I read today in newswire that Amtrak is requesting money to bore two additional tunnels under the hudson.
Why is Amtrak looking to bore new tunnels instead of resuming the work already started by the state of NJ? Wouldn’t that be cheaper?
If a new tunnel is going to be bored, would it have sufficient clearance for superliner cars and or possibly freight at some point (maybe at night when the passenger traffic is light)?
Basicly they will resume the basic work of NJT at south end but connecting it to NYP.
No superliners do not fit anywhere near New york and are not useable at high level platforms
No freights will travel via tunnels other rthan the yearly circus train.
The grant request is only for engineering work for the tunnel or for the new Penn South station so there is no definition yet on the actual rail to CAT clearance. That being said even if the tunnels could clear SLs there are many locations including NYP to but not including WASH that does not have clearance. WASH was modified some years ago to receive SLs; now on the Capital and Cardinal in the past. A non inclusive list of low clearance places are— NYP, Newark station, the out of service CNJ overpass just south of Newark station, at Hunter interlocking the CASO overpass, Trenton?, PHL 30th st station, Baltimore, B&P tunnels,
There may be some thru truss bridges as well on the NEC with clearance issues. The PHL - Harrisburg route I do not know. NYP - Albany will not happen since the tunnels out of NYP to the west side line were not built to SL clearance (don’t know if they will even clear the LIRR double decks). I have never seen any Amtrak document listing desired clearances for any new or upgrade construction. Most of the CAT NYP - WASH has not been raised the only place I know that it has been raised is at the new Newark Airport station. The grant request to rebuild the CAT to constant tension from New Brunswick - Morrisville, Pa probably will have CAT be raised to the Amtrack desired clearances if possible?.
I would just think if they are building something new they would built it to higher clearances to have stuff ready in case the rest of the system eventually gets upgraded - also while additional capacity is needed during the daytime, I’m sure that at night there would be downtime with no trains in the tunnels. Having said that, if the clearances were available I’m sure the freight roads would prefer and it would be cheaper for them to take a train through a tunnel than either barge the freight cars over or make a circuitous run up the hudson to get to a bridge crossing, and that could provide Amtrak some ancillary income or possibly even more powerfully give them some barter position either with CSX or NS for some other trackage somewhere else. If the clearances were there and there was free time at night there shouldn’t be any reason you couldn’t roll a freight through.
The logical place for a freight tunnel is from Greenville, NJ, to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. This would reestablish the old Hell Gate Bridge PRR-NYNH&H freight rout that relied on an fairly efficient carfloat service, the remenants of which are being run by Cross-Harbor RR, connecting with NY&Atlantic today. Space for the yards are there already, clearance problems can be solved. (I think Providence and Worcester and CSX and CP can run double-stacks over the Hell Gate on the easternmost freight track now, to connect with NY&Atlantic (frieght RR for LIRR) at Fresh Pond Jc.
If properly designed it can also be a transit tunnel, connecting the Tottenville SIRT line with the BMT 4th Avenue subway in Brooklyin. It could have both 600V dc third rail and 60Hz 12,500V catenary. (I would not prefer 25000V in a tunnel, to much clearance required for adequate insulation.)
At one time freight cars were handled by the South Brooklyn RR’s steeplecabs in the 4th Avenue subway, switcing cars to two trolley-wire served sidings off the third rail Sea Beach branch of the 4th Avenue subway (N line), both sidings on the north side of the cut, off the westbound (RR north) local track.
Having freight trains rolling though Midtown Manhattan is a pipe dream that will NEVER happen. Besides the typical NIMBY issues, the clearance issues with Penn Station and the East River Tunnels are not economically feasable to adjust for the handful of freight trains that could potentially pass through the station complex. I believe at its lowest point, the catenary under the station is less than 18 feet from the top of the railheads. This results in all of the pantographs on locomotives and EMUs being inches from being completely in the down position (as oppose to being extended somewhat upwards). Undercutting is not possible, especially on the east end of the station since that would require lowering the entire complicated interlock and platforms. Raising the ceiling would elimate the lowest level concourse which makes the busiest and crowdest station in America even smaller. Logistically trying to lower an entire interlock would cripple the station’s capacity at a time when the station’s tracks are at capacity.
NS and CSX currently avoid the Northeast Corridor as much as possible because the fees to traverse the line at any point is extremely high and is limited to small windows. NS and CSX use the line when they have no alternative to reach industries or branchline traffic. From an operational point, the worst thing to happen is to have a freight train derailing in the station complex in the middle of the night and destroying the morning commute for 500,000 people in the morning.
The Pennsylvania Railroad never planned for or operated freight through the station and tunnels for a reason. With the exception of Baltimore, the PRR built bypasses around all of their major railroad stations on the New York to Washington mainline (Newark, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Washington) for freight. Their four-track mainly originally had 2 tracks designated for passenger trains and 2 for freigh
Freight at night? There needs to be time for track maintenance and cleaning. Even with regular clearances the down time is needed. I believe RWM has stated that any route with more than about 75% useage of theory capacity starts plugging because of unforseen conditions. On the other hand until we know what clearances all this new work will be built to the use of maybe SL type equipment sometime in the future is debateable. The 2 additional proposed East River tunnels sometime in the future is also a question.
Will I see it? Well when I get to be 120 maybe??. Our teen posters may see it by the time they are 70?? It would take that long to mitigate all these low clearance issues.
As a side. The revised Amtrak fleet plan stated that the NJ Transit semi bi-level cars are not really suitable on the NEC since they are more expensive and because of the layout for Amtrak service would not provide anymore seats than the present single level cars.
I agree that NJT’s bi-level cars are designed for commuters and not long distance service. Having rode them numerous times, they current arrangement of seats attempts to maximize the number of passengers since commuter “can be” treated like sardines. Plus the car has 8 doors to optimize the loading and unloading times. Amtrak seats are larger and have more leg room which would significantly reduce the number of seats currently in the cars. I think Amtrak could get a few more seats in but the cost per seat gained isn’t worth the extra cost for a double decker. So long as the new single level cars have MUCH larger windows than the Amfleet cars have, i’ll be happy.
When they got the permits/franchise/whatever to build NY Penn they made sure it included freight. No doubt there’s a reason why they didn’t run freight trains across Manhattan, but none of us knows what it was.
I actually read someone that back in the day when freight cars were smaller PRR did on occasion sneak some through Penn station - just it wasn’t a regular occurrence. Can anyone confirm or deny this?