I well recall in 1968-69 that taking I-80 east across Pennsylvania ended at the Delaware Water Gap, and then it was a 2-lane US highway until, I think, Hackettstown or beyond. Going from a state-of-the-art interstate to a 2-lane road was, indeed, a shock to a driver's sensibilities. As with the new Hudson River tunnels which would have been opened by now, New Jersey's strong suit was never getting their part of a multi-state project done anywhere near on time or when needed.
I also remember in 1959 having to take US 20 for what seemed like forever along Lake Erie's southern shore to Angola, NY, where the ultra-cool New York State Thruway could be accessed. And it actually connected with the Massachusetts Turnpike!
Lastly, does anyone else recall the mess that was the Cross Bronx Expressway at Bruckner Circle? I'll bet it's still under construction.
tree68 Flintlock76 Call me a nasty old cynic but someone's been sold a major bill of goods on these things. The same can be said for solar... Many acres of the panels in our area now. One installation hasn't been connected to the grid because the grid can't handle it...
Flintlock76
Call me a nasty old cynic but someone's been sold a major bill of goods on these things.
The same can be said for solar... Many acres of the panels in our area now. One installation hasn't been connected to the grid because the grid can't handle it...
tree68Flintlock76 Call me a nasty old cynic but someone's been sold a major bill of goods on these things. The same can be said for solar... Many acres of the panels in our area now. One installation hasn't been connected to the grid because the grid can't handle it...
Much more of a problem than you would think especially in rural America where the infrastructure is shot and the rural electic operators are struggling to maintain what they have, much less connect to this stuff....
The Cross Bronx was and is a horror of grand proportions, but what was there before was utterly incapable of any modern traffic density.
The little piece of 80 went from somewhere around Hackettstown to... was it route 94 to Columbia? it got rid of that awful light at 518 in Buttzville (under the Old Road bridge!) and the cramped turn under the B&D which was daylighted after Hurricane Diane. It took a major, major piece of improvement to widen the road through the Gap to the bridge. Then you took 611 to someplace like Brodheadsville and north on the old 115 with the runaway truck roads -- and microweather frequently ruining your trip. The construction at what would become exit 43 produced such a mudhole that our then-new Country Squire sank up to the rocker panels, buried the exhaust, and stalled us -- I actually thought it was going to keep sinking out of sight and started diligently rescuing toys in the rear footwells...
The ARC tunnel was every bit the boondoggle Christie said it was, and the added stub tracks were just as pointless as the current non-through-running arrangement is going to be.
I was too young for a drivers license at the time but I can remember how the State of Indiana dragged its feet on completing I-94 from Gary to the Michigan state line. They moved reasonably on completing the connection with the Indiana Toll Road but the route into Michigan (who completed I-94 to the state line) could be nerve-wracking even if you weren't the driver.
May we now get back to railroading.
CSSHEGEWISCH I was too young for a drivers license at the time but I can remember how the State of Indiana dragged its feet on completing I-94 from Gary to the Michigan state line. They moved reasonably on completing the connection with the Indiana Toll Road but the route into Michigan (who completed I-94 to the state line) could be nerve-wracking even if you weren't the driver.
I remember that from the 1960's too. We had a cottage in Sawyer, MI and drove from Downers Grove every weekend in the summer. My dad complained it was IN protecting the toll road revenue. We used to have to get off at 80/94 at Broadway to go to US 20 in a not so good part of Gary at the time.
diningcarMay we now get back to railroading.
CARB affects many things in addition to railroads.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Of course, that's thousands of miles and over a decade from anything involved with the topic of this thread, which is the thing we should return to. I doubt there is much concern in New York-area passenger railroading for much that CARB says about zero-carbon mandates.
Overmod I doubt there is much concern in New York-area passenger railroading for much that CARB says about zero-carbon mandates.
I doubt there is much concern in New York-area passenger railroading for much that CARB says about zero-carbon mandates.
Especially since New-York are passenger railroading is pretty much electrified.
I think CARB would be a lot better off in looking into what realistically can be done as opposed to the perfect solution.
Erik_MagEspecially since New-York are passenger railroading is pretty much electrified.
South of Harmon that's mostly true. For the 400 miles from Harmon to Buffalo and on into PA, it's all Diesel.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Plenty of it isn't. To my knowledge nono of the ex-Erie commuter lines is electrified; only one train each way on the Raritan Valley line (with its expensive ALP45DP dual-modes) is actually 'Midtown Direct'; and the LIRR to East Hampton and Montauk is extensively nonelectrified (with the DM-30s that Dave Goding worked on). The Light Rail up from Canden to Trenton, and the line scheduled to go to Englewood Hospital, are diesel multiple-unit cars, and I know of no sensible plan to electrify them -- that could be converted to 'hydrogen battery trains' if the correct infrastructure for fueling were provided, but the recent European decisions not to proceed with those doesn't bode well for the idea's practical adoption in New Jersey.
A stretch of NJT trackage in the 'Meadowlands' was equipped with cat bridges as part of a PSE&G transmission-line permitting -- there is no cat on those bridges, and to my knowledge no plans for it, even as part of a punctate experiment.
Which leads to the question about what fraction of the NYC area commuters are carried on non-electrified routes? My perhaps naive impression is that the heaviest traffic is on lines that are electrified.
The flip side of NY areas not caring about what CARB does is how many people outside of the NEC care about the tunnels to NYC?
I do offer my apologies to upstate NY folks about not distinguishing between NYC and NYS as a whole.
.Heavy traffic led to the electrification, on most of the lines in question. A certain amount is Kaufman Act compliance, particularly on NYC and with the connection with NH via Woodlawn that required slow-speed third-rail "connectivity". Third rail on LIRR was necessitated by heavy traffic to Jamaica, but basically until Government money was lavishly spent the 'change at Jamaica' was to something else going outbound, and in many cases it still is. North to Stamford was electrified at the start of the 20th Century, the NEC electrification through Penn and Sunnyside dates only to the late Twenties, the Lackawanna (opened by Thomas Edison in 1931) was the same sort of traffic growth seen in suburban Philadelphia.
The Reading/CNJ/B&O New York Extension was electrified all the way through West Trenton, in fact over the Delaware River Bridge, but no one ever extended it any further toward New York despite it being compatible with 'Midtown Direct'-style through running under the Hudson. The auxiliary drive used for the Roger Williams could fairly easily have been adapted to either the existing third rail in the North River Tunnels or some form of overhead catenary accommodation ... but that never got done, even when Conrail took over the service and could have used government 'enhanced' support.
SIRT was electrified on a grand scale to go through the respective Hylan's Hole... but that didn't happen, either. I'm given to understand that some of the Jersey Coast Line trains south of Long Branch are dieselized (not operating further east/north than Newark is how those used to run) even with the electrification extended from South Amboy.
Someone could provide subsidy numbers for the various MNCR and NJT lines, per train-mile, and compare this with the passenger counts. There is certainly better performance from overhead-line electrification (where double-deck equipment is allowable) and this has been dramatically demonstrated with MARC service into Washington, where the 'Penn line' has much quicker acceleration, and shorter times at higher speeds, than even the modern diesel consists on the other lines.
A Congressional committee has scheduled a hearing on this (apparently including the idling requirement) June 13th at 1pm Central. RT&S provided a YouTube link for anyone interested in watching.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Wth0Zj7zA&feature=youtu.be
Note what appears to be a pejorative title.
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