Thanks for the heads up on the Cross Rail video. One of my flats in London was around there, briefly visible in the Video. Rode through the old tunnel when it was still part of the North London Line.
The pressure on the trans Hudson infrastructure continues with an all day web event tomorrow.
Interesting tid bit that Port authority may help fund Gateway tunnels. Guess that PANYNJ may be worried if North river tunnel(s) happened to close down ?
Another article on building Gateway.
Another editorial about what will happen if one tunnel closes before a gateway tunnel is operational.
Excerpt from NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/arts/design/the-case-for-new-hudson-river-rail-tunnels.html
Gateway, which has been pushed by the Obama administration, calls for two new passenger rail tunnels feeding into Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, the nation’s busiest and most disgusting transit hub, not to mention a potential fire trap. In 2010, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey killed a plan called ARC to add tunnels. Despite federal assurances to the contrary, he claimed potential cost overruns could leave his state holding the bag. Instead, Governor Christie directed money already set aside for the tunnels (including billions from the Port Authority) to roadway projects. Considering the Hudson is a chokepoint for passenger rail traffic all the way from Boston to Washington and even beyond, that move left the whole Eastern Seaboard transportation network in a highly precarious position.
Amtrak talks about spending preliminary money for the new Gateway tunnels.
Another short article on preliminary work.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150709/BLOGS04/150709912
Chairman Coscia seems to like new tunnels. I hope he gets one eventually.
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1251623384032
Port Authority press release, November 7, 2008
Port Authority Chairman Anthony Coscia today called on the federal government to help speed approvals and include the ARC rail tunnel between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan in a new economic stimulus package.
Mr. Coscia, speaking in Jersey City before a St. Peter’s College business symposium, said a second rail tube to supplement the existing century-old tunnel would pay dividends now and in the future: creating jobs quickly while providing long-term transportation improvements.
"The Port Authority is doing whatever we can to help the region through these challenging times,’ the chairman said. “But in order to maximize our capital spending – and do the most good for the region’s economy – we also need a strong partner at the federal level.”
Much planning and engineering analysis for the rail tunnel already has been done. The environmental review process is nearly finished. The Port Authority, NJ Transit and New Jersey have earmarked $5.75 billion - roughly two-thirds the project’s cost.
Federal project approvals and funding should come quickly enough for the project to break ground in 2009, he urged.
Mr. Coscia said the tunnel is
The ]Federal wheels move slower than a late Amtrak train. 2009 was six years ago.
So was the groundbreaking, on June 8th, Tonnelle Avenue:
When correcting, be sure you have the right bore.
NY Post jumps in on need for new tunnels
http://nypost.com/2015/07/18/new-york-new-jersey-on-the-brink-of-tunnel-mageddon/
If ony one tunnel exists, how much capacity could be realilized by running multiple trains coupled together in one direction for say fifty minutes, then reversing the flow for fifty minutes with ten minutes to clear the tunnel. This would be like eight 60 car trains (made of five twelve car trains) running on four minute headways through the tunnel, then being separated and continuing to various destinations. Something like batch processing. How you load and build a sixty car train, I don’t know but if S…T happens and one tube has to be closed, thinking outside the box will be needed. If they can run mile long freight trains, how about long passenger trains. Some way to maximize throughput. Your thoughts please.
It takes time to combine passenger cars. How much more time would it take to combine trains, if it could even be done?. How about mixes of loco hauled trains and EMUs ? Even if trains could be hooked together in 5 minutes, the first train in line would have waited a half hour until the sixth train is hooked up and ready to move again.
So come up with other ideas on how to increase throughput.
A similar idea is fleeting trains, but that doesn’t work because Penn Station would fill up with NJT trains that don’t use Sunnyside during rush hour that cannot escape back to MMC and other layover locations. The system is currently nearly at capacity, and operating under its most efficient operating plan. If one of the tunnels goes down, some trains simply will not fit.
The critical problem as I see it is that many of these modern trains don’t have full ‘automatic’ couplers like the transit stock in the '60s, with all the electrical and pneumatic connections integral in the connection. In particular, I think, modern HEP requires that the cabling be pulled out discretely and carefully by hand after having been ‘blue-flag’ locked/tagged out electrically – and that alone shoots the idea dead before it gets too far.
The intermediate stage of fleeting proposed, though, is interesting. Theoretically a ‘60-car’ train is short enough that you could have ready platforms for each ‘chunk’ of a train that length in parallel, arrange for crews for each segment to ‘take over’ promptly and direct it to its track (a bit like a glorified hump yard with people on each car) and then enough time between trains to allow the first platform to reasonably clear of arriving passengers before the next train comes in.
The ‘catch’ is that you really won’t have ‘four minute headway’ in the tunnel very long, as it will take more than four minutes for the individual segments to be progressively separated, brake- and control-tested, the switches to be lined for the route, and the segments in the aggregate directed to their destination tracks.
I had thought of using a version of CBTC to run the ‘fleeted’ trains nose-to-tail under constant individual control thr
If you’re really in a hurry, walk through the cars to an earlier train.
Not Bridgegate. Chris Christie will be remembered for Tunnelgate.
http://www.nytimes.com/images/2015/07/23/nytfrontpage/scan.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/nyregion/new-jersey-transit-service-again-disrupted-by-electrical-problems.html
Build the new tunnels.