Penn Station track question

[NKP guy]

When I depart Penn Station aboard #49 in just a few moments I see (off the port side) what looks like a wye that has a southbound track. How far does this track go?  Is it the spawn of some ancient trackage rights, like the HR RR?  

[wanswheel]

Penn Station tracks could not connect to NYC&HR west side tracks.

[rcdrye]

There is a wye off of the "Empire Connection" at Empire (MP 1.0 from Penn Station).  South switch is at MP 1.2, north at MP 1.4, both off of track 2. That's about the point where the Empire Connection, which opened in 1991, reaches the alignment of the New York Central's West Side line.  At that point the train is going north, so the wye tail is going off to the west (it's not very long.) The wye was built at the same time as the Empire Connection.  Third rail stops south of the wye a bit past MP 1.  Both wye switches are hand-operated but electrically locked.  Info from 1999 Amtrak ETT, but I doubt it's changed.

The Empire connection is on the south side of Penn Station, about where the track diagram shows yard "A".  Because of the track arrangement with the East River tunnels, only tracks 5-9 can be used for trains going directly between the Empire Connection and Sunnyside.  Trains had an excellent article on Penn some years ago that showed a lot of this.

[Wizlish]

wanswheel

Penn Station tracks could not connect to NYC&HR west side tracks.

Mike, that is not like you.  What would make you think that a PRR track chart from 1944 would show any details of the Amtrak Empire Connection, which was specially built decades later?  (Sometimes ya gotta check the information in those railroad.net posts!)

I'm sure you (of all people!) can find a current Penn Station (or whatever the political name is now) diagram; if I recall correctly, even some of the 'promotional' material for the aborted ARC tunnel project showed how the Empire Connection was laid out and routed...

I suspect many people here will be interested in this PDF download on Amtrak PTC installation, which includes track charts in its appendices.  (If you have trouble opening it, you can do what I did and use 'open with' and specify Adobe Acrobat Reader.)

[schlimm]

wanswheel

Penn Station tracks could not connect to NYC&HR west side tracks.

 

How do you think the Lake Shore Ltd, Maple Leaf, Ethan Allen and all those Empire Service trains get from Yonkers to Penn Station?

[schlimm]

Wizlish

I suspect many people here will be interested in this PDF download on Amtrak PTC installation, which includes track charts in its appendices. 

The appendices for track charts are indexed, but not included in the PDF file.

[wanswheel]

The New York Times, July 7, 1988

Amtrak Trains to Stop Using Grand Central

By Kirk Johnson

Amtrak, the federally financed passenger rail system that serves both Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal, said yesterday that it would consolidate all its operations at Penn Station as early as 1990.

The railroad said a 10-mile track extension, to be built over a long-unused freight-track bed on the West Side would bypass Grand Central and join with the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge. The bridge, which spans the Harlem River and connects Manhattan and the Bronx, has been closed since 1982. It will be rehabilitated and reopened.

The bypass will allow, for the first time since the construction of the great rail tunnels, a direct route south through New York City from the Hudson River Valley.

A tunnel already under construction at 34th Street will connect the track extension with Penn Station. Amtrak officials said the bypass would make the system more convenient to use and was expected to attract 250,000 additional passengers annually. It would also shorten by a few minutes the trip between New York and such points north as Albany and Montreal, Amtrak said.

The officials said the final pieces of the project came together over the last few days with an agreement between the railroad and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which owns property that Amtrak must tunnel under from Penn Station to the West Side track bed.

''This has been a gleam in the eye of transportation planners for a long, long time,'' an Amtrak spokesman, R. Clifford Black 4th, said. ''We finally have the momentum to go forward.''

For most of this century, many train passengers traveling through New York have had to make their own way between Grand Central and Penn Station because the two were built by different rail companies, the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad, and never connected. Mr. Black said that it was not known how many passengers traveling through New York City made the connection between the two and that most of the anticipated new riders would be those who had not ridden Amtrak specifically because of the connection problem.

About 100 Amtrak trains use Penn Station each day, Mr. Black said. They carry 5.5 million passengers annually. Eighteen Amtrak trains use Grand Central each day, for a total of one million passengers a year, he said.

The project, first reported in New York Newsday, is expected to cost $85 million, 40 percent, or $34 million, of which will be paid by the State Department of Transportion. The remaining $51 million is to be paid by Amtrak, Mr. Black said.

Although Grand Central will continue to serve Metro-North commuters, primarily from Connecticut and Westchester County, it will no longer be the terminal for passengers between New York City and northern points, including Buffalo and Montreal.

Patricia Raley, a spokeswoman for Metro-North, which operates Grand Central as a unit of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said that the Amtrak departure would mean the loss of $600,000 a year in electrical and service fees, but that given the railroad's $447 million budget, the impact would be minimal.

Mr. Black of Amtrak said that although there is a rail link between Penn Station and Grand Central, a train would have to go through Queens, the Bronx, parts of Westchester and then back 35 miles over different tracks - a trip that would take even longer than it does to cross Manhattan at midday and that would be ''totally unfeasible.''

Amtrak trains now serve all points south of Penn Station, and a northbound line from the station serves New Haven and Boston. The bypass project, planned since 1982, will take those trains that previously traveled from Grand Central underground through Manhattan and put them above ground along the Hudson River, from the Javits Center tunnel to the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge. On the Bronx side, trains will link up with existing tracks. The Amtrak line to Grand Central will continue to be used by Metro-North.

The two key factors of the bypass plan, Amtrak officials said, were obtaining rights to the freight track, which carried its last load in 1980 - three cars of frozen turkeys - and reaching the agreement with the Javits Center.

Mr. Black said that because the track was owned by Conrail, the Federal freight system, and was not being used, permission to use it was readily forthcoming. Negotiations with Javits Center officials were complicated by the fact that the center has long-range plans to build above the site. Thus, the cost of additional support systems had to be factored into the agreement.

This 1921 map is largely seen at N.Y. Public Library website at link.

http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/469b6610-b9ec-0131-3b34-58d385a7b928

[MidlandMike]

Google Earth shows that the track from 39th to 43rd street is covered.  I presume this is the location of the wye, and it is also covered? (There are switches just outside the tunnel entrances)

[rcdrye]

The wye tail track is completely covered.

[wanswheel]

I think track 4A (2 Main) goes north.

[Wizlish]

schlimm

The appendices for track charts are indexed, but not included in the PDF file.

And I am having no success finding them (my copy is itself an addendum to an FCC document). 

It's time for the Mike-light again.

I understand (from other sources) that a limited number of tracks (iirc 4-9) in Penn Station proper are accessible from the Empire Connection.  The track goes over the two North River tunnel approach tracks/portals, but under the yard decking, and I believe the actual routing is a bit more circuitous than the pink line on the schematic Mike has provided.  In my opinion this is a fairly spectacular piece of civil engineering, and underrated by many railfans.

[NKP guy]

Many thanks, again, wanswheel.

For the first time, thanks to your two excellent maps, I understand exactly where I am and what's going on as my train leaves Penn Station.  These maps really do answer my question about the wye and so much else.

[rcdrye]

Wizlish

I understand (from other sources) that a limited number of tracks (iirc 4-9) in Penn Station proper are accessible from the Empire Connection.

Tracks 1-9 are accessible from the Empire Connection, but 1-4 are stubs.  Tracks 5-9 are the only ones accessible from the Empire Connection and the East River tunnels, and not all of track 9's platform is usable.

[MidlandMike]

wanswheel

I ...

 

 

The "wye" seems to be missing a track leg.  Topo maps also only show the one north leg.

[MidlandMike]

Control Point Empire where double track begins, looking north from 38th Street overpass:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/74359530?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com

North wye switch (?) from 43rd Street tunnel portal looking north:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/74359782?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com

 

[wanswheel]

[wanswheel]

[timz]

rcdrye

The wye was built at the same time as the Empire Connection.

Rebuilt, maybe. If you look at the historicaerials.com 1954 pic you'll see what looks like the stem of a wye between 40th and 41st St on the east side of 11th Ave.

[ajcassatt]

wanswheel, could you let me know the source of the lower image (black, blue, purple lines) in your post and if you have the full picture? 

[wanswheel]

That is the full picture, from archived blog ‘The LIRR Today.’

http://island1277.rssing.com/chan-11960539/all_p17.html#item327

[MidlandMike]

wanswheel

That is the full picture, from archived blog ‘The LIRR Today.’

http://island1277.rssing.com/chan-11960539/all_p17.html#item327

 

Thanks for the link.  It explanes that the (south) leg of the wye not shown is out of service.