Explosion, fire in Harlem suspends New Haven Line service

"Police and fire officials are responding to reports of an explosion at 116th Street and Park Avenue in Upper Manhattan Wednesday morning.

Metro North has elevated tracks through the area. New Haven Line service into and out of Grand Central Terminal is temporarily suspended until further notice due to police activity."

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?secti ... id=9463294" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For what it's worth, my wife's Hudson Line train (9:23 from SD) was stopped at Morris Heights. They were told that a building collapsed at 116th street and that a train was being sent to take passengers back to Marble Hill to transfer to the 1 Train.

Not just New Haven Line service suspended but ALL Metro North service.

I'm surprised the media has not blamed Metro North for this.

All lines suspended due to debris on tracks, also awaiting to see if any damaged caused by explosion/collapse.

I wonder if Amtrak would be able to help bring people to New York
Until service resumes when it will

Theoretically Amtrak could help the Hudson line by running extra trains from Riverdale to NYP. They would need more Amtrak P32AC-DMs, though, because per this thread I don't think Metro-North's P32ACs can run in Penn Station. I guess Amtrak could temporarily stop sending the P32AC-DMs to Niagara Falls and Rutland and use P42DCs for those routes instead.

There's also the huge problem of platform slots at NYP. Overall it's probably easier to let people take the 1 train from Marble Hill and hope for the best with the resultant congestion.

I don't know that much about the New Haven Line and what it would take to run extra trains over the Hell Gate route. But you still run into the NYP issues.

Lets not take a left turn for fantasy land here.

Interesting shot with the tracks in perspective:

I was looking at the pic of the train that split into 2 unless it was just 4 cars
It looked like an m7 or m8 because of the fans on top

WABC Radio is sayiing that trains are running and passengers going in both directions are being directed to take the subway in and out of the Bronx from GCT. They're also saying that Metro-North tickets are being honored on the subway.

Senator Charles Schumer may well hold a conference tomorrow demanding that Metro North build twenty-foot strong walls above track level on the Park Avenue viaduct to keep future debris and smoke off the tracks. Without federal funding.
Joe

truck6018 wrote: I'm surprised the media has not blamed Metro North for this.

...

Given the circumstances behind the suspension, I doubt they'd do that - they're not that stupid.

Travelsonic wrote:

truck6018 wrote: I'm surprised the media has not blamed Metro North for this.

...

Given the circumstances behind the suspension, I doubt they'd do that - they're not that stupid.

There will be second guessers demanding why it took so long
to re-open the tracks. Also questioning why a full schedule cannot
be implemented immediately.

I'm assuming that not a wheel is going to turn until the viaduct has been closely inspected for potential damage, and the authorities have verified that none of the buildings adjacent to the site of the explosion are in danger of collapse from the vibration of the trains.

How much equipment is stranded in the GCT yards as a result of this? My guess is the answer is "enough that schedules will be screwed up even if the line is reopened this afternoon."

Ridgefielder wrote:I'm assuming that not a wheel is going to turn until the viaduct has been closely inspected for potential damage, and the authorities have verified that none of the buildings adjacent to the site of the explosion are in danger of collapse from the vibration of the trains...

I'm not riding today but for the sake of everyone who is, I am hoping they can get the trains rolling again for the PM rush. In the news photo posted above you can see there are track crews already on the viaduct. What might take some time is inspecting the other buildings. I got caught in one of those once. It took the inspectors a while to determine there was no danger of secondary collapse. The danger not only of the train vibrations causing it, but the danger to the trains if buildings collapsed onto the right-of-way.

Btw I just spoke by cell phone to a friend of mine who works for Metro-North at GCT. He's on his way home to Westchester. By subway!