Amtrak at TF Green Airport in Rhode Island

[pmdonohue]

Amtrak's 2010 strategic infrastructure plan shows a new track 4 on the Eastbound (Northbound) side of the NEC with high level platforms. It also includes full electrification of existing track 3.

[The EGE]

It indeed does. There's room for a 4th track under the parking structure but not a platform. However, there's plenty of room for a full-length high level just south of the structure.

[Jeff Smith]

Back in the news: ProvidenceJournal.com

Cost of Amtrak to Green Airport: $90 million

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Building an Amtrak stop at T. F. Green Airport could cost $90 million and attract 71,200 riders annually, according to a new study from the railroad and the Rhode Island Department of Transportation.

State leaders have for years eyed expanded rail service as the next step in efforts to expand Green Airport, but funding and fitting it into the busy Northeast Corridor train schedule are major hurdles.

The study, which U.S. Sen. Jack Reed initiated with language in a federal appropriations bill, looked at four scenarios to bring more trains to the airport, including starting a new Rhode Island commuter railroad and extending Connecticut’s Shore Line East service into the Ocean State.

It concluded that getting many more trains to Green is “feasible” and that Amtrak service is the least expensive way to do it.
...

[johnpbarlow]

$90M seems to me to be crazy money to pay for infrastructure that is largely already in place except for a 2nd platform. And Amtrak is the cheapest "solution!"

At an average ~$25/Uber ride, $90M would yield 3.6M Uber rides. Guessing at 250 Uber rides/day yields about 39 years of Uber rides for $90M.

[sicariis]

And the other question has to be how much would it have been if they had just done it at the time of construction?

[deathtopumpkins]

No more than it's costing now. The station was designed from the beginning to fit a fourth track and another side platform on the opposite side.

--

What I don't understand about this study though is what they'd be building for Amtrak. The state already plans to eventually build the second platform to serve increasing MBTA frequencies and their own eventual in-state service. Is that single additional platform expected to cost $90 million? Or does that include building a more substantial headhouse with a waiting area, Amtrak ticketing, etc.? The station already has parking and a pick-up/drop-off area.

Or is this $90 million to build island platform(s)?

Reading through the study the only mention of specific infrastructure improvements is lowering and electrifying the freight/MBTA track through the station.

[sicariis]

According to the wiki, the existing commuter rail platform was $22.9M in 2010, and of course all the source links are now dead.

[Gilbert B Norman]

Would the addition of Green (IATA: PVD/ICAO: KPVD) as an Amtrak station either enhance either air or rail ridership - especially at a cost of $80M?

It's one thing to have MBTA trains serve there to handle passengers into Providence and stops to the East that are more convenient to KPVD than to Boston Logan (ICAO codes used to avoid confusion with Amtrak station codes).

Go to the airport's page. You will see all four majors serve there, but three of them only have service to their hubs - and that service is with puddle jumpers where you risk being bodily removed from an aircraft. The fourth (SWA) does not have a system of hubs and just flies from here to there.

But it seems like KPVD is home to the "bottom feeders" in the air transport industry. That could be a source of Amtrak traffic.

So I'm just going to leave this with "we report, you decide".

[mtuandrew]

Existing monster of a thread about MBTA to RI, including Amtrak access to KPVD: viewtopic.php?f=65&t=21973" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

No more than it's costing now. The station was designed from the beginning to fit a fourth track and another side platform on the opposite side.

--

What I don't understand about this study though is what they'd be building for Amtrak. The state already plans to eventually build the second platform to serve increasing MBTA frequencies and their own eventual in-state service. Is that single additional platform expected to cost $90 million? Or does that include building a more substantial headhouse with a waiting area, Amtrak ticketing, etc.? The station already has parking and a pick-up/drop-off area.

Or is this $90 million to build island platform(s)?

Reading through the study the only mention of specific infrastructure improvements is lowering and electrifying the freight/MBTA track through the station.

Freight modifications are bundled up in that price. Right now Green is in a stopgap configuration BOTH for passenger and freight. The two wired tracks will not clear a P&W autorack under the station overhang, so when they built the single commuter rail platform they undercut the trackbed by a couple feet. Then, instead of bypassing the full-high as you normally would with Plate F+ freight cars they simply restrict P&W's speed through the platform slow enough that the harmonic rocking minimizes the platform scrapes and dings (something they can do because this is not a legacy high-and-wide route, but a wholly 21st century creation via RIDOT's FRIP program done with Amtrak's blessing).

That works fine for the current extremely limited passenger service running on single track, but they have to step up their freight accommodations in order to increase passenger service levels because it's very kludgy for any sort of fluid operations. The severe freight speed restriction through the platform becomes a service limiter, as well as limiting the structural lifespan of the platform edging to have to absorb more scrapes and dings than the average full-high. Worse, that track can never be electrified for commuter service unless the freights are punted onto another properly-cleared track.


So, either:

1. Commuter rail gets electrified, but Amtrak doesn't get a center platform of its own between Tracks 1 & 2. In which case, the 2 wired tracks would have their trackbed undercut by 4 feet (i.e. 2 ft. below the level of the platform track's undercut) so P&W can travel at full track speed under the wires. This in turn requires a wired-up Track 4 + the new northbound platform to proceed to construction so there's a means of lane-shifting Amtrak electrics while Tracks 1 & 2 are taken OOS for the trackbed shaving.

2. Amtrak gets platform + tracks of its own, but P&W gets an unpowered gauntlet or passer around the CR platform to whack the speed restriction. This is how the NEC IIMP specs it in its track schematic, although that's dated material not tied to a formal design for T.F. Green so configuration is negotiable. Turnout would begin on the FRIP track (current platform track) before the overhang, bypass the platform, and slot between any wire assemblies for safe clearance while the autoracks pass. Amtrak has a strong preference for keeping freights exclusively on that single FRIP track the whole distance between Atwells Interlocking and T.F. Green, so they endorsed this as the "official" proposal to take into prelim design whenever that time comes.


^--- Add up costs accordingly and you probably arrive at your $90M figure. And that's probably a fair price given the unusual retrofitted nature of that FRIP clearance track as key piece of the infrastructure puzzle on an otherwise non- high-and-wide railroad. Especially with how it intersects with the initial and final platform configurations of the station.

[sicariis]

Am I mistaken in thinking that if they just built the parking structure clearance a little higher to begin with, a lot of this new proposed cost could have been avoided?

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

It's not the parking structure at all, but rather the pre-existing Coronado Rd. overpass that's only 125 ft. away from the platform tip that sets the ruling clearance limit. I'm pretty sure the parking structure is tall enough, but it's a moot point because that 1980-construction road overpass is not and is so close by that there isn't enough running room between Coronado and the garage to undercut or throw down track switches. In terms of what the autoracks have to clear it's Coronado Rd. that sets the parameters, and the garage gets lumped in with the running space for the gauntlet.

[east point]

That road bridge brings up a question. A lot of the New Haven BOS electrification documents spoke of raising the many low clearance bridges. In fact observed several that were removed. What happened with this bridge ?

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

The bridge is fine for passenger electrification. It's the wholly separate FRIP clearance project that forces the issue. FRIP was a state-level initiative despite earning AMTK's blessing and being in planning within +5 years of electrification construction. Impacts for retrofitting the freight corridor ended up relatively inocuous between Boston Switch and Davisville, and has no impact whatsoever on completion of the Pawtucket, Cranston, East Greenwich, and West Davisville infill stations...which are all out in the open 4-track stations with center express tracks where freights can bypass the platforms under-wire at full track speed. It just forced a couple extra moving parts on completion of Green w/AMTK platforms, that's all.

[Jeff Smith]

https://warwickpost.com/amtrak-tf-green ... -8m-grant/

...
As a result of Reed’s efforts, the FRA’s 2017 feasibility study noted bringing a regular Amtrak stop to the airport would require upgrades at T.F. Green Station in order to allow Amtrak’s regional trains to stop there and to accommodate freight, commuter, and high-speed trains that also operate along that route. This new CRISI grant will allow RIDOT, in partnership with Amtrak, to advance the initiative and support preliminary engineering and environmental review work on a new Amtrak stop at the existing T.F. Green commuter rail station.
...