Port Jervis Line out indefinitely

Otto,
You're knocking down a straw man here. Neither I nor (most other) posters are saying money should be wasted on something that will wash away in the next big storm. I am not a civil engineer. But I do know that other railroads have made much faster progress in repairing massive washouts. The MTA seems to have no sense of urgency. I guess the Lackawanna in 1955 did have a sense of urgency, and I never read that the work had to be done over.(The Lackawanna was broke and knew the work would have to last.) Fixing washouts is not rocket science. If the MTA insisted on speed I'm sure that, with modern computers, the consultants could have design drawings, etc much faster than in 1955. As far as issues with the Ramapo River, the state announced at the beginning of this that permitting requirements would be suspended, so the MN/MTA could just get to work.
They are not designing an airliner or a space shuttle or a nuclear reactor. Perfectly fine railroads were laid out with levels, transits and compasses. With modern lasers, gps, etc, the process should only be faster.

But not when the MTA is involved. After all, they only this week opened the Cortlandt St subway station...after how long?

blockline4180 wrote:Uzplayer,

I actually think MTA is playing politics here, and they may be looking for more money from the Feds.... However, I don't think the 2nd track is in the plans.

Perhaps I'm wrong.. However, IMHO this line won't be in service until at least January or February the earliest, which in my mind is unacceptable!

Somehow, I don't think the MTA has supplies readily available to move into the area like the others do. It might be more than just your basic politics and government. MTA might have gotten caught with their pants down on this one.

No matter what however, it is government at work...and at the end, while it seems they do want to fix this more permanently, the work will end up being slow as usual. Add to that, looking at the pictures, the damage looks pretty severe.

Otto Vondrak wrote:

SecaucusJunction wrote: I completely agree that they should get something running and then worry about making it perfect (or close to perfect) afterwords.

I do not support any plan that involves spending twice as much so that a temporary fix can be replaced by a permanent one. In my opinion ,that is a colossal waste of time, people, and resources. Even if you were able to cobble together some sort of train service, you'll only delaying the construction of the permanent fix by wasting time on a kludge.

-otto-

This kind of thing is done all the time by railroads when they need to get traffic through an area ASAP. It is also done when bridges and highways need immediate repairs but they need to keep some lanes open to traffic. Half of Route 287 fell into the water after the hurricane hit around Boonton and they had at least a temporary fix in place within a day. It would definitely not be double the cost of the permanant fix.

I could see them worrying about water diversion if they were building a track that had not existed before or had not existed for a couple of years, but this is different. Trains ran on the route no more than 2 weeks ago. The best they could do is just take reinforcement steps to make it more difficult for this to happen again. It cannot be absolutely prevented but what should happen is a contingency plan if it does happen again. I believe if this happened EOH, trains would be running again by now.

I drove between Sloatsburg and Tuxedo tonight and didn't see evidence of any washouts in that area. All signals are lit along the route. I'm beginning to think the damage on the route is localized in only a few different spots. A far cry from the 65 mile disaster zone they were trying to preach at us when this first happened.

from day one the washouts were reported to be within a 4 mile stretch.
biggest hold up is the relocation of part of Ramapo river, something that can not be fast tracked.

The longer the railroad is out of service, the longer it will take to get the passengers back.

I think they have lost a lot of riders right now. I say that because the Suffern trains that now get the Orange County passengers don't seem that jam-packed. Probably a lot of people are driving. Maybe some are taking the alternate bus service to Beacon.

I suspect that even when the trainsets stuck in PJ are returned, expresses will not return (hope I'm wrong...) because of the decrease in ridership.

But, they absolutely are going to restore the railroad. The slow start may be, as Otto and Dutch suggest, because they are planning an ambitious reconstruction of the line, and want elaborate engineering studies, or it may just be MTA slowness and bureaucracy. But they have to restore the railroad, politically. They have promised repeatedly. And Rockland and Orange counties are already furious at the MTA because they pay more in MTA taxes than they get back in services.

Plenty of emotions running high here. I think if I were a customer of the PJL, I'd be pretty upset about this... but as a neutral observer, MTA's strategy makes sense. It seems that MTA was already planning some major upgrades to the PJL. As long as they're going to spend lots of time and money getting the line back in service, they might as well take a look at which upgrades can be performed (or at least prepared for) while they're at it.

Maybe they don't double-track the line yet, but they can at least build the roadbed, bridges, signal gantries, etc. in such a manner that the future second track can be placed with little or no need for additional terrain work. That would be a lot smarter and cost-effective than slapping a band-aid on the line now, only to have to tear it off and rebuild again later, at greater cost to the taxpayers.

There's also the legal standpoint. If the crews are pressured to restore the line as quickly as possible, to the point they might wind up cutting corners, then the MTA is blamed if there's another washout or a derailment caused by another bad storm and/or shoddy workmanship. If I'm the MTA, I'd rather take heat for moving too slowly (in order to make sure the job is done RIGHT the first time) than to have to take heat because shoddy work caused people to be hurt or killed. When this work is completed and another big storm actually FAILS to damage the line, MTA will have three words for all the complainers: "told ya so."

The line will be restored, and people will come back when it's ready. Even if people get used to their alternative routine, if the train is still the fastest option, they'll be ready to get back on the train. The area is only going to keep growing in population, so even if some people give up on the train for good, others will come and fill those seats. And if the spur to Stewart Airport ever happens, there's even more reassurance the line will continue to attract riders.

People who use the PJ line for daily commuting really want it back fast. I've been commuting from PJ to Hoboken for 13 years and I find the extra half hour each way every day pretty disruptive. It makes me consider driving to work. In the 13 years, the line was out for a couple of days during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, and that's it (until now). I think it would be nice to make the railroad better. And as Orange County continues to grow, it will need increased capacity. But putting it back the way it was, if that could be done quickly, versus making a better railroad but taking months....maybe selfishly, I'll take the one we had. And the old Erie was always double tracked, so it couldn't take too much to make it double tracked again. But I'm sure bridges would have to be built for the second track...but that could be done while the railroad is in service.

(Edited for content by moderator)

My crystal ball is in the shop and I can't predict how long till the next washout.
I think if I saw some actual construction it would make me feel better about the situation.

I think one of the reasons the severest damage is mostly confined to the four-mile stretch Dutch mentioned is that reportedly a dam burst in Arden and created a massive surge. So in that sense this is kind of a man-made disaster

I'm sure behind-the-scenes Orange County must be squawking since they pay into the MTA and the Port Jervis Line is about all the transportation they get.

The other thought I had is, a private business has to get up and running as quickly as possible in order to get the cash coming in. Plus they're spending their own money.

The MTA is spending taxpayer money and there is a review process they have to go through, I'm sure. Plus there is widespread damage upstate and there must be a lot of competition for repair funds. Given the fiscal crisis we're still in there probably is a limited amount of money available. But at least MTA has said that abandoning the service is not an option.

Also Dutch mentioned that further slowing things is the fact the Ramapo River may be diverted. As Otto mentioned, they have to be darn sure when they do something like that, that they aren't creating a bigger problem in the future.

SecaucusJunction wrote:Lets all take a step back about climate change/global warming causing storms like this. This was a hurricane that originated in the Eastern Atlantic. Many of theses form every year and most people would say that historically, we were overdue for a storm like this to hit the region. Storms like this are not unusual; hitting this region is abnormal, but has happened many times before. Remember, it has been, and could have this time been, a lot worse if a cat 2 storm had hit instead of just a tropical storm.

As for the line, the riders deserve something. MTA has been taking their sweet time and has been very quiet about this whole thing. If MTA could provide a timeline of when they hope to have the line reopened, or at least a timeline of when they intend to start working on clearing the line, it would help a lot. Right now, they are offering little to no hope to the riders who depend on the service. It would be an utter shame if MTA did not have people working on this line 24/7 when work commences on fixing the line. 7-8 hours of work 5 days per week just wouldn't cut it in this situation. Every other railroad in western NY state is working feverishly beyond to open their lines and MTA should be doing the same thing, if not more.

Amen!

I believe NS will have the Western Tier open by tomorrow... AFAIK, that segment of the line between Binghamton and WEllsburg was very badly damaged this past week, and the crews are working on that as we speak!!

Just a comment about a oft-repeated idea that's always stuck in my craw a bit. The idea that Orange County taxpayers pay MTA taxes and "all they get is the Port Jervis Line". It's inaccurate.

While it's true that the Port Jervis Line is the only MTA service that actually runs in Orange County, local service is not the sole point of paying MTA taxes. If it were only local service that mattered, The locality (county in this case) could just provide the service at the local level and there'd be no need for a regional tax. But the reason the tax is handled at the regional level is so all people in the region pay in part for the regional benefit.

In other words, when an Orange County taxpayer pays the MTA tax, it's not just for the PJ Line, it's also to help pay for the connecting bus and subway service they use when they get to the city. Could the tax be apportioned better? Probably, but it's not true that "all they get" is Port Jervis.

oknazevad wrote:The idea that Orange County taxpayers pay MTA taxes and "all they get is the Port Jervis Line". It's inaccurate....when an Orange County taxpayer pays the MTA tax, it's not just for the PJ Line, it's also to help pay for the connecting bus and subway service they use when they get to the city.

Maybe it wouldn't stick in your craw if you understood what people are saying?

First, it isn't about paying a share of the cost of connecting services in New York City. Second, I don't believe any Orange County resident pays an MTA tax.

I live and work in Westchester, I don't pay an MTA tax. I pay NY State income tax, plus property tax to the City of Yonkers. Portions of that -- at least at the state level -- go to support the MTA.

The reason Orange County pays into the MTA is the New York State Legislature wrote them into the MTA service area. They are one of five suburban counties (Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland and Orange) that are served by Metro-North. The county pays an assessment and does so out of gross tax receipts.

A couple years ago Rockland and Orange were making noise about dropping out of the MTA and negotiating a service contract with NJ Transit. They said for the amount of money they paid MTA they might be able to get a better deal with NJ Transit.

Trust me, behind the scenes the Orange County legislators and the county executive are probably pushing MTA hard to get this line reopened. IMHO they'd be derelict in their duties if they weren't.

residents also pay MTA tax on their telephone bill and I believe part of Fuel taxes go to MTA in service region.
plus ofcourse the MTA payroll tax

Tommy Meehan wrote:

oknazevad wrote:The idea that Orange County taxpayers pay MTA taxes and "all they get is the Port Jervis Line". It's inaccurate....when an Orange County taxpayer pays the MTA tax, it's not just for the PJ Line, it's also to help pay for the connecting bus and subway service they use when they get to the city.

Maybe it wouldn't stick in your craw if you understood what people are saying?

First, it isn't about paying a share of the cost of connecting services in New York City. Second, I don't believe any Orange County resident pays an MTA tax.

I live and work in Westchester, I don't pay an MTA tax. I pay NY State income tax, plus property tax to the City of Yonkers. Portions of that -- at least at the state level -- go to support the MTA.

The reason Orange County pays into the MTA is the New York State Legislature wrote them into the MTA service area. They are one of five suburban counties (Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland and Orange) that are served by Metro-North. The county pays an assessment and does so out of gross tax receipts.

A couple years ago Rockland and Orange were making noise about dropping out of the MTA and negotiating a service contract with NJ Transit. They said for the amount of money they paid MTA they might be able to get a better deal with NJ Transit.

Trust me, behind the scenes the Orange County legislators and the county executive are probably pushing MTA hard to get this line reopened. IMHO they'd be derelict in their duties if they weren't.

When I say "MTA tax", I'm using it as a shorthand for the higher property tax rates assessed in the MTA service area, the funds from which are supposed to go to supporting the MTA, and the aforementioned MTA payroll tax, and other supposedly earmarked-for-the-MTA funds. That Albany doesn't follow through on actually allocating the funds properly is a real, perennial problem for the MTA, but doesn't change that the MTA service area is taxed at a higher rate than the rest of the state in order to support the MTA.

As for the idea of getting abetted deal by contracting with NJT directly, I remember the thread on that. As i recall, it was Rockland only, not Orange. I also remember the consensus was that it wouldn't work too well. I also remember having the same thoughts about the idea that all they get is the Port Jervis was as questionable then as it is now.

As for OC officials, I agree that they should be advocating that the line return as quickly as possible. But I agree with the "do it once, do it right" mentality.

Video and pictures of damage from MTA website... http://www.mta.info/pj/, if nobody has already posted this link.

SecaucusJunction wrote:FYI: It looks like all of the railroads in western NY State have re-opened their lines following the catastrophic floods from Lee last week. No problems finding stones, rip rap or whatever else is involved for areas much larger than Harriman to Suffern. We're now at 2 1/2 weeks with not even a tree removed east of Harriman. I really do feel bad for the commuters on the line that are being forced onto buses with longer commutes. There is absolutely no excuse for what is going on here. Something is not being told here... as none of those pictures or videos looked nearly as bad as what is going on in western NY state. I don't know what is going on, but I can't believe everything that MTA says at face value. It makes no sense.

I've decided to censor most of the comments I was going to make on this topic. However I will say I disagree with this. Commuters have been through hardships before for decades. A new one isn't going to be the end of the world.