Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England

So I’ve used Moynihan a few times since it opened as a replacement for Penn station for Amtrak.
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The "non-railfan" opinion of my wife and son are that Moynihan is vastly superior to the old Penn Station, but zero attention appears to have been paid to the queuing situation.
 
Great info, thank you both. Definitely less cynical now. However, I will say...

Today there was a last minute track switch which caused chaos. It didn't have to, but all the electronic signs continued to show the wrong track, and the loudspeaker literally right up until departure kept telling passengers to go the wrong track. There were zero staff, there were both an Acela and Regional boarding at nearly the same time, and hundreds of people having no clue what to do. Finally a staff person stepped in and started yelling at people as if literally the entire train station was doing something other than live broadcasting false info. Pretty pathetic.
 
Yeah, the continued chaos around track assignments/announcements at the Penn Station complex is frustrating to say the least. Other stations don't seem to have this kind of chronic issue. And while I realize NYP is far busier than any other station in North America, figure it out, it can't be an unsolvable issue!
 
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fatnoah said:
The "non-railfan" opinion of my wife and son are that Moynihan is vastly superior to the old Penn Station, but zero attention appears to have been paid to the queuing situation.
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So my other question is around what might change with the new tunnel projects. Will the Gateway Project mean that Amtrak trains also stop at Grand Central? And if so, might this at least reduce the number of boardings at Penn?
 
FK4 said:
So my other question is around what might change with the new tunnel projects. Will the Gateway Project mean that Amtrak trains also stop at Grand Central? And if so, might this at least reduce the number of boardings at Penn?
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No. It's strictly a Penn Station capacity expansion. The Penn Station South component of the project will add +7 platform tracks to the station.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The Penn Station South component of the project will add +7 platform tracks to the station.
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Wait, is that actually moving forward? That seemed like it was proposed a few years ago, then forgotten. In the flurry of recent Penn Station proposals, Penn Station South hardly seemed to even get mentioned.
 
ritchiew said:
Wait, is that actually moving forward? That seemed like it was proposed a few years ago, then forgotten. In the flurry of recent Penn Station proposals, Penn Station South hardly seemed to even get mentioned.
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Hasn't been funded yet because they're focusing on the all-critical tunnel capacity first and the price tag for the station expansion is laughably high, but it's still planned. A lot of transit advocates want it turfed in favor of thru-running NJ Transit and Metro-North, but there are a lot of political and technological challenges to making that happen.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
www.adirondackexplorer.org

Brakes put on Amtrak Adirondack line

Amtrak once again suspends its “Adirondack” service between New York and Montreal less than three months after resuming again.
www.adirondackexplorer.org www.adirondackexplorer.org

Amtrak Adirondack service, which just resumed to Montreal after a nearly 3-year COVID suspension, is now suspended again because of track conditions in Canada. Landlord Canadian National imposed a 10 MPH speed restriction on the entire Rousses Point Subdivision from suburban Montreal to the NY border covering all days when it's 86 degrees or higher, basically making it impossible for Amtrak to schedule for the entire summer season because the schedule on hot days will no longer stay within mandated crew work hours. The train has to terminate in Albany until further notice and can't serve upstate at all during peak tourist/weekender season because of lack of turnbacks south of the border. Lots of finger-pointing ensuing over this truly stupid restriction, much of it being pointed at CN and utterly inept Transport Canada (the lead Canadian fed gov't agency for transit).

Not a good omen for things like the Montrealer restoration north of St. Albans, VT that has to use the same track that CN is taking hostage. And a reminder that as backward as pax rail transportation is in the U.S., it's much worse in Canada. :(
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And it happens again. Adirondack service suspension starts anew on May 20, just in time for the official kickoff of summer. Another Amtrak-CN dispute over CN's horrible track conditions Rouses Point to St. Jean-sur-Richelieu with rumored 10 MPH speed restrictions planned for heat season. And once again, limp-wristed Transport Canada is useless to try to intervene.
 
I wonder if they will use the same tunnel boring technology used for the Purple Line extension in LA, which has helped them come in ahead of timelines.
 
ceo said:
30 miles of tunnel between Palmdale and Burbank. That ain't gonna be cheap.
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Curious how much of that cost might involve implementing state-of-the-art earthquake-resiliency engineering?

Any mass transit infrastructure that traverses the mighty and fearsome San Gabriels--I-5, I-15, whatever freight line hugs the I-15 corridor (the SP & Santa Fe?); ditto for any freight lines hugging the I-5 corridor--of course has to contend with that... in particular, in terms of the NW San Gabriels, where this tunneling is taking place, geologists have been raising the red flag for decades, noting this section of the San Andreas is "overdue" for a 8.0 giant mimicking the magnitude of the 1857 Fort Tejon quake...
 
I fell down a rabbit hole a couple of weeks ago, and have emerged with a diagram I've pulled together of the various non-excursion/sightseeing ferries in New York City:

1720119484058.png


More comments at the link, but to me this underscored a few different points about New York City transit:

1) The number of overlapping public and private companies is remisicent of the continued siloing of Metro North, LIRR, NJ Transit, etc etc.

2) Judging by frequencies and routes, ferries are most popular in places without enough fixed crossings (e.g. the Hudson River)

3) Even with PATH, there is still apparently demand for additional cross-river service into Downtown

4) The institutional complexity implied by this map is daunting, and reflects my general argument that New York is so one-of-a-kind that it is a near-useless point of comparison for many transit discussions
 
I can speak to this a little. I lived in Hoboken for two months. My options to get to NYC were
A) PATH. 15 min walk or local bus, extremely hot and sweaty. A bit slow. Frequencies are bad off peak
B) Path bus. I preferred this one since I am not afraid of busses and it would pick me up from where I was in downtown and take me on a short comfortable ride. Taking it back was a pain since the bus terminal is a total mess.
C) ferry! The ferry is incredibly expensive. I took it with two other adults and we dropped 30+ dollars. It’s frustrating since what I want as a customer is to simply cross the water in a boat. But they turn it into a whole thing.

Other comments
1) the nyc ferries for commuters when it’s nice out are sight seeing on their own. Deeply subsidized and you get amazing views of NYC. Very much recommended if you’re visiting.
2) NYC has all the same neuroses that have completely asphyxiated Boston’s growth, but since it got so big before that happened, so it expresses itself differently. So all the people that hate everything cities were and are also happen to live in a world class city and it confuses them a lot.
 
Riverside said:
I fell down a rabbit hole a couple of weeks ago, and have emerged with a diagram I've pulled together of the various non-excursion/sightseeing ferries in New York City:

View attachment 52343

More comments at the link, but to me this underscored a few different points about New York City transit:

1) The number of overlapping public and private companies is remisicent of the continued siloing of Metro North, LIRR, NJ Transit, etc etc.

2) Judging by frequencies and routes, ferries are most popular in places without enough fixed crossings (e.g. the Hudson River)

3) Even with PATH, there is still apparently demand for additional cross-river service into Downtown

4) The institutional complexity implied by this map is daunting, and reflects my general argument that New York is so one-of-a-kind that it is a near-useless point of comparison for many transit discussions
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First - nice work!

Hoboken-Lower Manhattan - PATH is going to be crush-loaded at peak for at least the Exchange Place-WTC leg of the journey, which most people don't enjoy even if it is only 5-10min. I do generally have the impression that the ferry route is slightly more reliable in timekeeping, which does matter (especially for return journeys) considering how low-frequency some of NJT's services are.

Institutional complexity - I will mention that Hornblower is the contracted operator for 3 different services - NYC Ferry, Statue City Cruises, Liberty Landing City Ferry. So yes, institutional complexity, but the actual logistics of the operations has slightly fewer players than it looks.

Equipment commentary - Seastreak's services cross much more into open water and have to deal with much rougher conditions. While I'm not much of a boat expert, they seem to operate a different class(?) of boat than the ones staying mostly or entirely in more protected waters.
 
Seattle's Sound Transit conducted an internal study of grade-separating 4.5 miles of its light rail system that currently runs in the road median. The cost estimates are:
  • $1.7 billion for an El 30 ft above ground ($0.38 bil/mi)
  • $1.1 billion for a trench ($0.24 bil/mi)
Note that as an internal study, it may not give perfectly accurate estimates and may have other costs overlooked. And I'm sure a full-blown subway, whether cut-and-cover or TBM, will probably cost way more than both.

www.seattletimes.com

Sound Transit examines cost of making its most hazardous light rail stretch safer

Sound Transit is seeking ways to reduce hazards in a surface train corridor in Seattle that officials once considered safe.
www.seattletimes.com www.seattletimes.com
 
millerm277 said:
First - nice work!
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Thank you!
millerm277 said:
Hoboken-Lower Manhattan - PATH is going to be crush-loaded at peak for at least the Exchange Place-WTC leg of the journey, which most people don't enjoy even if it is only 5-10min. I do generally have the impression that the ferry route is slightly more reliable in timekeeping, which does matter (especially for return journeys) considering how low-frequency some of NJT's services are.
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That’s super interesting. Yeah I mean when you have a CBD like Downtown just across the river from a major terminal like Hoboken, I guess any and all intervening paths (no pun intended) would get heavy use. (Imagine if North Station were in Eastie.)
millerm277 said:
Institutional complexity - I will mention that Hornblower is the contracted operator for 3 different services - NYC Ferry, Statue City Cruises, Liberty Landing City Ferry. So yes, institutional complexity, but the actual logistics of the operations has slightly fewer players than it looks.
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Why. Why, I say rhetorically. Why.

More seriously, that does make sense, particularly given the smaller scope of the Statue City and Liberty Landing ferries. I can see Statue City making sense as a standalone service, but why does Liberty Landing have a standalone company branded for it?

(I see that Hornblower also operates the MBTA Ferries.)
millerm277 said:
Equipment commentary - Seastreak's services cross much more into open water and have to deal with much rougher conditions. While I'm not much of a boat expert, they seem to operate a different class(?) of boat than the ones staying mostly or entirely in more protected waters.
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I also am out of my expertise here but I believe they are catamarans, like those used for the MBTA’s Hingham and Hull ferries.
 
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