would allow for the Broadway to do its diesel/electric changeover in Harrisburg. Harrisburg originates more trains- only a very few Keystones originate in Philly, most go all the way to New York. You need Mech in Harrisburg for the Keystones. You can mostly avoid it in Philly. Anything that really goes wrong can be corrected by ferrying to Bear or Sunnyside.

 

[wayman]

It would allow for the Broadway to do its diesel/electric changeover in Harrisburg. Harrisburg originates more trains- only a very few Keystones originate in Philly, most go all the way to New York. You need Mech in Harrisburg for the Keystones. You can mostly avoid it in Philly. Anything that really goes wrong can be corrected by ferrying to Bear or Sunnyside.

If the Broadway originates in NYP and changes engines in Harrisburg, does the AEM7 run around the train in PHL or does the train operate with a cab car? If the train operates with a cab car, does that mean extra switching occurs in HAR to pull it off as well? Or are there cab cars to spare such that they could be run unnecessarily to CHI and back?