Amtrak Grand Central Terminal Operations

DutchRailnut wrote:at one time a misrouted garbage double stack container, made it as far as just south of yankee stadium.

One like this?

DutchRailnut wrote:at one time a misrouted garbage double stack container, made it as far as just south of yankee stadium.

Now, now, that was just the Yankees returning from a game with the Red Sox.

Perhaps why inquiring minds want to know how far south a dome can operate is inquiring minds want to operate a Dome into 125th st. and cut it off there. Given the high ammount of traffic at 125, I would think this would be next to impossible.

it is also physicaly impossible as clearance in bronx is 14.6 as well and the dome cars are NOT allowed south of Harmon .
no matter how far they fit.

I looked into the issue of dome car clearance on the Hudson Line while doing some planning for a proposed special train move circa 1989, at which time Amtrak was still operating out of Grand Central Terminal. At that time, the clearance restriction was a bridge across the tracks in the vicinity of a GM auto plant at/near Tarrytown NY. As a result, a standard height dome would have to be switched out of the consist of a southbound train at Croton-Harmon.

One other point on clearances ... not all cars that meet Amtrak's "A" clearance profile (Northeast Corridor, Pennsylvania Station and North/East River tunnels) comply with Metro North RR's more restrictive clearance profile. Prior to private car MOUNT VERNON (PPCX 800708) being moved to Metro North RR for inclusion in a Metro North RR special train from GCT to Poughkeepsie and return on January 22, 2005, the car's diesel fuel tank had to be raised several inches higher to comply with Metro North RR clearances. Photos at http://www.dominionrailvoyages.com/page ... 005_2.html

Does anyone have any photos of FL9s in Amtrak paint?

inquiring minds want to operate a Dome into 125th st. and cut it off there.

What are you going to do once you cut it off? Leave it on the main? 125th is basically a four track main with a few island platforms, there's no house track to store something on, nor is there car knockers to assist with add/drops.

Anything that hits the "rake-off" blocks at Manitou would be cut off at Croton west yard.
When the VIA cars were used on #68+69,they were not allowed in 3rd rail territory due to
the underframe mounted equipment boxes.
The domes would have been cut off at Albany to begin with.

DutchRailnut wrote:it is also physicaly impossible as clearance in bronx is 14.6 as well and the dome cars are NOT allowed south of Harmon .
no matter how far they fit.

Must be one of those bridges... How much clearance does the bridge at riverdale have, and what about the broadway bridge?

Mod Note: We're going in circles discussing a concept that cannot happen. No more discussion of domes south of Harmon.

acs85 wrote:Does anyone have any photos of FL9s in Amtrak paint?

Maybe...

Thanks for the info about the height restrictions.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:The New Haven windows were to the East, and last time I checked were rented to the Off Track Betting outlet.

OTB is long gone from the terminal: I don't think it survived the late-90's restoration (in fact it's gone everywhere, having gone bust in 2010.) Before there were so many ticket machines in GCT I would see the old New Haven windows in use during heavy travel periods (Friday going into a long weekend) or at the beginning of the month, when everyone bought their new commutation ticket. Nowadays there's a currency change bureau operating out of one-two of them, and the rest are unused.

OTB has been gone for a while. At one point, pre-restoration, some of the NH ticket windows were used for a stationmaster's office. I recall going there at one point to have someone paged. Now I believe there is, in addition to currency change, a window for GCT Tours and the corner one for NY Tourism.

Now Amtrak used to have its ticket windows in the passage between the concourse and the waiting room (Vanderbilt Hall) in offices built over the Oyster Bar ramps. Looking at one of Metro North's early publications, "A Guide to Grand Central", it says that Amtrak and Metro North tickets can be purchased at the same windows. Was this ever really true? Were there Amtrak windows mixed in with the Metro North windows? I doubt that one window would've sold both Amtrak AND MN tickets, seeing as today, the two are separate.

Thanks, amtrakowitz!