Amtrak Grand Central Terminal Operations

Just saw the first Amtrak train going into GCT. The P42 (didn't see the eng number) was leading and the P32 (711) was trailing. The shoes were down and running on the 3rd rail in the P32.

114 was P42 the modified P32acdm has air shoes removed and has MN third rail gear (non air operated)

I looked at the Amtrak train status site for today. The three arriving trains at GCT were on-time (or within a few minutes of on-time). The first two departures have been on-time and the last one, 239, is expected to depart on-time in about twenty minutes from now. The GCT board lists the track assigned as 38. The departing trains also arrived Yonkers on-time (first stop) so everything seems to be going very smoothly.

Did anyone get the other modified engine numbers? So far I know the following:
Modified P32: 711
Modified P42: 94, 114

There is definitely one more P32, and probably one more pair (they can do the schedule with two trainsets but they should have a third ready just in case).

other P32acdm is 710, no other locomotives were used today.

95 trailing on Empire 233 (11) at 207 Street, Bronx.

There's a semi-glitch on Amtrak.com:

If you try to book a trip from NYG (Grand Central) on weekends, when (as I now learned) Amtrak doesn't operate from NYG, an error message in blue appears: "There is a problem with your trip; please consider the alternative below", and a new itinerary, on a weekday, appears.

So beware: if you try to book a trip from NYG and Amtrak isn't serving NYG that day, Amtrak.com won't automatically generate a ticket on the same day from NYP (Penn Station), as it ought to; it'll just generate a ticket for the following Monday. Who needs that?

I don't understand Amtrak's reasoning behind its customer-facing operations at GCT:

1. Amtrak trains don't appear any departure boards, even at the track where the trains are. (At least this was the case for yesterday's late afternoon departure.) How are you to know where your train is?

2. There is no Quik-Track machine. What if you don't have your phone and didn't print your ticket? Amtrak staff can look you up on their devices, but it's still confusing for passengers.

3. There is an Amtrak employee directing passengers to the track where Amtrak trains are, and the track is accessible from Grand Central North and the main concourse (i.e., you can access the track from the north and the south), and Amtrak trains are the only trains in the entire station that have "Amtrak" written on them, but passengers still have to line up at the south entrance to the platform. Why, and what purpose does this serve?

If you taking AMT 239 out of GCT the train set turns from AMT 242, once there they would like to have coach cleaners go through and tidy up plus a new T&E crew gets on and has to have there briefing with the pilots. Finding the train cant be that hard as they average between 300 to 325 on most days. Trust me Metro North dosent like the queue lining up and blocking the passage way. On my walk to the shuttle I heard atleast 3 announcements for the train.

SouthernRailway wrote:I don't understand Amtrak's reasoning behind its customer-facing operations at GCT:

1. Amtrak trains don't appear any departure boards, even at the track where the trains are. (At least this was the case for yesterday's late afternoon departure.) How are you to know where your train is?

2. There is no Quik-Track machine. What if you don't have your phone and didn't print your ticket? Amtrak staff can look you up on their devices, but it's still confusing for passengers.

3. There is an Amtrak employee directing passengers to the track where Amtrak trains are, and the track is accessible from Grand Central North and the main concourse (i.e., you can access the track from the north and the south), and Amtrak trains are the only trains in the entire station that have "Amtrak" written on them, but passengers still have to line up at the south entrance to the platform. Why, and what purpose does this serve?

On Day 1 (1) was not an issue - they were on all the departure boards as Hudson Line trains to Albany. This includes the trackside boards, which showed the proper stops.

As for (3) - I don't et the point of the queuing, but the person managing it was a MNR employee.

It must have been a glitch with the departure boards. I'm in GCT several times a day (I work a block away) and every time I look at the Hudson Line departure board the Amtrak trains are there.

With regard to lining up: MN has plenty of experience with passengers that are oblivious enough to paint scheme and equipment that they get on the train to Harrison (in electric territory on the New Haven) when they want to go to Garrison (in diesel territory on the Hudson Division) or some such nonsense. I'm sure everyone on this board who is a regular rider-- never mind MN crew-- has at least one story. Management probably made the decision that having a queue at Track 38 was better in the long run than having to make an unscheduled stop to disembark some genius with an off-peak MN ticket to Springdale or Valhalla.

I found the track for the Empire Service train last Friday late afternoon (5:49-ish) from GCT both due to checking RR.net and due to finding the small screen at GCT that shows arriving trains, and the train was listed on the Hudson Line/green part of the screen, as arriving from "Albany-Rensselae".

Most people wouldn't know how to do this, though.

The Port Authority bus terminal in NYC doesn't have a departure board at all (or at least it didn't last time I was there, a few years ago), so you have to somehow figure out where your bus is, which is totally infuriating, so I'd expect that Amtrak customers at GCT would become livid.

Im in there every Friday afternoon and I can say the "regulars" have it figured out. I have yet to see any pissed off passengers aimlessly wandering wondering where the f is Amtrak. As Ive stated in a previous post 200 to 300 find there way every Friday for AMT 239.

The Hudson Line departure board is quite small: half the size of the Harlem board, and 1/3 the size of the New Haven. There is only room to list 5 trains at once on it. There are 10 MN Hudson Line departures scheduled in the 30mins prior to 5:49 p.m. on a weekday. If the Amtrak train appears on the board in chronological order (like all the other departures) it wouldn't pop onto the main departure board until after train 853, the 5:29 Poughkeepsie express, clears.

Time Track Destination Remarks 11:11 AM
11:15 AM 38 ALBANY-RENSSELAER, NY AMTRAK TRAIN 233 TO ALBANY
11:20 AM 107 CROTON-HARMON YANKEES-E.153RD ST. 1ST STOP
11:25 AM 23 N. WHITE PLAINS MELROSE-1ST STOP

You can watch the board from the comfort of your office with the link below.

http://as0.mta.info/mnr/html/bigboard.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;