Amtrak Gateway Tunnels - Freight Usage

We need whatever level of freight moved to rail that we can handle. Our roads can't handle so many trucks. So the tunnel is badly needed along with other rail improvements.

photobug56 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 12:38 am Our roads can't handle so many trucks.

[citation needed]

The length of trains (not # of cars) will have to be limited by whatever length of each train that will completely fit into the yard(s) it is dispatched into. Must clear mains for LIRR.

If you're not running longer trains you're not removing trucks from the roads...

And in just one or two posts you've completely Illustrated why this idea has gone nowhere over the last 50 years.



Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

lensovet wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 2:09 am

photobug56 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 12:38 am Our roads can't handle so many trucks.

[citation needed]

Congestion Pricing is Coming To New York. Everyone Has an Opinion. NY Times article.

If the roads are full, you can't add more anything, including trucks. And when they start playing with congestion charges, you can definitely say the roads are full and there's no room for more roads!

eolesen wrote:Yeah, I get that there are sidings and some freight capacity in yards further out, but I'm having a hard time imagining multiple 100 car freights rolling through the elevated track that runs through many of the communities between Suffolk and the city limits...

How long is the trash train?

Congestion pricing is all about making money, not reducing cars. They know a majority of people will pay the tax without blinking.

It's true that the congestion pricing in London did reduce private cars, but they were just replaced with more buses and Rideshare providers who gladly pay the congestion charge (or are exempt). Supposedly, pollution from diesel particulates are up since implementing the charge...

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

eolesen wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 12:31 pm Congestion pricing is all about making money, not reducing cars. They know a majority of people will pay the tax without blinking.

It's true that the congestion pricing in London did reduce private cars, but they were just replaced with more buses and Rideshare providers who gladly pay the congestion charge (or are exempt). Supposedly, pollution from diesel particulates are up since implementing the charge...

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... evels.html
The report was from 2018. Gasoline Single driver cars replaced with HOV buses, and taxis, which at the time were diesel.
Since then, the Buses and taxis are now LEV , and the amount of Nox emissions have gone down, again.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 8:04 am

lensovet wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 2:09 am

photobug56 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 12:38 am Our roads can't handle so many trucks.

[citation needed]

Congestion Pricing is Coming To New York. Everyone Has an Opinion. NY Times article.

If the roads are full, you can't add more anything, including trucks. And when they start playing with congestion charges, you can definitely say the roads are full and there's no room for more roads!

eolesen wrote:Yeah, I get that there are sidings and some freight capacity in yards further out, but I'm having a hard time imagining multiple 100 car freights rolling through the elevated track that runs through many of the communities between Suffolk and the city limits...

How long is the trash train?

If you get a lot of the long distance trucks off the road, there will be plenty of room for local delivery trucks which will have to cover far fewer miles. Indeed, most LD trucks go somewhere to offload, then goods are reloaded on local delivery trucks. Eliminating many LD trucks will reduce traffic and pollution. It might not be as cost efficient (for the tunnel, etc.) as you would like, or as it could be in other parts of the country, but it is badly needed.

Here's a non-paywall link to the NYT story...

http://web.archive.org/web/202112252154 ... icing.html

If congestion pricing is only limited to Manhattan, I don't see how it's going to do much regarding trucks in the outer boroughs or Long Island.

Congestion pricing will have minimal effect on LD trucks, except to make it a bad idea to use the tunnels in midtown.

I can see a lot of opposition to freight trains idling in Brooklyn for long periods waiting for the tunnel. Might need to invest in shore power connectors so they can be turned off when not in use.

gprimr1 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:46 am I can see a lot of opposition to freight trains idling in Brooklyn for long periods waiting for the tunnel. Might need to invest in shore power connectors so they can be turned off when not in use.

Or using battery electric locomotives...

If freight trains have to idle in Brooklyn for long periods they won't take much freight away from trucks, especially high-rated freight.

Wow, so many problems and there hasn't even yet been any planning!

eolesen wrote: ↑Sun Jan 09, 2022 8:28 amAssuming there was demand to run that many trains, where on the Long Island side is there space to stage and build 12 trains each way? Yard capacity on the east side of the tunnels will be the chokepoint, not tube capacity.

Fresh Pond yard is clogged today, but more frequent service from Oak Island should help somewhat. The challenge is that TriBoroRX/Interborough would use up the ROW on the Bay Ridge which has effectively been turned into another yard. The stone trains also come from Cedar Hill, so those would have to be put into Fresh Pond and not left out in the makeshift yard on the Bay Ridge.

Oak Point would be far better off, as it would no longer be handling all the Fresh Pond traffic, which is most of what its handling today, and would only be handling local freight for the immediate area and a few remaining customers on the New Haven and Harlem Lines.

Hence why I don't think that a two-tube tunnel makes any sense for freight, I think one is just fine.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sun Jan 09, 2022 9:18 amIf you look a bit far away, the closest yard would be the Fresh Pond Yard, off the LIRR Montauk branch west of Jamaica... which I bet is full of LIRR trains.

Nope. That's NY&A, all freight. No LIRR service on there.

gprimr1 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:46 amI can see a lot of opposition to freight trains idling in Brooklyn for long periods waiting for the tunnel. Might need to invest in shore power connectors so they can be turned off when not in use.

Electrify it. We need to start electrifying major freight lines anyway, and this one would dovetail nicely with the New Haven Line.