The easiest, most simple, most apparent implementing of such service would be SEPTA from inner city Philadelphia to Trenton, NJT to NYP, MNRR to New Haven. What an easy trial!...one or two trainsets which are already route compatible could be run to to test the equipment and usage. Second a one trainset schedule all the way. Three different crews are acceptable for the trial. Trains should make more stops than present Amtrakers but fewer stops than current SEPTA-NJT-MNRR (forget for the moment MNRR is not running from NYP). From Market St or Suburban to 30th St.,, North Philadelphia, another stop or two, Trenton; change crews; Hamilton, Princeton, New Brunswick, Metro Pk, Newark Airport, Newark, Sec. Jct (maybe), NYP; change crews; New Rochelle, Stamford, junction stations for Danbury and Waterbury anyway and maybe one or two others if needed, arrive New Haven. Probably about 4 hours each way, one set of equipment. One, two or three, round trips a day for testing...7AM from each end, 11AM, and 5PM for instance but change and alter if not working....either start earlier or later at either or both ends....no more than 2 minutes dwell at any station except maybe 5 at NYP. Don't look for Philadelphia to New Haven ridership but look at all the combinations in between! as well as off line passengers...Waterbury, Danbury, New Canaan, Wassaic, Poughkeepsie, Spring Valley, Port Jervis, Dover-Hackettstown-Gladstone, Raritan HIgh Bridge, any and all LIRR points using one thorugh line ticket. (easier today since I think everyone is using a zone fare system rather than a mileage system which can be fed into computer systems, i.e. NJT Z6 to SEPTA Z1 or MNRR Z 3 or LIRR Z 5, etc.). But start with equipment useage then move on to through scheduling and tickets....then.....
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I would also note, in passing, that the recent FRA/NECIP threads contain another valuable source of 'impartial' regional transportation planning; indeed, much of the existing commuter rail services have been considered as 'feeders' to the NEC proper and therefore included in the scope. Perhaps a formalization of 'recommendations' from an FRA-led body could be taken as a basis for 'harmonized' implementation and some planning, even in the absence of politically-linked regional transportation authorities.
(Cost for the Federal end would increase, of course, but not by *that* much even if there is some bureaucratic padding and 'where you stand is where you sit' action... and the economies of combined planning might offset some of the additional expenses)
I agree with Henry on the logistics side of what he's proposing. Some is more difficult
Even if conducted only in an 'advisory' capacity, harmonization of schedules and arrangement of connections (and of connection policy -- when and how trains can be held when riders need to make a particular connection) can be arranged outside a formal agency.
The issue of one-seat fares, or discounted transfers, would indeed require a larger agency, or more rigorous four-state cooperation. Whether or not this could be handled by a small committee of governor's representatives, with confirmation as needed via the Legislatures or whatever, is an open question until actually tried -- I suspect it could be done on that level to the extent it's Pareto-optimal politically.
I see Metro-North already has a comparative system in place to display fares to common points via different routes (Greenwich being the one I saw). and it would not be difficult -- technically -- to have other fare tables or 'splits' display in this manner. The immediate concern I foresee is the old Sabre problem: whose fares get 'first billing', and how is the split made when multiple entities have some shared link of the origin-destination routing the rider chooses...
I leave the farecard issue open. Personally I'd want the physical card, or an account tied to it, to be common across multiple carriers, including those using MetroCard, but I can also see the problems and NIH involved in that sort of effort. 'Automatic' billing of fares from a card or RF device is fraught with its own set of issues... especially when the billing is automagically split between state agencies.
I had thought MNCR and ConnDOT already had some agreement machinery in place, and I know MNCR and NJT have some agreement machinery, and NJT and SEPTA have something in place. While there isn't going to be 'one lead dog' in the current organizations (which is why I thought 'governors' committee' for that purpose) there can certainly be low-level coordination of all the necessary arrangements...
Doesn't matter how it is done, John, and and "authority" may not be the way. It could an outcome of or extension of Amtrak, it could be a consortium of the agencies existing, or it could be a simple cooperative effort by them. A New Haven to Philadelphia, Wilmington or anyplace on SEPTA would work....one seat ride, one ticket, tight connections at Trenton, Newark, Secaucus Jct., NYP, Stamford, South Norwalk, Bridgeport, and NH. Or to Montauk or to Poughkeepsie, or Scranton or Port Jervis....depends on the marketing and the studies. It might relieve Amtrak of some of its burdens and allow Amtrak to improve its own services. It could just be a better use of equipment so that it doesn't have to be shuffled around in dead head moves or lay idle all day in a yard. Crews might be able to get an 8 hour day in without sitting around for four or five hours "rest" between schedules....so many savings and efficiencies might arise if it were studied and intelligently implemented. Perhaps a Scranton to New Haven train or to Albany. With the new concepts of dual mode locomotives, etc, so much is possible if minds are put to sensible planning.....
henry6But this discussion opens up again my contention of a Regional Railroad from the domain of SEPTA to the ends of all LIRR, MNRR, LIRR, and NJT service routes with one ticket rides, maximum use of equipment, one seat rides, close (5 minutes or less) and maintained connections, marketing, etc.
I hate to rain on your parade, Henry. But I see a problem.
The states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania would have to create a 4 state authority to operate their railroads. On the plus side replacing 4 bureaucracies with one would no doubt save money and allow for a more efficient use of track and storage facilities. But each state would loose control over its own rail transit. Would the states agree to that?
Also, would this create unintended consequences? For example, would a Member of Congress who agrees with John Mica pursue pulling Federal funds from Amtrak trains that run in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and dump those costs on the new 4 state authority?
John
Overmod, by opening the East Side access to GCT will remove quite a number of trains to NYP thus opening up an opportunity to refill those gaps either with LIRR or MNRR/CONDOT via Hell Gate. Whether or not any MNRR or LIRR service runs through NYP in either direction is all a matter of conjecture here.
But this discussion opens up again my contention of a Regional Railroad from the domain of SEPTA to the ends of all LIRR, MNRR, LIRR, and NJT service routes with one ticket rides, maximum use of equipment, one seat rides, close (5 minutes or less) and maintained connections, marketing, etc.
Somebody will have to explain this better to me.
LIRR into Penn is so crowded that they're spending billions on the East Side Access to run into... GCT. So here you come saying let's add still more trains to Penn in addition to what Amtrak runs over the Empire Corridor. Maybe after the Gateway project is complete there would be enough space at Penn for this to happen, but frankly I see little point in expanding service to where a full double-track Empire Corridor would be required, or justified, by traffic density (here, peak traffic density).
LIRR to Riverdale is something of a mystery to me. Where would you route it? And even if you did, why would be the point? To take the bus service up the hill? To enable Long Islanders to take a less congested trip upstate or to Wassaic than they'd get via the East Side Access? I'm not seeing it.
I also do not see any point in going from the East Side Access project all the way up to Riverdale on the Hudson Line just to turn around and come back to (overcrowded) Penn.
And please explain what the last line means:
daveklepperThe right-of-way north SF is six-tracks wide. To Riverdale.
Seems to me six tracks of anything to Riverdale is SF indeed!
Be interesting to fit the six tracks of the flyover-enabled Penn connector into the existing space between the curve west of Marble Hill and the Riverdale station, yes. But that has nothing to do with LIRR that I can possibly imagine.
There is always the spaghetti approach of restoring the 'original' double track across the Harlem at Spuyten Duyvil, run for a while entirely west of the existing Hudson Line main, letting the SB traffic come off the local (outside) track, and putting in a single-track flyover to the NB side somewhere north where it could be shoehorned in. This would facilitate SB service from Riverdale to Penn... but there's going to be some fun to get trains up and down (and then crossed over to the local track, if the Amtrak optimization to center running tracks and minimum flyover cost is implemented) by the time Riverdale comes up...
The bridge must be double track to accomodate future commuter service to Penn Stat, whether by extenision of LIRR to Riiverdale, which makes sence to me, or by MN to Penn.
Why extension of LIRR to Riverdale and connection to MN there? To keep dispatching problems at Penn to a minimum, since there already are three players there and a fourth would complicate things more.
The right-of-way north SF is six-tracks wide. To Riverdale.
Using Google Earth, I measured the distance from MNRR to the Spuyten Duyvil swing span at 2/10 of a mile. For a 1% grade there is a 53' rise per mile. I believe this is comparable to the West Albany Hill.
The north end of the bridge to the MNRR four track line is less than a mile...therefore an new leap over the Harlem River at that point, especially of the clearance has to be 55 ft at high tide, means longer approaches at both ends than one would think, depending on speed factors. Probably a single track bridge is practical with single track for about 2 miles minimum in both directions.
Overmod; Great analysis as it has been way too many years since I have seen that area. One reason that I proposed the solution I did was a modification of the original flyover proposal at New Rochelle.
blue streak 1The raising of the bridge to a no draw may not be possible. Anyone have the clearance numbers from the coast guard ?
The clearance number I have is 55'. Note that this is higher than the spec for the Portal Bridge project. That amount of rise in ROW grade to get a clear span over the full width of the channel is of course larger than this, possibly much larger if the 55' minimum extends across a greater portion of the river's width than is made clear by opening the existing span. I would think this might easily be 70' at top-of-rail, which would translate into longer ramps -- depending on permissible grade. Reduction of grade right down to 'minimum' railroad clearance can be made on the north side of the channel crossing, which may reduce some issues with the actual flyover framing or span construction.d
I see nothing in this that is not do-able, but I think the cost would sure be higher than a bridge replacement and some careful movable-frog switches, especially if some flavor of CBTC allows very short time between a switch move and regular traffic.
I would definitely suspect (with Portal Bridge again being the specific exemplar) that if large sums of money would be put into a flyover AND a new bridge, the bridge would have to be made 'noninterruptable'. So yes, I'd think if the bridge replacement and flyover were combined, the answer would be a higher-level bridge, with the 'rise' being used to enhance the height of the flyover at the north end of the new structure.
I would think that full "track speed" can easily be reduced for the relatively short distance that would be required for the ramps and structure at Spuyten Duyvil (about 2 1/2 miles total 'restricted' route length for a 1% max approach gradient on both sides, I think). Consider also the present very sharp curve north/west of Marble Hill, which is the area where the flyover would have to go. (Issues of widening the ROW in the area of, and perhaps reducing the sharpness of, this curve may (and probably should) factor significantly into any overall bridge/flyover solution.
One potential approach may be to curve the new bridge to the east, and then back toward the west as it approaches the north shore, so that it would align with a chord of a new, less sharp curve profile. Even if reduced speed is required on part of the bridge and the flyover, it would not translate into a substantial increase in trip time over what a normal interlocking to /from the inside tracks would require, and there is a potential decrease in 'express' time for trains going to GCT that do not stop at Marble Hill if that curve is modified.
(Might be some fairly heroic bent and cross-girder work to get the flyover across four curved tracks in that space, though! Somebody ought to get the track diagrams for this part of the railroad -- are they still available to someone requesting on letterhead, and if so, what are the appropriate plan number(s) for request? -- and sketch out exactly what would be involved in various 'flavors' of this idea...)
Do not remember if there are any fixed bridges between Manhattan and the Bronx over the Harlem River?
I don't quite understand what this involves. Are you wondering what the minimum height of one of those bridges is? There are fixed bridges, but I believe they are all at much higher level than anything that an Empire Line consist could comfortably negotiate (even if track speed were not achieved). Now, in part this is because many of them are built from side to side of a steep-walled valley, and therefore are much higher 'by default' than minimum clearance would mandate (the Washington Bridge, IIRC, has 135' clearance above MHW). So I don't think you can go by that, rather than the 55' statutory clearance.
Going from south to north on the west side connector could Amtrak --- Using a short double track start a double track incline (slopeed for track speed ) to cross the river...
Using a short double track start a double track incline (slopeed for track speed ) to cross the river...
This raises a somewhat interesting issue, made dramatically less ridiculous than it sounds by the promise of PTC/CBTC and perhaps some 'engineered' slack in schedule time. There might not need to be any reason for full double-tracking of the new bridge or flyover to accommodate sensible Empire Corridor service, as the running time either way could easily be monitored to ensure two trains weren't in time conflict for the bridge section, starting corrective action many minutes early to resolve any potential conflict that might cause delay, let alone accident. Cost of a single-track approach and flyover would probably be dramatically lower than a double-track equivalent, especially since the bridge would be 'de facto' gantleted to have only one train on it as well as having a lower dead load...
Would I really do that? Probably not. Having the whole of the west-side line double-tracked (and directionally separated except in emergencies) makes much better sense to me; having an 'additional' bridge track in case of mechanical 'issues' a wise precaution, and being able to flow trains directly from the main in either direction in minimum time being an advantage. But the opportunity cost of the difference might pay for purchase or financing on a fairly large number of engines and consists, or allow more operations...
... then pass over the 2 western tracks along a widened 6 track ROW.then slope down between the 2 middle tracks to a CP for complete access to any track. That would allow north bound AMTRAK trains to get on the express track without delay. esp in the morning.
Two initial observations: you would not need to start 'widening' the ROW by more than the lateral width of the flyover support structure until the bottom of the 'overhead' came within clearance distance ... which I believe will always be the Park Avenue tunnel clearance. You'd have a choice of where to put the 'widening' space down to that point: between the two center mains, if a single 'pylon' flyover support is used, or between 1-2 and 3-4 if 'portal beam'.
Second, if the flyover is 'single track' the required zone of ROW widening is five tracks, not six. You would have a 'ladder' track, with relatively quick crossover to NB track coming off the flyover, but perhaps a train length of 'center' track to the north of that point, allowing a SB train to 'hold' clear of all four running tracks in case of a close 'meet'. Again, this is significantly less expensive than a full widening of the rather close-to-the-river alignment at that point on the railroad...
RME
Henry re read the announcement twice and found no mention of additional Port Jervis. Maybe will be announced along with NJT ?
The raising of the bridge to a no draw may not be possible. Anyone have the clearance numbers from the coast guard ? Do not remember if there are any fixed bridges between Manhatten and Bronx.on Harlem river ?
Going from south to north on the west side connector could Amtrak ---
Using a short double track start a double track incline (slopeed for track speed ) to cross the river; then pass over the 2 western tracks along a widened 6 track ROW.then slope down between the 2 middle tracks to a CP for complete access to any track. That would allow north bound AMTRAK trains to get on the express track without delay. esp in the morning. j
My point was just that...it is merely a planned change when timetables change...MNRR includes west of Hudson in the number of new trains....the idea of a raised bridge would have to be considered but the idea of a new bridge has to be considered as it is a very old bridge and has given everyone a problem or two from time to time. But raising the height at channel would be some enterprise...the whole line there is at virtual sea level so to raise it would take several miles of incline to be efficient...but would work toward doing a fly over for at least one track but it might have to run further north before there is room to bring it down and into traffic. I would assume that if a train is held off MNRR north, it would be held south of the bridge if it cannot fit between the interlocking and the clearing point of the bridge.
henry6 It this an emergency timetable change? Or just the new Spring table? I think the latter and that there is no need for alarm or question. MNRR to NYP is not in this picture at this time. And the cat work on the Shore Line, the new signals on the Port Jervis line, along with the track and station work here, are all important improvements MNRR has undertaken for its constituents. The slower speeds and delays will be only temporary until the work is done, then...keep clear of all tracks...
It this an emergency timetable change? Or just the new Spring table? I think the latter and that there is no need for alarm or question. MNRR to NYP is not in this picture at this time. And the cat work on the Shore Line, the new signals on the Port Jervis line, along with the track and station work here, are all important improvements MNRR has undertaken for its constituents. The slower speeds and delays will be only temporary until the work is done, then...keep clear of all tracks...
http://www.mta.info/mnr/html/schedchange.html
Sorry Henry not quite the case. Not an emergency change but spring change adding service. Suggest you read the above MNRR bulletin. They are adding 85 weekday trips,or 17 a day; & 22 per weekend or 11/ day. More importantly they are adding 3 additional stops near Sputen to 22+ trains a day. Explains the AMTRAK schedule changes. Don't expect slower speeds to be changed ? ?
A raised bridge at Sputen would eliminate the circle line openings ? Does AMTRAK have enough room to park between the bridge and MNRR when delayed by either bridge or MNRR ? ? Wonder what will happen at the next service increaseoo
NH line service only slightly being increased.
I am not sure that count included West of Hudson Services or not, but it actually, in many respects, returning to older schedules before financial cutbacks about 5 or so years ago. Similarly LI has returned some services that were cut., too.
Metro North announced last July that they were to "add 230 new trains a week over the next year, mainly on weekends and in the off-peak periods." This should not have come as a surprise to Amtrak.
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It this an emergency timetable change? Or just the new Spring table? I think the latter and that there is no need for alarm or question. It does reflect track work being done by MNRR, however, and has been planned well in advance so that these schedules could be drawn up.
Sputen Devil is a devil of a place for many reasons...that bridge has to be replaced for one thing...then, yes, the junction/interlocking could use a little sprucing up. A "fly over" is interesting as it conjures up the concept that could be accomplished easily if the bridge is heightened over the Spuyten Devil too!
MNRR to NYP is not in this picture at this time. And the cat work on the Shore Line, the new signals on the Port Jervis line, along with the track and station work here, are all important improvements MNRR has undertaken for its constituents. The slower speeds and delays will be only temporary until the work is done, then...keep clear of all tracks...
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Although we don't know how much advance notice AMTRAK had this will certainly affect all riders on the Empire corridor. The winter schedule certaainly does not show this change. The slow down on the Adarondiac is not good ! ! Edit;-- The Adarondiac is actually speeded up.
The the price of MNRR eventually going to NYP will be for them to build a flyover at Spuyten Duyvill for AMTRAK. That may allow more time speedups. All that effort to buy the Poughkeepsie - Albany route for faster schedules and this may help? ?
This certainly ups the ante for Hartford -- NYP separate ROW if MNRR does the same thing on the New Haven line ? ? ???-
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