Railroad Forums 

  • Effects of MN to Penn Station on TriboroRX

  • This forum will be for issues that don't belong specifically to one NYC area transit agency, but several. For instance, intra-MTA proposals or MTA-wide issues, which may involve both Metro-North Railroad (MNRR) and the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). Other intra-agency examples: through running such as the now discontinued MNRR-NJT Meadowlands special. Topics which only concern one operating agency should remain in their respective forums.
This forum will be for issues that don't belong specifically to one NYC area transit agency, but several. For instance, intra-MTA proposals or MTA-wide issues, which may involve both Metro-North Railroad (MNRR) and the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). Other intra-agency examples: through running such as the now discontinued MNRR-NJT Meadowlands special. Topics which only concern one operating agency should remain in their respective forums.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, nomis, FL9AC, Jeff Smith

 #1572957  by jamoldover
 
ElectricTraction wrote: Wed Jun 02, 2021 5:43 pm
CraigDK wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 1:51 pmThe EA is available. Chapter 2 describes in a decent amount of detail the stations and track changes for the project.
Ugh, it looks like they're on track to totally blow this one and make things a lot harder in the future. This is at a scale a lot worse than the botched Mineola station/interlocking design disaster or the Elmont station QUEENS Interlocking mess. This might be up there with the AirTrain to nowhere, although even that doesn't physically impede anything, it just doesn't really go anywhere useful, and politically would preclude it from ever going where it logically should go. Tracks don't really matter, they're easy to move, but station platforms do, as with the NYC area's insane construction costs, they cost an insane amount of money to move.

The problem is that this uses up too much of the ROW and doesn't leave room for TriBoroRX.

[text omitted]

TriboroRX, Penn Access, and Cross-Harbor Tunnel all need to be planned as one project as they all have somewhere between some and a lot of overlap in the ROW that they are going to need to share, with more minor or tertiary effects on several other rail/transit projects in the area.
And when TriboroRX and the Cross-Harbor tunnel become more than pie-in-the-sky fantasies and dreams, maybe they'll be accounted for. Right now, Penn Access is a real plan - waiting for the "ideal" one will prevent anything from ever happening.
Last edited by nomis on Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: split TriboroRX topic for continuity
 #1572969  by ElectricTraction
 
jamoldover wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 8:30 amAnd when TriboroRX and the Cross-Harbor tunnel become more than pie-in-the-sky fantasies and dreams, maybe they'll be accounted for. Right now, Penn Access is a real plan - waiting for the "ideal" one will prevent anything from ever happening.
First of all, the bare minimum today would be to take the plans for TriboroRX and Cross Harbor into account. If they build this as they have shown in the EIA, not only are they spending a little more money then they need to adding extra tracks, but they will require that those stations be torn out and re-built later in order to build TriboroRX, just because no one bothered to figure out what the ROW requirements for TriboroRX are. It's not that hard to simply leave half the ROW empty for TriboroRX until it has the funding to be built, or even to just put the station platforms in the right place and move the tracks to nowhere over there. It would actually REDUCE the cost of Penn Access if the extra tracks weren't built, as Amtrak wouldn't end up with a bunch of extra tracks to nowhere for a section of track that is far more bottlenecked by both Penn Station itself and SHELL Interlocking than it is by the current 2 tracks. Trackwork is relatively easy to move, stations are really expensive to move.

Secondly, TriboroRX and Cross-Harbor are studied, realistic, necessary, and logical plans for improving the transportation network of New York City, they simply aren't funded, well also there's the whole cost issue in that they need to get project costs under control in general for all projects, be they LIRR, Amtrak, MN, MTA, etc, and whether they are FRA heavy rail or non-FRA heavy rail subways.

The only reason TriboroRX got a bad name is because some dumb people proposed it as non-FRA heavy rail, which would require temporal separation or separate tracks, and isn't a feasible plan. It's a perfectly feasible plan with FRA heavy rail that would operate like a subway train, basically have it's own set of tracks, but have interlockings for freight to be able to jump on and off and get through in the off hours mixed in with lower frequency TriboroRX trains, not requiring temporal separation.

The NY area needs a comprehensive transit and transportation plan, not this peacemeal mess, thinking short-term and not accounting for the future is how we got the disasters built at Elmont and Mineola, and the awkward triple track that doesn't actually add much of any capacity to LIRR. It seems MN wants to have it's own poorly designed mess. Of course if we could build things at a reasonable cost, we could just build stuff and re-build it all later and it wouldn't be that bad, but when we're building $100M+ stations, $10M locomotives, $300k bathrooms, subways at $32,000/inch, track at $265M/mile, whatever gets built is probably stuck in the way for the next century.
 #1573545  by ElectricTraction
 
So I was looking at the system-level planning for TriboroRX, and not doing it before putting a shovel in the ground for Penn Access is a horrendous blunder, but it may turn out that there isn't a conflict. There are two Triboro proposals, one going to Co-Op City, and one going over to Yankees Stadium, via the Port Morris Branch and a little less than a mile of tunnel over to Yankees Stadium to meet up with the subway lines over there (for transfer, you can't have FRA heavy rail and subway sharing trackage), creating far more connections with other transit, which is kind of the whole point of Triboro. The Co-Op City route clearly has to be planned concurrently with Penn Access, whereas the Port Morris/Yankees Stadium plan likely wouldn't conflict. The Port Morris/Yankees Stadium design appears to be more technically complex, and would miss easy connections with Penn Access at Hunt's Point and points farther north, which would put a HUGE transit value on a combined MN/Triboro station at Astoria-Ditmars, but this would be a massively technically complex project involving some property takings to widen the approach to the Hell Gate Bridge and build two island platforms. This also interfaces with Amtrak's missing Queens station, which I still think belongs in Woodside, but one could certainly make an argument that Astoria-Ditmars would be a great location for it as well, as either would have ample subway access and a high population density that would feed more Amtrak business.

If built the Port Morris way, it's possible that some service from Triboro to MN as far as Co-Op city would be possible, but the interlocking design to make that possible gets really messy really quickly, so a place to transfer, i.e. Astoria-Ditmars might be a better option for that routing. If that were to be the case, the design of the interlocking and how to peacefully co-exist with CSX freight operations at Oak Point has to be considered, especially if TriboroRX were operational prior to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel opening, which would give CSX a relief valve to operate out of Oak Island via CSAO, likely re-routing traffic that moves on the Hudson Line to the West Side Line and through the tunnel, and with traffic from the south not having to go over the Selkirk Hurdle. Likely, however, the freight trackage planning for CSX and P&W wouldn't be significantly different if you add CSAO or CSX through traffic on the line to Cedar Hill, as its only a couple of trains a day at night, and likely would work on whatever would work for CSX at Oak Point in the meantime. However, it should still be planned out at a system level when things are built for Penn Access.
 #1573593  by STrRedWolf
 
ElectricTraction wrote: Sat Jun 12, 2021 11:58 am (for transfer, you can't have FRA heavy rail and subway sharing trackage)
...um... at the risk of derailing this thread, then what is Cleveland's mixed subway/light rail system doing then? (That may be in a different subforum)
 #1573637  by ElectricTraction
 
STrRedWolf wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 9:33 am...um... at the risk of derailing this thread, then what is Cleveland's mixed subway/light rail system doing then? (That may be in a different subforum)
I guess it's either legal in Ohio or grandfathered in. It's all non-FRA. Once you're connected to the national rail system, everything has to be FRA heavy rail. Due to the freight traffic on the line, TriBoroRX will have to be FRA heavy rail.
 #1573676  by ElectricTraction
 
I just dredged through the EA documents some more, and there are some really interesting tidbits in there.

[*]Unfortunately, CDOT is still jamming that square peg into the round hole with the stupid PRR third rail extension. Of course, this doesn't prevent through-running with NJT in the future, they could just abandon the substations that they just spent millions of dollars to build and get the correct equipment for this service, and through-run with NJT.
[*]The one that really surprised me was the 101 trains per day plus 7 deadhead moves. That's a lot of trains, assuming that they can get that many slots back from LIRR, which uses way too many as it is. Apparently they believe that with the addition of another crossover at CP215 to clear GCT traffic out of the way, they can handle that traffic at SHELL without totally clogging it up. The scope of this project has significantly grown since it's inception.
[*]They're also talking about diverting a few trains from GCT to go to Penn, which would theoretically free up a little bit of capacity for adding a few more trains to GCT from somewhere. I don't know if they could backfill more trains to GCT on the NHL, due to the constraints at SHELL.
[*]I'm not sure why they can't get the fourth track in at Hunt's Point, considering there used to be six tracks, but maybe the highway ate up some ROW? Or is it a platform width issue?
[*]Speaking of platform width, their platforms appear to be double-wides, which is great other than that they appear to consume the entire 6-track ROW with 4 tracks and a station.
[*]The freight trackage looks to be adequate or modifiable to be adequate to handle CSX or CSAO Cross Harbor Tunnel through freight operations, which consist of maybe half a dozen trains a day to Cedar Hill tops, all during mid-day or overnight hours.
[*]They're planning to build another bridge over the Bronx River for the third track.
[*]This plan does not add the 17,000 foot sidings that would fit in the existing ROW between Pelham Bay and SHELL, but doesn't do anything that would prevent their installation in the future.

The problem is, it seems completely silent to the 800 pound gorilla in the room in TriBoroRX. Even if it were to be sent over to Yankees Stadium, they need to figure out how to create a transfer between them, and the interlocking design to allow CSX/CSAO freight off of TriBoro and into Oak Point then continuing on to the HGL and NHL. One potential would be side platforms on the HGL over the Port Morris, with side platforms on the Port Morris after a loop for TriBoro to get down to the Port Morris, but again, this would need to be figured out. The larger project scope of Penn Access makes designing a track arrangement to handle parallel TriBoro both more difficult and possibly pointless, as opposed to making more transit connections, but the two should have a connection, since that's largely the point of TriBoro.

EDIT: I got Oak Island and Oak Point confused. I knew that would happen eventually.
Last edited by ElectricTraction on Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 #1573683  by GojiMet86
 
First, the Triboro RX is not in the works nor is it a priority.

Second, the Triboro RX doesn't have to be a mainline railroad. If we are to indulge in fantasy proposals, it were up to me, I'd have it built as a B-Division subway line, no connection to MNRR or Amtrak or CSX. And contrary to what the plan calls for and what I would have agree with years ago, I would have it run across 86th Street in Manhattan instead of heading to the Bronx.

I consider the most important section to be the one from Jackson Heights to the (2) (5) Flatbush Avenue-Brooklyn College station or, at the very barest minimum, East New York. That Maspeth/Ridgewood/Middle Village section of Queens is the hardest to get by subway to without having to detouring to Manhattan or taking a bus. Whereas it's easier to head west on a Queens/Brooklyn subway line to Manhattan and take the 4/5/6 to the Bronx.
Last edited by nomis on Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: removed unnecessary quote
 #1573691  by ElectricTraction
 
GojiMet86 wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:07 pmFirst, the Triboro RX is not in the works nor is it a priority.
Just because the MTA or LIRR or whomever would run it is delinquent in planning it, doesn't mean that it should be totally ignored in the system-level planning for Penn Access.
Second, the Triboro RX doesn't have to be a mainline railroad. If we are to indulge in fantasy proposals, it were up to me, I'd have it built as a B-Division subway line, no connection to MNRR or Amtrak or CSX. And contrary to what the plan calls for and what I would have agree with years ago, I would have it run across 86th Street in Manhattan instead of heading to the Bronx.
It's not a fantasy proposal, it's been on the table for years. Like many other projects, it's stuck in nowhere land due to a variety of factors. 86th Street? That would defeat the whole purpose of TriBoro connecting the three Boroughs. The other big not-Manhattan transit project that needs to get done is the BQX, which has nothing to do with anything else from a technical perspective. Part of the idea of TriBoro is that it would deal with the lack of transit along the HGL, which would not have been substantively addressed by the earlier Penn Access proposals, but this thing has scaled way up, which causes it to consume a lot more ROW, but also to fulfill that need, so it may make more sense for TriBoro to head over the Port Morris and Yankees Stadium, but that all needs to be sorted out before Penn Access is built.

TriBoro has to be FRA heavy rail. Temporal separation wouldn't work for a through freight route, that only works for industrial secondaries that can switch overnight, and NYC transit tends to like to run 24/7, which is not possible by definition with temporal separation. If you take the ROW currently used to access Fresh Pond, which is two tracks from Oak Point to Fresh Pond, and from roughly Flatbush Ave to Bay Ridge you cut off Long Island from the national rail system for freight traffic, which is unacceptable. The Cross-Harbor Tunnel would no longer be possible, and it nor the current car float operation would be able to re-connect Fresh Pond either, as a non-FRA TriBoro would block access from both directions.

TriBoro can run like a subway line to the rider, be ticketed as a subway line, be signed as a subway line, be called a subway line, but technically it has to be FRA heavy rail. During peak times it would likely be passenger-only, but mid-day and overnight would be able to accommodate CSX/CSAO freight traffic as it exists today and from the Cross-Harbor Tunnel linking Oak Island, Bay Ridge, Fresh Pond, Oak Point, and Cedar Hill.
I consider the most important section to be the one from Jackson Heights to the (2) (5) Flatbush Avenue-Brooklyn College station or, at the very barest minimum, East New York. That Maspeth/Ridgewood/Middle Village section of Queens is the hardest to get by subway to without having to detouring to Manhattan or taking a bus. Whereas it's easier to head west on a Queens/Brooklyn subway line to Manhattan and take the 4/5/6 to the Bronx.
Sure, the middle of the line sees the biggest benefit, but for TriBoro to be effective, it needs to cross-connect to a number of other transit lines and provide true outer borough cross-connectivity. TriBoro, combined with Penn Access, restoring the SIRR to Arlington and rebuilding the LIRR RBB would bring rail transit to a significantly larger part of NYC with a very minimal amount of tunneling or new ROW. Not to say that subways shouldn't be built where appropriate, but the existing ROWs are the low hanging fruit.
 #1573694  by GojiMet86
 
I agree that all these new rail lines would be great for the city, but this project has been on the table the same way the Utica Avenue subway, the IND second system, and the Cross-Harbor tunnel are. None of these projects have budged. This project isn't shovel ready. Phases 3 and 4 of the 2nd Avenue line are closer to reality than this, and they won't see daylight for the next half a century.

I wouldn't worry about Triboro RX in the Bronx for the next 30 years.

There's also the matter of the Port Morris branch. As it stands there are newly constructed buildings on the ROW, and it wasn't built to connect to the Amtrak line. Sometimes, I feel it would be better to divert the (G) train up 21st Street and into the Bronx. Then it doesn't have to follow a railroad ROW.
Last edited by nomis on Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: removed unnecessary quote
 #1573783  by ElectricTraction
 
GojiMet86 wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:10 pmI agree that all these new rail lines would be great for the city, but this project has been on the table the same way the Utica Avenue subway, the IND second system, and the Cross-Harbor tunnel are. None of these projects have budged. This project isn't shovel ready. Phases 3 and 4 of the 2nd Avenue line are closer to reality than this, and they won't see daylight for the next half a century.

I wouldn't worry about Triboro RX in the Bronx for the next 30 years.
So. Just because the various agencies are underfunded and/or haven't gotten off of their duffs in planning and advocating for these projects doesn't mean that they shouldn't be taking into account for planning things.
There's also the matter of the Port Morris branch. As it stands there are newly constructed buildings on the ROW, and it wasn't built to connect to the Amtrak line. Sometimes, I feel it would be better to divert the (G) train up 21st Street and into the Bronx. Then it doesn't have to follow a railroad ROW.
TriBoroRX would be an immensely valuable project that the G line couldn't replicate. In terms of the connection to the HGL, with fairly minimal land takings, a tight loop could be constructed in order to loop the line from the HGL ROW around to the Port Morris Branch.

Unfortunately, a lot of railroad ROW has been lost to stuff being built over it, as opposed to being preserved or transit use or rail trails or power lines or whatever benefits from a long, continuous ROW. I do see one building that's just north of E161st street, but it appears to have preserved the ROW underneath it, but it's irrelevant anyway, as that's just north of where it would turn into the tunnel under E161st. One problem appears to be a building that got built on the ROW at Brook Ave, I don't know if it could be tunneled under or how much it would cost to knock part of it down. What's crazy is how bad the condition of that ROW looks after being closed for only 23 years (although it probably looked pretty awful when it was in use) Probably the bigger issue is stupid NIMBYs.

These are the sorts of questions that need to be sorted out for TriBoroRX before Penn Access is built, so that Penn Access can be built to be compatible with whatever the TriBoroRX plan is.

EDIT: Another potential that wouldn't interfere with the current Penn Access plans (but TriBoroRX still needs to be figured out) would be to make a loop to go up to Westchester Ave on the Port Morris, allowing most trains to go that way, and to put in a universal interlocking plus some extra crossover tracks to the south, allowing for some small number of TriBoroRX trains to crossover at grade, and run to the Metro-North stations along Penn Access. This would require TriBoroRX to be run more as commuter rail and not rapid transit from a ticketing perspective, but that's OK.
 #1573958  by ElectricTraction
 
NH2060 wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 3:04 pmAOC, is that you? 😆
Yup, you got me! :-D :-D :-D

Really though, what the heck does AOC have to do with TriBoroRX other than being from that area?

I had another idea that might work, but again needs to be planned for. Buy, eminent domain, whatever, that Track 6 from CSX to get 4 tracks going both direction, and merge TriBoroRX at grade via an interlocking (not a universal interlocking as I said earlier, it would actually be a series of crossovers designed specifically to merge the HGL to the north with the Bay Ridge to the South) somewhere on the northern approach to the Hell Gate Bridge with the HGL for service to the four stations in the Bronx, and maybe even a couple of trains a day from somewhere on the NHL.

Then, operate TriBoro as a MN commuter rail line using 60hz AC EMUs (although then MN would need a new name because this line isn't north of Manhattan :wink: ), with unified ticketing across LIRR, MN, and TriBoro throughout all of NYC proper, and assuming the best transit value is really in Queens and Brooklyn, and the Astoria-Ditmars station is just not practical, turn 2/3 to 3/4 of the trains at Jackson Heights, with 1/4 to 1/3 of them continuing up through the Bronx on the MN local tracks. This would allow near rapid transit frequency from Jackson Heights to the Brooklyn Army Terminal while operating within the capacity constrains of the HGL still being used for 108 NHL Penn Access trains a day. If scheduled correctly, and with the addition of an interlocking just before Co-Op city station, some trains could be scheduled for a connection between TriBoro and the NHL, with the NHL following TriBoro northbound, and TriBoro following the NHL southbound.

With lower traffic density during mid-day and nighttime, this would still allow for CSX or CSAO through freight from Oak Island to Bay Ridge, Fresh Pond, Oak Point, and Cedar Hill via the Cross-Harbor Tunnel, with direct access to Oak Point Yard without interfering with the HGL except for trains to Cedar Hill.

But again, this needs to be figured out before building Penn Access.
 #1575713  by R36 Combine Coach
 
ElectricTraction wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:49 pm Allow for CSX or CSAO through freight from Oak Island to Bay Ridge, Fresh Pond, Oak Point, and
Cedar Hill via the Cross-Harbor Tunnel, with direct access to Oak Point Yard.

But again, this needs to be figured out before building Penn Access.
Also provides a through NEC routing WAS-BOS if NYP or the tunnels were knocked out.
 #1575831  by ElectricTraction
 
R36 Combine Coach wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 10:38 pmAlso provides a through NEC routing WAS-BOS if NYP or the tunnels were knocked out.
Technically, if a connection were set up in Newark, it could, although from a business perspective, the NEC without NYP isn't much of an NEC, and the Gateway tunnels provide a much better level of redundancy to the existing North River Tunnels. I suppose having options isn't a bad thing though.