Port Jervis Line out indefinitely

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.

Borrowed, from all places, NJT transit forum (somewhat appropro since it's an NJT-contract service):



I think half of this thread is you complaining. Don't get me wrong; I sympathize with those affected. Maybe they should be moving faster, but how much is going on behind the scenes you don't see? Maybe they are taking advantage of this disruption in service to expedite other improvements, as has been discussed.

And I think you're comparing apples to oranges, i.e. private enterprise to public passenger service. It's a lot different getting freight traffic moving at temporary, restricted speeds, to get time-sensitive shipments to customers. Profits depend on it. Not so passenger service, which is run at a subsidy, not for profit. You can bus passengers; they still get to their destination. The freights? I don't think they want their customers contemplating trucking. You run a freight at restricted speed, and it's not a huge human tragedy if something gives and a few cars derail (*unless it's hazmat). Run a passenger train over a temp fix at restricted speeds and it derails? And there are injuries?

And, if this were the Park Av viaduct, or the North River tunnels, yeah, you'd expect faster action. Maybe the response could be faster. But could you lose the hyperbole' and drama? It's not my thread to moderate, it's Terminal Proceed's, and while I don't think your viewpoint is unreasonable, I think we'd be better served by a more rational discussion.

I don't think we need any conspiracy theories here...
I hope that Dutch or someone else in the know will post here if/when the stranded trainsets are returned to NJ. Then we can push our officials for the return of express service.
As for the speed or lack thereof with with the MTA is restoring the line, I will have no more comments about that because it's out of my hands. It would be nice for them to post progress reports/photos when there is progress to report.

Very well said Jeff. I agree, some things private businesses do better. But let's face it, no private business would agree to operate and maintain a passenger railroad over sixty-five miles of route that carries 2,300 riders per day.

Throw resources at the damage? Private businesses like Norfolk Southern have retained earnings of literally billions of dollars. They can tap into that quickly when the need arises. It's their own money, they can do what they want with it. They only have to answer to their stockholders.

Taxpayers demand public agencies live from one budget to the next. MTA probably has very little discretionary funding available for an emergency. I don't know if it's good or bad I just know that's the way things work.

Jeff Smith wrote:I think half of this thread is you complaining. Don't get me wrong; I sympathize with those affected.

I sympathize with those affected too. But honestly, some of the people who seem the most upset aren't affected by it at all. It seems like they just want to beat up on Metro-North.

nomis wrote:I think it may be possible that MTA might not be the perfect, infallible organization that most people assume it is.

HAHAHA I was thinking the same thing!

Lets be realistic here......if this was another line, lets say the Harlem Line, or the New Haven Line or Hudson Line, it would have been repaired and back up or at least worked on already.

Will the Catskill Mountain get rebuilt before the Port Jervis Line? Hmmmmm At least Catskill Mountain is back to running their trains, just on a shorter schedule....while they are cleaning up and starting to rebuild with volunteers.

Oh I guess Im beating up Metro North! Sorry! they are doing such a great job with the repair efforts that we should all just sit back and relax and watch the railroad rust away even more, especially the large portions of the line that have NO DAMAGE.

A serious question here - what is LIRR doing with the rock that is bored out from the ESA tunnel project? I mean if there is any place for a lot of "free rock" that would be it. I know they aren't huge chunks of rock that the TBM spews out, but it is pretty solid and im sure could be used for something, and would/should be relatively cheap?

nomis wrote:I think it may be possible that MTA might not be the perfect, infallible organization that most people assume it is.

I know that's tongue in cheek, especially for a fellow TRE fan, but I agree, absolutely. But what organization, public or private, is? Face it, no matter how good a lot of the employees are, it's still a bureaucracy. I'd love to see the red tape cut out, too. Look, it could be worse, you could be dealing with a BANK.

Who knows, when this is all over, you could end up with a much improved railroad, with some of the WOH study recommendations implemented.

Jtgshu wrote:Lets be realistic here......if this was another line, lets say the Harlem Line, or the New Haven Line or Hudson Line, it would have been repaired and back up or at least worked on already.

But that's the point, isn't it? It's not the Harlem or the Hudson (part of the Empire Corridor) or the NH Line (part of the NEC). It's the lightly-trafficked Port Jervis Line. Now Jtgshu seems to be saying Metro-North is screwing up. Maybe as a railroader he can feel that way, okay. As a NYS taxpayer I don't feel they're screwing up.

Where I live they have disbanded the police street-crime unit. Closed a fire company. Furloughed several hundred Board of Ed employees.

It's what you're priorities are. Personally I'd rather have the anti-crime unit back.

Tommy Meehan wrote:

Jtgshu wrote:Lets be realistic here......if this was another line, lets say the Harlem Line, or the New Haven Line or Hudson Line, it would have been repaired and back up or at least worked on already.

But that's the point, isn't it? It's not the Harlem or the Hudson (part of the Empire Corridor) or the NH Line (part of the NEC). It's the lightly-trafficked Port Jervis Line. Now Jtgshu seems to be saying Metro-North is screwing up. Maybe as a railroader he can feel that way, okay. As a NYS taxpayer I don't feel they're screwing up.

Where I live they have disbanded the police street-crime unit. Closed a fire company. Furloughed several hundred Board of Ed employees.

It's what you're priorities are. Personally I'd rather have the anti-crime unit back.

That IS the point. So those heavily traveled lines could be repaired quickly and not take the "cautious and long term" repairs that the Port Jervis line is supposedly going to get? That doesn't make any sense. If anything, it should be the opposite. Take the time and fix it correct on the heavily traveled lines and then just get the PJ line running and if there are slow orders through the area, even if they are permament, so what, no biggie, less folks would be affected anyway, and its not that big of a deal. Building a Great Wall of China type ROW and re-routing the Ramapo River for 2300 riders is how you want your tax dollars spent?

Interesting article on how NJ dealt with the storm.

http://www.app.com/article/20110912/NJN ... |Frontpage

The state of NJ spent 7 million dollars to stabilize just Route 287 because of the damage from Irene, and im sure most of that was up in Boonton area where the large washout was. There have been budget cuts and PD and FD and public works employee layoffs in my town and county, there have been teachers fired and classroom sizes expanded, but that doesn't give the State the excuse to not fix a major asset that thousands of drivers/riders/train commuters/car drivers whoever, depend on. Sure things are prioritized, and if a bridge was washed out on a road with no houses, its gonna be on teh bottom of the list, but would they take this same amount of time to repair/replace Route 17 if it was damaged in the same area? Some things just have to be done, and then figured out how to pay for later. I don't see why repairing the Southern Tier doesn't fall under that category. Especially since some cash could be saved by doing some of the work in house. MN crews could be doing some work out there, now that the rest of the railroad is back up to speed after the storm (as far as I know)

Im not saying MN is right or wrong. Im just shocked that nothing seemingly has been done to a public observer. No, I don't work the Port Jervis line so I don't have any inside info or anything, but there definitely seems to be a lack of urgency on their part, and if this was a different time, we probably would see the terminating of service permanently on the line. And there is a nagging in the back of my head wondering that...... the longer the busses continue, the harder its going to be to justify the major repairs needed, especially if ridership on the busses is declining......

Just sayin.....

It took MNR a month to replace track 1 between CP 34 and CP 33 on the Hudson -maybe 1500 feet of track. And we expect them to repair 4 - 6 miles of disasterous track and RoW damage in less time? This isn't tie replacement we're talking here, these are complete washouts!

I believe they are legally obligated to Norfolk Southern to reopen the line. NS still technically owns the line and the lease states that they need to keep the line open and clear if NS wants to run trains.

MTA has never made mention of ridding themselves of the line. That is really just railfan speculation at this point. All they have talked about is rebuilding the line... although in a very slow fashion. I am beginning to think that they really just don't have resources to accomplish these projects quickly, which is a problem in itself. If this project speed is an example of them invoking emergency resources, then imagine how long it would take if they tried to just do it themselves.

Steve, I just think it's because MNRR has invested in the line, and has long-term plans for the line, as part of it's WOH strategy.

Ill break my silence briefly only to say that SecaucusJunction is not the only one who feels the way he does. The general feeling is one of bewilderment as to why Metro-North steadfastly refuses to even start any work (like clearing downed trees), and awe at the ability of Metro-North to so rapidly come up with so many different excuses as to why their not doing anything (including a nice video of them not fixing anything).

Save your electrons if you disagree with my statement. Im only stating what the feeling among the people who actually work (including engineering) on the Southern Tier is.

Metro-North could shoot down the conspiracy theories and complaints about the lack of the work if they simply told us what they were doing. Sure, we got some general statements about how they needed to examine the damage and hired an engineering firm, but we hardly have any specifics. If Metro-North wants the conspiracy theories and complaints to go away, they should be issuing daily progress reports on what is happening. If it has any of the urgency that they say it has, surely they can report that they had meetings, made progress on developing a plan, started to move supplies in order to repair the line, etc.. If they aren't doing anything reportable, then that shows that they are not repairing the line with any urgency at all, and should be held accountable. Either way, the taxpayers and the riders of the Port Jervis line should have the right to know what's going on.

It was noted above that NS technically still owns the line. I believe that
government owned infrastructure is eligible for 75% reimbursement from
the feds for storm damage. There might be some question on that
federal funding for replairs, if M/N only leases the line. Details, details..

Sirsonic,

Do you know if the trains from PJ have made it back to NJ yet?

None of the trains left in Port Jervis have been moved east yet. While some equipment may be heading east soon, I don't know exactly when that will happen. Unfortunately for the buffs here, I doubt I will have any advance notice of when anything will be heading east.