N.J. senators, Amtrak to announce new Hudson tunnel project

Jtgshu wrote:I also remember the talk of the breakup of the NEC and who would get what. And as far as I know, NJT did build their new dispatching theatre at The ROC" to be able to dispatch the NEC from SSYD to 30th St, as was the plan. (I think it would have involved keeping the old theatre in Hoboken Terminal up and running to continue to dispatch the NJT lines, but im not certain)

The ROC is capable of handling the dispatching between SSY and Morrisville if I'm not mistaken. It wouldn't even require the Hoboken Theater (we're in America buddy, what's a theatre? ) to still be operational. All the monitors and desks are there, they just are set to view only currently.

BuddSilverliner269 wrote:Jt, you bring up some very good points but it has been mentioned a few times that the reason why Amtrak backed out of the tunnel isn't because they didn't want to be involved or spend any Money but because Njt really had no interest in wanting to use the tunnel for Amtrak trains especially after after learning of possible grade issues because of the #7 line extension so with the new Penn station being disconnected from the rest of the station, the whole plan was virtually useless to Amtrak.

That is very accurate Budd. ARC was always a NJT project. Amtrak was not really an equal partner so much as a contributor/supporter. When the connecting tunnels to PSNY were removed for reasons I stated earlier, Amtrak's only benefit came from the 1 or 2 slots that would be freed up in the original tunnel for them.

necrails wrote:I find it completely amazing that a project of this magnitude has been developed between the time ARC was cancelled and today. Nothing, Nothing, gets developed that quickly. This had to have been in the planning process for months if not years. So my question is why was ARC such a political hot potatoe when this plan, which appears to be far superior to the ARC implementation was almost ready to be announced? Were they going to announce this while ARC was in construction? This is what ARC should have been all along. The only missing item is direct heavy rail connections to GCT which appears to be addressed with the 7 train. Now if the funding is there, get moving.

This proposal can be equated to when ARC was first in the planning stages and many alternatives were still being considered. In fact, this is very similar to one of the alternatives, though which one it was escapes me. Amtrak still needs to go through the whole planning process on this. THey'll be aided by the fact that NJT has done much of the work on the NJ side of things at least for both the tunnel and Portal bridge replacement.

Suburban Station wrote:

lpetrich wrote: Since this is Amtrak's project and not NJT's project, it may be able to get more political support. Since some Congresscritters and their staffers use the NYC-DC line, they may be willing to vote for something that will improve their ride.

The downside is that politicians from less-dense districts will not see much value in that, and ridicule it as pork barrel.

of course, this is exactly the kind of project some republicans say they should be funding (build it in the northeast). the beauty of the plan is that it isn't a line to the basement, a tunnel to nowhere. the only real questionable aspect is cost, the functional part is good. conencts to existing station, provides extra capacity for more commuter and intercity rail, etc.

Add to that the engineering concerns with the bulkhead that I mentioned earlier and of course the political aspect or demolishing a over a whole city block and a couple roads for an extended period of time.

Suburban Station wrote:

JTGshu wrote:
IIRC, NJT paid Amtrak the difference inbetween the NJT weekly or monthly pass cost compared to the Amtrak monthly pass fare for each and every passenger that rode that train. So basically Amtrak got the same amount of cash if all those NJT passengers were paying for an Amtrak monthly. I seriously doubt they were a drain on the bottom line I don't see how 8-10 plus Amfleets packed to the brim with basically each passenger paying the price of an Amtrak monthly would be a bad thing?

Amtrak did indeed think they were a drain (whether they were or not is another story). If they didn't, they enver would have ended the service, period.

Amtrak was only too happy to be rid of the Clockers. They wanted the coaches to use on other trains and they couldn't sell many of their normal priced tickets because no one wanted to pay for the slow train to/from NYC.

Suburban Station wrote:

JTGshu wrote:
On top of that, NJT did pay Amtrak for the slots when they took over the Clockers.

nope, unless you provide hard data, this goes against everything I've heard from people that would actually know.

You are absolutely wrong in this case Suburban Station. I'm an employee of NJT and know for a fact what was paid to Amtrak for the Clocker slots. I'm not going to provide you with "hard data" (do you really expect someone to attack a pdf or something of the agreement?) but you can take me at my word that it was a sizable sum. If you choose to accept what some other people might tell you who obviously have no idea what they're talking about, that's your prerogative. Hopefully though, people on here trust the information I post.

Suburban Station wrote:

JTGshu wrote:
So no one was "manhandled". NJT didn't "pull the wool" over anyone's eyes. Mr. Warrington left Amtrak to go to NJT in 2002. What makes you think that he would be able to get everything he wanted from Amtrak, after he just left them? And it wasn't just him that left, it was a bunch of Amtrak upper management that came to NJT.

seems fairly obvious, freinds of amtrak's management were running njt...and amtrak management likely viewed njt as a possible landing place.

Can someone say "conspiracy theory"? Uh oh, I think I hear a helicopter overhead...

Suburban Station wrote:

JTGshu wrote:
I don't care what "official" reasons were given for various things - there was a LOT of internal political tension going on inbetween Amtrak and NJT, mostly coming from Amtrak loosing so many managers to NJT in the 2002 timeframe, when Amtrak was on the brink. NJT people weren't happy because all these Amtrak people came over and basically took over the railroad and pushed aside NJT management. It was not a happy time and I personally believe that some of these tensions is what ended up dooming the tunnel and Amtrak not being a helpful partner with NJT.

NJT wasn't a helfpul partner either. it was a two way street of course, warrington likely wasn't fond of being ousted after his dreadful mismanagement of Amtrak (though it's fitting that nj would hire someone whose background was bankrupting the intercity passenger rail system with cockamimie schemes).

I fail to see what this has to do with anything. I've already established that Amtrak dropped out of the project after the connecting tunnels were dropped. Are you saying that Warrington made the decision to scrap the connecting tunnel because he was bitter with Amtrak? Because that decision was made after his untimely passing if I'm not mistaken.

Wow, I've gone through a lot. I'll leave you all with a post I made last night on the NJT forum about my personal feelings towards this project.

cruiser939 wrote:I think this idea is great. It connects to the existing PSNY, expands the facility, and gets rid of the horrendous loop in Secaucus.

Unfortunately, I (as well as many of my coworkers) see this as nothing more than a dog and pony show. Lautenberg and Menendez got a huge black eye from the cancellation of the ARC project. The fact that these two couldn't "bring home the bacon" in regards to securing additional funding to ensure that ARC went through was a big hit to their credibility (especially for Lautenberg, who sits on the committee on commerce, science, and transportation as well as chairing the subcommittee on surface transportation and merchant marine infrastructure, safety and security). This is the plan that all the asinine advocates (like David Peter Alan, Joe Clift, or Jeff Tittel) have been rooting for. They all said they could take ARC and get rid of the "deep cavern stub-ended terminal in Macy's basement", connect the new tunnels to PSNY, and save $3 billion. Funny then that this project get's estimated not at $3 billion less but rather roughly $5 billion more! (granted those idiots just wanted to connect the tunnels to PSNY and were happy to ignore the fact that station expansion would be needed to accommodate the additional trains).

You have an edit button.

Mcoov wrote:You have an edit button.

Yeah, and...?

cruiser939 wrote:Building new station tracks under the current station was one of the alternatives looked at under ARC. As for building the new station tracks to the south of the current station (refered to as the block 780 plan), it would definitely require cut and cover construction practices to be employed.

So in that case, it would be perfectly feasible for the new tracks to be Superliner-compatible, since they're doing cut-and-cover anyway and can put the levels wherever they like.

Earlier, someone mentioned other tunnels and bridges that don't fit Superliners, other than Penn Station itself and the Hudson tunnels. What/where are those, and what would be involved in fixing them?

krtaylor wrote:

cruiser939 wrote:Building new station tracks under the current station was one of the alternatives looked at under ARC. As for building the new station tracks to the south of the current station (refered to as the block 780 plan), it would definitely require cut and cover construction practices to be employed.

So in that case, it would be perfectly feasible for the new tracks to be Superliner-compatible, since they're doing cut-and-cover anyway and can put the levels wherever they like.

Earlier, someone mentioned other tunnels and bridges that don't fit Superliners, other than Penn Station itself and the Hudson tunnels. What/where are those, and what would be involved in fixing them?

Sure. They could also be Plae H capable. but why? How will the Superliners get to the tunnel? Are you also proposing that the new station be built with low platforms too? Since afterall Superliners cannot operate at high platforms? Why worry about slowing down thousands of commuters when us choo choo fanboys can get our Superliners into Penn?

cruiser939 wrote:

necrails wrote:I find it completely amazing that a project of this magnitude has been developed between the time ARC was cancelled and today. Nothing, Nothing, gets developed that quickly. This had to have been in the planning process for months if not years. So my question is why was ARC such a political hot potatoe when this plan, which appears to be far superior to the ARC implementation was almost ready to be announced? Were they going to announce this while ARC was in construction? This is what ARC should have been all along. The only missing item is direct heavy rail connections to GCT which appears to be addressed with the 7 train. Now if the funding is there, get moving.

This proposal can be equated to when ARC was first in the planning stages and many alternatives were still being considered. In fact, this is very similar to one of the alternatives, though which one it was escapes me.

It is Alternative-S minus the East River Tunnels and tunnel under 31st St for now. But I am sure that can be tacked on in the future, as it is also shown in the NEC Master Plan.

It always amazes me that so many people want to see Superliners run into NYP. There's no need. It's a solution looking for a problem. The present equipment allocation works fine. Enlarging the Hudson Tunnels in one thing, but how about the East River Tunnels into Sunnyside Yard. What about other clearances on the NE corridor? What about the catenary? Low level platforms would be needed. Single level cars on the east coast trains work fine. Superliners on the western trains and the two east coast trains that can accommodate them work fine.

they could make the tunnels fit superliners but that would be silly. They wouldn't be able to stop at other major stations along the NEC, like Newark, Metropark, Trenton, 30th St., etc. Sure, they could just not load those cars and folks would board and unload from other cars on the train, but that would require a mix of single level cars, which would require transition cars, etc.

Anyway, this new tunnel is basically going to end in NYP. Therefore no servicing of equipment in SSYD, which is where Amtrak trains are serviced and restocked, etc. Also, it would "trap" the loco on the east end of the train, and either another loco would need to couple up to the west end to head west or they would need to shove out but there is no place to turn the train, because they can't go to sunnyside and loop.

Also there are other low clearance locations along the NEC that would need addressing, like through Secaucus Junction station, Newark Penn Station (track 2 is lower and gives more clearance, but I don't know if it would be enough), the SIRT/B&O bridge in Linden NJ, and 30th St. Station and 4 River undergrade bridge in front of Zoo tower. Geeps BARELY fit in there, to give a size reference.

I think the new single level cars will be very nice and will be a big hit with the pax, and any desire for the Superliners (aka Superliner envy) will go away very quickly

krtaylor wrote:

cruiser939 wrote:Building new station tracks under the current station was one of the alternatives looked at under ARC. As for building the new station tracks to the south of the current station (refered to as the block 780 plan), it would definitely require cut and cover construction practices to be employed.

So in that case, it would be perfectly feasible for the new tracks to be Superliner-compatible, since they're doing cut-and-cover anyway and can put the levels wherever they like.

Earlier, someone mentioned other tunnels and bridges that don't fit Superliners, other than Penn Station itself and the Hudson tunnels. What/where are those, and what would be involved in fixing them?

The post above this explains very clearly why Superliners won't work regardless of the tunnels, but for the record the other tunnels that would be an issue are the East River tunnels to SSY, the two tunnels at Baltimore's Penn Station, and if you wanted to accommodate a Superliner LSL, the West Side Access tunnel in Manhattan. Anyway that's all I have to say here about the issue. I don't want to pull the thread off subject.

I would argue that "superliner" capable tunnels may be worth it. Not immediately, and certainly not to run the current Superlevel fleet, but to accommodate future needs. And keep in mind, that NJTransit is already running bilevel cars sized "just to fit". The next generation, or generation after that could be sized better to require fewer compromises.

So don't fixate on a specific piece of 30 yo equipment.

That said, overall, I like the current plan more than the most recent ARC plan.

I agree completely with Mr. Moore.

Forget the current superliners - yes, they're low-platform only, and that won't work for countless reasons.

But the next generation need not be restricted that way. And if nothing else, this forum seems to hate NJT's squashed bilevels; wouldn't they appreciate the ability to run something of a more normal size?

There will NEVER be another chance to fix this particular problem. Now is the time to do it. Bridges can be adjusted when they come due for replacement, and dug tunnels can be enlarged - tubes can't.

For sure, this plan is vastly superior to the old ARC plan. But I do want to clarify one point - I thought this new plan did tie in to Penn Station in a through-track fashion? Surely it does not merely terminate the new tubes in new stub tracks? So trains using the new tunnels could indeed continue through to Sunnyside, as regards track connection.

Yes, the East River tunnel clearances are an issue. However, that is an order of magnitude easier to fix than Hudson River tunnels.