New Moynihan Train Hall to Open January 1st

[MidlandMike]

NKP guy

   There's a much better story on this topic from the December 31 New York Times, and the photographs are impressive:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/nyregion/moynihan-penn-station.html

 

 

After reading the linked article, it is disappointing that the new $1.6 billion facility will primarily serve just the 5% of station users that are ticketed on Amtrak.  Proposals to serve the commuters and connecting subway riders would call for the demolition of the overhead Madison Square Garden.

[GeoPRR]

Longhorn 1969 - This looks like the Penn Station layout without the Moynihan enhancements laid over it.  That's why it says "Existing Platforms" in the upper left. That gray-shaded area at bottom left is where the old mail platforms were, I believe.  Yes?  No?

longhorn1969

 

[longhorn1969]

[GeoPRR]

Can someone provide a link to a track diagram?  I am interested in how the existing NYP arrangement was modified for the Moynihan Hall.  I believe some of the old mail platforms were used, but not sure. Are arriving and departing Amtrak passengers now limited to the Moynihan (west) end, or can they still access the old Penn Station? 

[Overmod]

Something I had not seen before is Cuomo's "Penn South" idea, which is like a one-state version of the added tracks in the ARC Tunnel scheme.  Admittedly those new 'commuter' tracks would be even more remote from Moynihan, and the logical paths to and from transit away from it, making it even more of the 'first-class departure lounge' criticized in the article.

But who cares?  It's a start, a promising sign, a great reworking of an iconic building ... and a pending landmark in itself.  I think it should be celebrated for all of these.

Now how can we make scuttling in and out like a rat more rewarding?  (Free cheese and the absence of shocks do not qualify.)

[NKP guy]

   There's a much better story on this topic from the December 31 New York Times, and the photographs are impressive:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/nyregion/moynihan-penn-station.html

 

[CMStPnP]

JPS1

Here is another example of things we get done in this country.

I'll be convinced once I see a High Speed Rail system in this country at a median speed that other advanced countries have in place already.   Say maybe complete California, Re-Engineer the NEC,............heck, I would even lower the standard a little by accepting the Dallas to Houston 200 mph line if I thought it would ever get built.

It's something the Federal Government has been attempting since it first sponsored the Penn Central Metroliner......and yet look at where we are today.

[JPS1]

Muralist0221

So you see, we can get things done in this country in spite of the overpaid consultants, bean-counters and empty suits. 

Here is another example of things we get done in this country.  Don't show it to those that say we cannot do anything; it will upset them. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVqWEoyiaBA

 

 

[Muralist0221]

So you see, we can get things done in this country in spite of the overpaid consultants, bean-counters and empty suits.

[JPS1]

The pictures of the train hall look great.  As soon as this pandemic is behind us, I will be off to NYC to see for myself.

My first trip to NYC was with my mother in the late 40s or early 50s.  I don't remember exactly when.  I remember, however, arriving at the original Pennsylvania Station and being awed by it. 

After college, I lived in NYC for eight years.  I cannot count the number of times that I have been through the current station.  

[NKP guy]

   Here's a short discussion of the re-purposed Jas. A. Farley Post Office Building across 8th Avenue from Penn Station.  A 2:23 video from Amtrak is included

https://gothamist.com/news/new-moynihan-train-hall-set-open-january-1st

 

   Especially interesting to me are the many comments that follow this article.  These folks see the train experience at Penn Station tabula rasa, and not from the perspective of railfans, or older New Yorkers, or architecture enthusiasts.