Work at New York Penn

[Steve4031]

These last several posts represent the best of AU. A respectful discussion sharing ideas. And I learned quite a bit about the Penn south plans. Thank you.

 

[west point]

JIS--- It has been stated that there was concern by NY city that if tunneling too close to water tunnel #1 it could collapse. Believe it was built with cast iron sections. If old cast iron ??? Any truth to these statements ?

 

[jis]

JIS--- It has been stated that there was concern by NY city that if tunneling too close to water tunnel #1 it could collapse. Believe it was built with cast iron sections. If old cast iron ??? Any truth to these statements ?

Yes. But it has nothing to do with any tunnels that may be built eastwards from NYP South Upper. That was related to the old deep ARC station under 34th St. It could again become an issue for the deep NYP South Lower if and when that happens. But there are many possible work arounds, like for starters choosing a depth that is far removed from the water tunnel.

 

[railiner]

I still believe that instead of building that long East Side Access for the LIRR to reach GCT, they should have instead tunneled south from there, and built some kind of wye connection to the four existing lines under 33rd and 31st Streets. Perhaps adding another tunnel or two, if the anticipated traffic required it. Think of all the possibilities that would have allowed....especially if they connected the new line with the Park Avenue MN tunnel at some point north of GCT...

 

[PVD]

Affordable options were somewhat limited by decisions made 40+ years ago. When the 63rd st tunnel was conceived, the original plan was a new terminal at around 48th and second ave linking to the second ave subway. ESA is plan B.

 

[west point]

If Water tunnel #1 is cast iron any new tunnels anywhere need for #1 refurbished first before tunneling anywhere near.

ESA as we have read was to give access for many commuters to the GCT area without having to make 2 subway connections from NY Penn ?.

 

[jis]

If Water tunnel #1 is cast iron any new tunnels anywhere need for #1 refurbished first before tunneling anywhere near.

ESA as we have read was to give access for many commuters to the GCT area without having to make 2 subway connections from NY Penn ?.

Will you get off of your Water Tunnel 1 obsession. At present it is a complete non-issue. It is way way deep down and no one is tunneling anywhere near it for anything. Until NJT came up with their crazy scheme to send their trains down half way to china under 34th St., it was not even in anyone's consciousness.

Actually GCT bound folks from LIRR could at least in theory do it with just one subway connection from Hunterspoint Avenue (to #7), but there were not that many trains that went to Hunterspoint Avenue.. In any case, yeah, it was meant to give direct access to the GCT area and also increase overall capacity to Manhattan.

 

[PVD]

ESA/GCT was not the original concept. You really didn't want to dump more onto the Lex heading South. But the landscape of the area around GCT and the evolution of the far West Side make Manhattan commuter densities very different than what was envisioned originally. Opening up the areas to the East of GCT towards the UN might have been interesting. But it really doesn't matter now, it is going into GCT. And most of the development in the financial district and Midtown has been far West Side.

 

[jis]

Hence the utter oddity of deciding not to build the 10th Ave station on the #7 extension and leave it for another day Also, for all practical purposes, getting from Penn Station to the area around Javits Center is still just a loooong walk and so it shall be to the Hudson yards development for the foreseeable future.

 

[PVD]

Absolutely correct. The omission of the 10th ave station just made no sense in terms of the potential development dollars that could have been unlocked. Perhaps cynically I wonder if Related and Brookfield did not do their damnedest to enhance their investments (Hudson yards and Manhattan West) by working behind the scenes against the station. Nothing going directly West from Penn is folly.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

The tail tracks from ESA are fairly close to NYP , but again at wrong depth, , NY DEP will not allow any excavation within 200 feet of water tunnel no 1 and incline from ESA cavern to NYP level would have been to steep.

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-BP731A_NYSTA_G_20120426200005.jpg

https://www.tunneltalk.com/images/East-Side-Access/Manhattan-active-contracts-full.jpg

 

[jis]

Thanks Dutch. Yes there are several possibilities of connecting NYP to NYG:

1. NYP tracks 1-4 or the new South tracks to lower level of NYG. This involves moving at least one of the IRT Lex Ave line tracks out of the way, and is unlikely to happen.

2. NYP tracks to ESA cavern - problem mentioned by Dutch.

3. NYP South lower level, if/when it is built to ESA cavern, most likely will face Water Tunnel 1 issues, though the devil may be in the details of what exact depth is chosen for the lower level station. Clearly it will have to be a ta depth that allows breakout to the east without interfering with Water Tunnel 1, because its sole purpose is to provide a through station for the true high speed corridor.

So on the whole there are significant problems and obstacles no matter which way you try to go.

But the bigger problem will always be, what the heck do you do with the trains that arrive there from NJ

 

[PVD]

I'd almost be happy if the T/S - GCT shuttle could come down the 7th Ave to NYP

 

[jis]

I'd almost be happy if the T/S - GCT shuttle could come down the 7th Ave to NYP

Unfortunately, it connects into the IRT 1/2/3 facing the wrong way at Times Square, due to the way history worked out.

 

[railiner]

If they would have built the connection I mentioned above, it would not have been way down at the ESA cavern level, so no steep ramp would be necessary...it would just be deep enough to not conflict with the existing subway lines under Park Avenue and 42nd Street. To avoid the subway, it could even have been built under Madison Avenue, and angle eastward, where the subway line angles that way from Park Avenue to Lexington Avenue...just low enough to cross under the 7 and Shuttle routes beneath 42nd Street, and then either below the GCT lower level tracks, or parallel to them along the west side of GCT....

 

[Dutchrailnut]

Railliner lets stick to reality not some jerk off fantasy ??

no matter what level you dig to, there is something in way under NY city.

stick to reality , people with a lot more brains have tried to find solutions .

 

[Thirdrail7]

I believe they are still waiting for final approval to merge 63 and 69 at NYP and reschedule 69 between ALB-MTR.

I thought there was also talk of combining outbound maple leaf and adirondack until Albany , is this no longer under consideration?

It is under consideration but there are numerous issues that may not get solved by the time this kicks in.

 

[jis]

Very nice graphics showing exactly what work is being done. Also becomes obvious why they do not need to divert all Empire Service trains to GCT through the repair period. The ones being moved are mainly to reduce traffic at NYP, not because they cannot get in there should it be necessary.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-penn-station-summer-construction-creates-commuting-hell/

 

[Steve4031]

Excellent article Jis.

 

[MARC Rider]

According to the Wikipedia article on Penn Station, at its peak in WW2, about 100 million people per year passed through the station. Today, about 600,000 peple per day pass through. That's 219 million per year! No wonder it's a zoo. I wonder if we'd be complaining about Penn Station even if the old station had been preserved.

 

[ehbowen]

I wonder if we'd be complaining about Penn Station even if the old station had been preserved.

Probably. That's in our wheelhouse, after all.

 

[Agent]

Amtrak posted a time-lapse video today of twenty-two hours of work in Penn Station.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Very nice graphics showing exactly what work is being done. Also becomes obvious why they do not need to divert all Empire Service trains to GCT through the repair period. The ones being moved are mainly to reduce traffic at NYP, not because they cannot get in there should it be necessary.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-penn-station-summer-construction-creates-commuting-hell/

For the record, no one except buffs on another board even mentioned sending all of the Empire trains to GCT. The only time it was contemplated was during a possible 55 hour outage and even then, the NRO route would be explored.

I assume that the baggage will be carried up on 92, which is an annoyance for many passengers. Would it be operationally possible to add a baggage car to 176 on the affected days? When I travel on this routing next month I plan to spend the day around NYC and go back to NYP around 7:30 to claim my bags and get an LIRR connection. Hopefully it works better than last time, when my luggage arrived in NYP the day before me. It was placed in the lost and found, where I assumed it would be. However, I was not told that it would not be open when I arrived on 64. Following this, the employee at lost and found insisted it was at the baggage claim area, where I checked and ended up filing a missing bag report. I returned to lost and found later, where they continued to deny that the bags were there despite the fact that I could see them behind the counter.

176 is a LYH-BOS train. In theory, they could add the bag when they swap the engines. However, that would mean the bag would have to stay until BOS. That probably wouldn't be the end of the world assuming there is a bag to to make the trip, but that adds one more car to the consist when there is already a limitation in Boston. You'd sacrifice coach seating for bag service on a train that is usually quite busy...without 20's or 650's passengers.

It looks like they are going to attempt your idea. They are finalizing a plan to add additional coaches and a bag to the connecting trains that will handle 20's passengers (scheduled as 176 but it can go to other regional trains if necessary.)

 

[jis]

Very nice graphics showing exactly what work is being done. Also becomes obvious why they do not need to divert all Empire Service trains to GCT through the repair period. The ones being moved are mainly to reduce traffic at NYP, not because they cannot get in there should it be necessary.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-penn-station-summer-construction-creates-commuting-hell/

For the record, no one except buffs on another board even mentioned sending all of the Empire trains to GCT. The only time it was contemplated was during a possible 55 hour outage and even then, the NRO route would be explored.

Yup. I remember that set of conversations I think on rr.net and also on Facebook. When I refuted that based on your info one of the railfans even got upset because his dream of rolling into GCT on the LSL pretending it was the 20th Century Limited or something like that, was not going to be fulfilled

 

[Train2104]

Service alert for GCT reroutes: https://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Alert_C&pagename=am/AM_Alert_C/Alerts_Popup&cid=1251653727006

No alerts issued for 63/69 being combined, which is reflected in ARROW. GCT is not bookable yet, nor are PDF timetables available.