Lake Shore Limited bottlenecks

Gilbert B Norman wrote:

Woody wrote: I take this sort of personally, because I've lived in New York for
almost 50 years, and I have never crossed the Hudson on the
Tappan Zee Bridge. Frankly, I don't care if it falls into the river.

Some kind of boycott, or just simply no reason.

It simply doesn't go where I want to go. So I'm being just like
all those driver-haters who don't want to see a tax dollar got to
Amtrak because they never ride the train. Tit for tat. That's all.
I'm sure the driver-haters would understand.

While we're on the Hudson River, and more back on topic,
surely some minutes could be squeezed out of Lake Shore Ltd
run on the MetroNorth trackage north of NYC, with appropriate
investments.

I read once about the need to build a flyover to allow entry/exit
to a MetroNorth yard near Poughkeepsie iirc. Currently all the
commuter trains cross the main line tracks. Getting them safely
out of the way would cost $300 million, again iirc.

More frequent trains, including MetroNorth commuter trains
in a few years perhaps, running down the west side of Manhattan
into Penn Station, will one day necessitate a new crossing of the
Spuyten Duyvil. The current swing bridge is 114 years old, and
must allow right of way to a handful of boats passing thru.
Lacking any info whatsoever, let's questimate $1 billion for
that upgrade, a higher bridge or tunnel. But I'm sure a billion
is on the low side.

Woody wrote:While we're on the Hudson River, and more back on topic,
surely some minutes could be squeezed out of Lake Shore Ltd
run on the MetroNorth trackage north of NYC, with appropriate
investments.

I read once about the need to build a flyover to allow entry/exit
to a MetroNorth yard near Poughkeepsie iirc. Currently all the
commuter trains cross the main line tracks. Getting them safely
out of the way would cost $300 million, again iirc.

More frequent trains, including MetroNorth commuter trains
in a few years perhaps, running down the west side of Manhattan
into Penn Station, will one day necessitate a new crossing of the
Spuyten Duyvil. The current swing bridge is 114 years old, and
must allow right of way to a handful of boats passing thru.
Lacking any info whatsoever, let's questimate $1 billion for
that upgrade, a higher bridge or tunnel. But I'm sure a billion
is on the low side.

Poughkeepsie Yard is least of the Hudson Line's concerns re: handling more intercity traffic. Look at all this lost track capacity in diesel territory: http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/imag ... hudson.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Save for the largely stationless gap around the rock cuts from Peekskill to Garrison, NY Central had a full 4-track railroad from Spuyten Duyvil to Barrytown at the northern border of Dutchess County. 5 tracks most of the way from SD to Hastings-on-Hudson. MNRR diesel territory is going to have to at minimum become a 3-tracker end-to-end save for the Peekskill-Garrison pinch, and probably need all 4 back to Poughkeepsie (or Rhinecliff if they extend there). Possibly with all 5 tracks from Spuyten Duyvil to Yonkers also being needed to sort all that converging traffic near the junction. Nearly every station requires modification to restore all this trackage, but it matters a lot more for speed and capacity than 1 movable bridge and an individual point or two where yard traffic is crossing at grade.

A fly over ehh why in the world would you need that. Between CP72 and CP75 there are 7 tracks. Two mains one controlled siding and 4 yard/storage tracks. Tracks 2-1-3 are served by high platforms. There is access to tracks 5 and 7 and the CNE yard off track 3 (controlled siding) through hand thrown switches. As for tracks 6 and 8 in the River Yard they can be entered through electric lock hand throws off track 2. Why waste the money on an elaborate fly over when the system works just fine as it is.

While the Hudson Line has it's qurks and the Albany metro area trackage is now under Amtrak's control,
seems like the worst area is now the Buffalo - Cleveland segment,between CSX's dispatching and the amount of
freight train congestion from NS and CSX,including the fragmentation of CR's ex NYC water level route
between NS and CSX in this segment.

Woody wrote: More frequent trains, including MetroNorth commuter trains in a few years perhaps, running down the west side of Manhattan
into Penn Station, will one day necessitate a new crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil. The current swing bridge is 114 years old, and
must allow right of way to a handful of boats passing thru. Lacking any info whatsoever, let's questimate $1 billion for
that upgrade, a higher bridge or tunnel. But I'm sure a billion is on the low side.

The bridge at Spuyten Duyvil was rebuilt in 1990, I assume as part of the Empire tunnel connection project. The February 2014 issue of Trains Magazine has an article on the moveable bridges of the NEC and Metro-North with a table listing all the bridges, their age, height above water, the average number of yearly openings. The bridge at Spuyten Duyvil is given a 1990 build/rebuild date and opens approximately 250 times a year. Opening 5 times a week is something that can be scheduled around. Replacing the bridge does not appear to be on Amtrak's (long) priority list. If the MTA and MNRR want to add a second track there for commuter trains to NYP, then it will be to MTA and MNRR to pay for whatever upgrades are needed for the 2nd track.

afiggatt wrote:

Woody wrote: More frequent trains, including MetroNorth commuter trains in a few years perhaps, running down the west side of Manhattan
into Penn Station, will one day necessitate a new crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil. The current swing bridge is 114 years old, and
must allow right of way to a handful of boats passing thru. Lacking any info whatsoever, let's questimate $1 billion for
that upgrade, a higher bridge or tunnel. But I'm sure a billion is on the low side.

The bridge at Spuyten Duyvil was rebuilt in 1990, I assume as part of the Empire tunnel connection project. The February 2014 issue of Trains Magazine has an article on the moveable bridges of the NEC and Metro-North with a table listing all the bridges, their age, height above water, the average number of yearly openings. The bridge at Spuyten Duyvil is given a 1990 build/rebuild date and opens approximately 250 times a year. Opening 5 times a week is something that can be scheduled around. Replacing the bridge does not appear to be on Amtrak's (long) priority list. If the MTA and MNRR want to add a second track there for commuter trains to NYP, then it will be to MTA and MNRR to pay for whatever upgrades are needed for the 2nd track.

The junction is waaaaay more a bottleneck than the bridge or the short single-track pinch at the bridge. CP DV needs to be totally reconfigured to sort the merging traffic better. Until they do that an extra half-mile of double track laid through the empty bridge berth doesn't make a difference. The same crossovers are the bottleneck.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:

afiggatt wrote:

Woody wrote: More frequent trains, including MetroNorth commuter trains in a few years perhaps, running down the west side of Manhattan
into Penn Station, will one day necessitate a new crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil. The current swing bridge is 114 years old, and
must allow right of way to a handful of boats passing thru. Lacking any info whatsoever, let's questimate $1 billion for
that upgrade, a higher bridge or tunnel. But I'm sure a billion is on the low side.

The bridge at Spuyten Duyvil was rebuilt in 1990, I assume as part of the Empire tunnel connection project. The February 2014 issue of Trains Magazine has an article on the moveable bridges of the NEC and Metro-North with a table listing all the bridges, their age, height above water, the average number of yearly openings. The bridge at Spuyten Duyvil is given a 1990 build/rebuild date and opens approximately 250 times a year. Opening 5 times a week is something that can be scheduled around. Replacing the bridge does not appear to be on Amtrak's (long) priority list. If the MTA and MNRR want to add a second track there for commuter trains to NYP, then it will be to MTA and MNRR to pay for whatever upgrades are needed for the 2nd track.

The junction is waaaaay more a bottleneck than the bridge or the short single-track pinch at the bridge. CP DV needs to be totally reconfigured to sort the merging traffic better. Until they do that an extra half-mile of double track laid through the empty bridge berth doesn't make a difference. The same crossovers are the bottleneck.

I was just about going to add this. The bridge itself has rarely been an issue for me. It's the crossing over (especially NB) that has been.

Greg Moore wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:The junction is waaaaay more a bottleneck than the bridge or the short single-track pinch at the bridge. CP DV needs to be totally reconfigured to sort the merging traffic better. Until they do that an extra half-mile of double track laid through the empty bridge berth doesn't make a difference. The same crossovers are the bottleneck.

I was just about going to add this. The bridge itself has rarely been an issue for me. It's the crossing over (especially NB) that has been.

When the West Side Line was the New York Central's freight line, was it double-track the whole way, and was the junction configured the same way as it is today?

It's hard to believe the Central would allow freight trains crossing over to tie up a busy four-track passenger main.

eastwind wrote:

Greg Moore wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:The junction is waaaaay more a bottleneck than the bridge or the short single-track pinch at the bridge. CP DV needs to be totally reconfigured to sort the merging traffic better. Until they do that an extra half-mile of double track laid through the empty bridge berth doesn't make a difference. The same crossovers are the bottleneck.

I was just about going to add this. The bridge itself has rarely been an issue for me. It's the crossing over (especially NB) that has been.

When the West Side Line was the New York Central's freight line, was it double-track the whole way, and was the junction configured the same way as it is today?

It's hard to believe the Central would allow freight trains crossing over to tie up a busy four-track passenger main.

Not sure, but some thoughts

1) The bridge itself I'm pretty sure was double tracked.
2) There is the remnants of a wye there, which operationally would have helped NYC more than MNRR or Amtrak today. (I believe dutchrailnut pointed out today it would interfere with the Spuytn Duvyil station trackage and it's a fairly tight radius in any case.)
3) I'm sure NYC it's more likely the NYC delayed the freight trains in favor of passenger trains whenever possible. Now you've got passenger trains on both legs, with MNRR owning the 4 tracks, so most likely if there's interference, they'll decide in favor of MNRR.

The bridge does have an empty track berth. Doing full double track to the junction is not a problem. But it makes zero difference until the junction is reconfigured for saner merging. And MNRR has zero interest in doing that until they're ready to send the Hudson Line into Penn Station. Which won't be for another 7-10 years at least.

How old is the bridge at sputen divel station
Wonder if Amtrak will have it replaced by same contractor company who did the thames river and the niantic river bridges

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:The bridge does have an empty track berth. Doing full double track to the junction is not a problem. But it makes zero difference until the junction is reconfigured for saner merging. And MNRR has zero interest in doing that until they're ready to send the Hudson Line into Penn Station. Which won't be for another 7-10 years at least.

Something along the lines of Shell Interlocking?
There seems to be enough width to the right-of-way, and enough distance, between Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale to put in a flyover, or is that just ridiculous?

A flyover would be better if u ask me
However its also nice watching the bridge swing while on Metro North toward Poughkeepsie
And how long would construction take plus where would Amtrak's trains that traverse the hudson line go

When the West Side Line was the New York Central's freight line, was it double-track the whole way, and was the junction configured the same way as it is today?

Yes, the West Side freight line was all double track in NYC days. I don't know whether the junction track layout at Spuyten Duyvil was the same as now -- probably not -- but the NYC managed to keep things moving with no problems. Of course these days the number of movements down the West Side is actually greater than in NYC days, at least in the 1960s, since Amtrak runs more passenger trains on the line than the NYC ran freights and mail/express trains.