I agree the four tracks, including the tunnels, Penn Station - Kearney must have prioritiy. I am simply looking to the far future, as an alternative to a totally new alignment. Once Amtrak paid for the electrification, Newark - Bound Brook - West Trenton (with of course imrovements to track layout), NJT will want to run electric commuter trains, because then it will be more economical than subsidizing the bus service that now exists. It also assumes increase it commuter business as well as corridor business.
There are places where the corridor could even be expanded to six tracks between the Pelham Bay drawer bridge and New Rochell. But that doesn’t really help, because the choke point is the flat Shell junction and the limitation of only four tracks in that area without a lot of house and road demolitions. Flyoevers EAST of the station and maximum use of track 5 in NR Station for trains to and from Penn could help even the existing situaition. But use of the NYW&B removes Penn trains from that choke point. Again, though, this is a lower cost alternative to a whole new line. Someone can check, but I believe there are, and there certainly were, MN locals that run only as far as Portchester during the rush hours. This too is long-term future.
Direct Subway trains to the Westchester Mall yes, You have to distinguish between Heavy Metro Rail like subways and commuter rail. If Simon Malls would support it and there would TOD along the line then yes. If anyone here is good at google maps could draw a line on a google map and post it here that would be helpfull to compare where the ROW is and whats on it.
Rapid Transit (L/Subway) and Commuter Rail are distinctly different and operation of both on the same tracks is not practicable. Consider that the high-level platforms at certain CA&E stations that also handled Chicago Rapid Transit trains had a platform extension that had to be flipped back to allow conventional freight equipment to clear the station platform.
The NYW&B RoW where used by No. 5 subway trains is a four track RoW, and Amtrak and Metro North trains would use only the middle two tracks, keeping the 5’s on the outer two. The overhead clearances are identicle to those on the New Haven Line. The track spacing is slightly more generous, would even allow fencing between two tracks withoiut any clearance problem. Also, remember that the 5 line uses the 8-1/2 ft. A-Division IRT cars and not the B-division 10ft.wide BMT-IND cars. There would be absolutely zero use of the same track by both opperations. Of course, the same condition exists currnetly Kearney-Harrison-Newark with the NEC (Amtrak and NJT) on the middle four tracks and PATH on the outer two. The 180th Street station would be exclusive Metro North, since the 5 flyhover is north of the station, wiith the elevated subway station alongside on the west. Possibly the Pelham Bay Park station, with its express platforms, would also have Metro North service, but all other station would remain for subway service only.
Also, in the 3/4 century since the NYW&B was abandoned, it is hard to believe that all new construction over the subway line maintained the old vertical clearances.
You must not be from New York. We had an answer to that issue many years ago, and it wasn’t that idiotic European excuse ‘mind the gap’
Modern platforms with ‘screened entrance’ lining up with the doors would be still more capable, although there might have to be some care getting the doors at the same spacing, or the openings/fillers of the right additional width…
I would be very interested in your reason for thinking that ‘conventional freight equipment’ might need to clear the platforms on a rebuilt NYW&B/Dyre Avenue line… ;-}
Not quite what you wanted but it’s a start. The following link is for a historical topo map that shows the White Plains end of the line at the southeast corner of the map:
Unfortunately the site does not have the maps to the south at that scale. They do have a 15 minute map that continues south, but it was surveyed 10 years before the NYW&B was built. I included it because it shows the other RR lines in the area, and because it shows the relative emptiness of the area thru which the line was built:
Rapid transit and regional rail are impractical because of time share. Rapid transit operates very frequently every 3- 5 minuites which would disrupt regional rail operations.
Note that New York’s rapid transit system, the NYCTA, and the Metro North Railailroad are both subsidiaries of the NY State’s MTA.
The last time I rode the Dyar Avenue line was 18 years ago, but that was 43 years after rapid transit service began. It began with renovated 2nd Avenue elevated cars in 2-car shuttles, using the old NYW&B platforms at E180. The flyover and operation by Lexington Avenue subway trains came after the war. At the time, I noted that the construction over the tracks DID retain the higher than normal vertical subway clearance. Another location on NYCTA where this has been done is on the Sea Beach Line in Brooklyn.
The third and fourth tracks that exist were left over from NYW&B, and although now equipped with 3rd rail, they are entirely unnecessary for the operation of the line. Regular service uses the local tracks only.
If there were a clearance issue, Metro North trains (but probably not Amtrak) could use third rail, and by the time this idea is implemented, the dual sprung shoe should be available. Subway third rail and LIRR third rail, and PATH third rail, and SIRT third rail are all the Wilkesbarre & Hazelton interurban design and close enough to be interchangeable.
The NYCTA’s rapid transit is one that is far closer to regular railroad practice than most other North American rapid transit lines. I rode the demonstration R-32 Budd stainless steel train from Grand Central Terminal to Mott Hven Yard, and the only modificaitions were the underrunning NYCentral third rail shoes. The South Brooklyn handled interchange frieght over streetcar, subway, and elevated lines in Brooklyn. If some short stretch of track had to be shared, and I don’t know any reason why this would be necessay, the sharing would not be a problem if the subway rolling stock met FFRA crashworthy standards.
The rapid transit system, the NYCTA, and the Metro North Railailroad are both subsidiaries of the NY State’s MTA, but it is a political entity, and nothing is going to happen on the transit line without NY City’s consent. But the point is moot when you consider what has happened beyond NYC.
I downloaded the Mt. Vernon 7 1/2 minute topo map, edition of 1947, from the federal website. Luckily it was surveyed while the NYW&B tracks were still extant. Comparing it with Google Earth, from the end of the present transit line (40°53’26.78"N 73°49’45.41"W) you can project the old ROW thru a line of trees until it runs thru a factory on the ROW. From there it curves to the north and runs between Fulton and Frankln Ave’s, closer to Franklin. Crossing 4th St, the old line curved to the NE, then straight under the present MNRR line to the former Mt. Vernon Jct, which was near the north end of Pelham Lake. The Port Chester Branch ran along the North side of 3rd St. At that point I quit, as I could see that the former NYW&B ROW described has been obliterated by buildings, houses and other cultural features.
It’s hard to see that demolishing all the development that has taken over the old ROW, and reinstalling miles of track and electrical and installing flying jct’s at both ends of the transit incursion, would be less costly than building a burrowing junction at New Rochelle for a southbound NEC connecting track.
I agree with that last statement. Also, rather than a burrowing junction, which might reqqurie reduction to 2-trck or 3-track operation through the New Rochelle area while construction took place, a less expensive and more flexible alternative, keeping four tracks through the area during construction, would be flyovers east of the station, where there is plenty of land, and then maximum use of track 5, the old Harlem Shuttle track, on the south or east side of RofW, for trains to and from Penn.
But what you say about the expense is still a fraction of an all-new line as proposed by Boardman. The stretch from Portchester to New Rochelle has the greatest density of traffic, since there are trains that terminate at Portchester, or at least loose their passenger load and run empty or nearlly empty beyoond that point (Rush hour locals).
I guess the the expensive Boardman line refers to the proposed new HSR second spine line which is to take off from the NEC north at New Rochelle. Despite the fact that the old NYW&B ROW adjacent to the NEC from the NR area north to Port Chester has been build upon, especially around the stations, I admit it would be hard to pass up this section that still has a lot of intact ROW, when you consider the alternatives. The former New Haven line is fairly straight in this stretch. North of PC where the NH starts to get curvy and beset with drawbridges, they are going to have to do something else for HSR.
But if you need to go from Boston to Providence, Kingston, Westerly, New London, Mystic, Old Saybrook, Bridgeport or Stamford Megabus will tell you “You can’t get there from here.”
And the Shore Line will of course continue to serve those cities and towns. But the new service could drastically reduce Boston - Wshington times, perhaps some trains even bypassing New York City if Penn Station and its approaches cannot be expanded without extreme expense. Anyone know the density of air traffic Boston - Washington and what percentage Amtrak has?
North Avenue to Dyre should be rebuilt over the old RoW-buy it back up-to serve low income communities with cheaper access to the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn 24 hours a day. We in westchester pay taxes to the MTA and massive tolls and massive fares. Our underserved people below the poverty line should have access to these areas to improve the local economy.
The RoW is mostly intact here, oddly. Areas where it is filled in are Webster to Memorial, two blocks (glenwood and storer), five blocks between seventh and the Mount Vernon border, Lorraine Terrace (13 houses), and the rest is filled in with two blocks of housing units, a supermarket, and factories, half of which can be abandoned at any time and could probably be bought cheaply. Land rights should not even approach $200 million, it is already graded, and you’d get five miles of access for well under a billion if it is done competently. Combined with extending the White Plains road line to Columbus Avenue in Mount Vernon access to low income houses in two cities would be a reality improving incomes at the bottom.
The White Plains line would be somewhat redundant via Metro North, except it crosses areas unserved. Community opposition would be high here and I doubt ridership would make much sense without higher densities…the only reason to consider such a route is that again most of the ROW is intact: between Lincoln and Chester Heights; in the way would be some dwellings between Chester and Wykagyl (20 units). Between Wykagyl and the bypass is much more expensive land and probably another 20 units. Once on the bypass, you have a parking lot with Dunkin Doughnuts, and can be built along Bloomingdale easily, minimally disripting traffic on the underused route. It would, however, make a lot of sense if it was connected to HPN.
If you think in terms of actual land cost and integration into the subway, it makes tons of sense.