Almost $700 Million needed to repair New York Penn Station Tunnel

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jis

jis

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Much of it likely to come from insurance and such sources. Here is a set of articles on the subject that hit the press today:

While the reparis are made one of the tunnels will be taken out of service for an extended period of time, starting with the East River tunnels in 2015. When they get to the Hudson Tunnels there will be massive disruption to commuter service from NJ to NY. I speculate at most 8 to 10 tph in the rush direction instead of the normal 23 tph.

Anyway, read all about it in the articles pointed to above.
 
Will this affect AMTRAK services to New York? Will schedules be impacted and service cut or is it just going to be commuters?
 
I think that even Amtrak will have to reduce some frequency, or move some departure times. This is definitely going to hurt riders on the North Jersey Coastline, Northeast Corridor, and Midtown Direct trains on the Morris & Essex Lines for sure.
 
I read an article stating that while the Hudson tunnels are being repaired, rail frequency could be reduced down to 25%. I'm not quite sure how that would work... what trains would have priority etc... I would assume during morning rush hour that inbound trains will be given preference and during evening rush hour outbound trains will. Or perhaps all NJT trains will simply terminate at Seacaucus and Amtrak trains will have priority? I dont know. Either way it's going to be a huge mess for a year.

which will require cutting commuter rail service by roughly 20% under the East River, and 75% under the Hudson.
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http://gothamist.com/2014/10/02/commuting_through_penn_station_to_t.php

But shutting one of the two tracks in the tunnel under the Hudson River would cut service by about 75 percent because trains headed into New York would have to share the remaining track with trains headed west from the city, he said.
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Amtrak press release that is the source of the news articles: New Engineering Report Details Needed Work to Fix Amtrak N.Y. Tunnels. Presumably the HNTB report will be made public once the agency heads and the politicians have had the opportunity to read it (well, ok their staff members).

Excerpt:

The rehabilitation work for both damaged tubes of the Hudson River tunnel cannot reasonably begin until after the new Gateway tunnel is built and operating. This will allow rail traffic to shift to the new tunnel and avoid major service impacts. Amtrak is advancing the Gateway Program and seeking to begin as soon as possible the environmental review process.
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There are many questions to be resolved, decisions to be made, lots of public debate, and complicated & messy politics to get through in lining up the funds to build 2 new Hudson tunnels, 2 Portal bridges and tracks. The big news to me is that Amtrak expects that insurance will pay for most, if not all, of the $689 million repair cost (which is certain to increase over a 10-15 year repair period). Who did Amtrak have the insurance with? Federal flood insurance or a mix of commercial insurance policies which are going to pay out big time?

If the $689 million repair cost is indeed covered by insurance, that is a major boost, because otherwise Amtrak could be scrambling to raise federal funds for the repair and delaying the start of repairs to the East River tunnels for years. The Sandy relief funds would be the obvious source, but the MTA and NJ have done a good job of capturing much of the available funds (shrunken by the sequestration cuts). Now if they could only get the insurance to pay for the 2 new Hudson tunnels as necessary for the repair work.
 
Time to bring the Rail Ferries back like the old days!

This sounds like it will be a Major undertaking and has potential for Big Time Graft and Cluster Flubs!

Will the New Jersey Gov. Have any say or is it the Non- Partisan Port Authoritys' baby?? Sarcasm intended!!!
 
afigg said:
Amtrak press release that is the source of the news articles: New Engineering Report Details Needed Work to Fix Amtrak N.Y. Tunnels. Presumably the HNTB report will be made public once the agency heads and the politicians have had the opportunity to read it (well, ok their staff members).

Excerpt:

The rehabilitation work for both damaged tubes of the Hudson River tunnel cannot reasonably begin until after the new Gateway tunnel is built and operating. This will allow rail traffic to shift to the new tunnel and avoid major service impacts. Amtrak is advancing the Gateway Program and seeking to begin as soon as possible the environmental review process.
Click to expand...
There are many questions to be resolved, decisions to be made, lots of public debate, and complicated & messy politics to get through in lining up the funds to build 2 new Hudson tunnels, 2 Portal bridges and tracks. The big news to me is that Amtrak expects that insurance will pay for most, if not all, of the $689 million repair cost (which is certain to increase over a 10-15 year repair period). Who did Amtrak have the insurance with? Federal flood insurance or a mix of commercial insurance policies which are going to pay out big time?

If the $689 million repair cost is indeed covered by insurance, that is a major boost, because otherwise Amtrak could be scrambling to raise federal funds for the repair and delaying the start of repairs to the East River tunnels for years. The Sandy relief funds would be the obvious source, but the MTA and NJ have done a good job of capturing much of the available funds (shrunken by the sequestration cuts). Now if they could only get the insurance to pay for the 2 new Hudson tunnels as necessary for the repair work.
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Do you think this is the insurance they are talking about?

Amtrak filed a lawsuit last week against more than a dozen insurers, claiming that the railroad operator is entitled to recoup additional proceeds for Superstorm Sandy losses from its insurers.
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According to the complaint, insurers say most of the damages sustained were caused by a flood and that the insurers’ overall maximum liability is $125 million. But Amtrak says damages were caused by the storm surge and that losses were caused by multiple events.
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One hope that this encourages the FTA to distribute funds for the next phase of the Tunnel Box...

And, if Amtrak has their way, Congress will enable Northeast Corridor funds to get diverted to Northeast Corridor repairs in the future--some of which can be used for Gateway.
 
Long Train Runnin' said:
I think that even Amtrak will have to reduce some frequency, or move some departure times. This is definitely going to hurt riders on the North Jersey Coastline, Northeast Corridor, and Midtown Direct trains on the Morris & Essex Lines for sure.
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Last to access NYP will probably be the first to go.....in other words goodbye, Midtown Direct, for the duration.....
 
jimhudson said:
Time to bring the Rail Ferries back like the old days!
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You bring up an interesting point. How much freight goes in/out of NYC on rails? These articles only go into the effect to passenger rail traffic.

Unlike with freight, the passenger rail cars themselves don't need to get into NYC, only the passengers. I guess one could bring passengers across the rivers by boat (hay, Amtrak busses passengers, why not "boat" them?). Is there a way for NEC and Acela to bypass NYC, and pickup passengers in NJ instead (Liberty Park area)?
 
Guest said:
jimhudson said:
Time to bring the Rail Ferries back like the old days!
Click to expand...
You bring up an interesting point. How much freight goes in/out of NYC on rails? These articles only go into the effect to passenger rail traffic.

Unlike with freight, the passenger rail cars themselves don't need to get into NYC, only the passengers. I guess one could bring passengers across the rivers by boat (hay, Amtrak busses passengers, why not "boat" them?). Is there a way for NEC and Acela to bypass NYC, and pickup passengers in NJ instead (Liberty Park area)?
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Talking about Manhattan... I don't think any freight rail comes in or out anymore. I could be overlooking something but I've lived here for 20 years and have never seen freight, just the remnants of freight infrastructure.
 
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Alice said:
Do you think this is the insurance they are talking about?

Amtrak filed a lawsuit last week against more than a dozen insurers, claiming that the railroad operator is entitled to recoup additional proceeds for Superstorm Sandy losses from its insurers.
Click to expand...
According to the complaint, insurers say most of the damages sustained were caused by a flood and that the insurers overall maximum liability is $125 million. But Amtrak says damages were caused by the storm surge and that losses were caused by multiple events.
Click to expand...
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It appears that those are the insurance claims Mr. Gardner hopes will pay most of the $689 million tunnel repair costs. So Amtrak might only get $125 million which would leave them well short of $689 million.
 
jis said:
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The WNYC Transportation Nation link above has a link to the HNTB assessment report on the East and Hudson River tunnels. 9 MB PDF, 57 pages. My first reaction on skimming the report is that if one wants to learn about the design of the tunnels, there is a lot of info in it.
 
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In my opinion the glass is half full,,,,

Getting Federal support means Western support for NEC

Which in the obverse, at least to me, is Eastern support for LD
 
jimhudson said:
Time to bring the Rail Ferries back like the old days!
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In this day and age of Containers which can be easily transshipped to tractor trailers, it does not make much sense to reinstate rail ferries. Indeed, the freight railroads have built huge transshipment stations at various convenient locations outside the crowded areas and simply delivers stuff in Containers wherever they need to be delivered.
There is a push to build a freight tunnel from NJ to LI to carry freight, but apparently no one has managed to get any of the major freight railroads excited about it since it will increase their net cost of delivering freight to LI, unless of course they are allowed to use the tunnel for free - which might make sense from a environmental point of view, but not purely from a transportation point of view.

andersone said:
In my opinion the glass is half full,,,,

Getting Federal support means Western support for NEC

Which in the obverse, at least to me, is Eastern support for LD
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East has never not supported LD. The problem has always been getting western support for passenger rail and both LD and NEC in particularly. Except for the few rail enthusiasts, support for passenger rail in non-coastal west (west of Mississippi has at best been lukewarm to at worst more or less non-existent.
 
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My concern is that Cuomo is so concerned with getting ready to for President in case Hillary Clinton does not that he totally ignores the need for Sandy Repairs within the vicinity of Penn Station...

How likely is it for Amtrak to shut one Hudson Tunnel for a year before the Gateway Tunnels get built?
 
afigg said:
jis said:
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The WNYC Transportation Nation link above has a link to the HNTB assessment report on the East and Hudson River tunnels. 9 MB PDF, 57 pages. My first reaction on skimming the report is that if one wants to learn about the design of the tunnels, there is a lot of info in it.
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Thanks for that link! I was looking for the report. I need to see the nerdy stuff, not the PR stuff. That did the trick.
 
If Railiner's words about last in first out ring true, the Raritan's would be the first to go bye bye. The Midclown Directs would likely be combined along with some Corridor/Coast trains. The thing that alarms me is if they tackle both ends of the station at once.
 
Barciur said:
Will this affect AMTRAK services to New York?
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Not the Empire Corridor. :)

Orie said:
Talking about Manhattan... I don't think any freight rail comes in or out anymore. I could be overlooking something but I've lived here for 20 years and have never seen freight, just the remnants of freight infrastructure.
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There's been no freight rail service to Manhattan since the High Line closed in the 1980s.
Staten Island lost service for a while but it was restored recently (from NJ); the Bronx has always had service to Hunts Point, along both the Hudson and New Haven lines; and Queens and Brooklyn are served (very poorly) from the Bronx. There's been a proposal for a freight rail tunnel from NJ to Brooklyn for a while, which would increase the market share of rail for freight in New England substantially (currently New England has an unusual dependence on trucking, due to the lack of freight rail crossings of the Hudson south of Albany), but nobody's done anything about it.
 
jis said:
There is a push to build a freight tunnel from NJ to LI to carry freight, but apparently no one has managed to get any of the major freight railroads excited about it since it will increase their net cost of delivering freight to LI, unless of course they are allowed to use the tunnel for free - which might make sense from a environmental point of view, but not purely from a transportation point of view.
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The freight railroad execs really haven't thought it through. Currently they get away with nearly-free truck driving to Long Island due to a brain-damaged one-way toll system, but eventually someone is going to fix that. And the Brooklyn-NJ freight tunnel would also make it viable to (a) send freight by rail to Connecticut and Rhode Island, and (b) use the Brooklyn-side ports for loading freight trains, neither of which is commercially viable without the freight rail tunnel.

East has never not supported LD. The problem has always been getting western support for passenger rail and both LD and NEC in particularly. Except for the few rail enthusiasts, support for passenger rail in non-coastal west (west of Mississippi has at best been lukewarm to at worst more or less non-existent.
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This analysis omits the key, politically problematic area between the East Coast and Chicago, which is neither east nor west. I suspect that if we had strong passenger rail support from Ohio and Indiana (and northern & western Pennsylvania and northern Kentucky and West Virginia), that would really be enough to tip the political balance, without the west-of-Mississippi states.
 
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Andrew said:
How likely is it for Amtrak to shut one Hudson Tunnel for a year before the Gateway Tunnels get built?
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Amtrak will do it when they need to, whether Gateway has been built or not. Hopefully Amtrak will successfully frighten enough Congresscritters to get Gateway built first, but who knows.
 
I jus

neroden said:
Andrew said:
How likely is it for Amtrak to shut one Hudson Tunnel for a year before the Gateway Tunnels get built?
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Amtrak will do it when they need to, whether Gateway has been built or not. Hopefully Amtrak will successfully frighten enough Congresscritters to get Gateway built first, but who knows.
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I just wonder that as other projects get completed--and the fact that Amtrak will likely be able to divert future NEC revenue back into NEC improvements--that this makes the Gateway Project all of the more likely...

Imagine, though, if the Hudson Yards' Tunnel Box Extension does not get built--thus leaving only the current section underneath the Eastern Rail Yard!
 
Yeah, the tunnel box extension is pretty urgent. I'm fairly sure Schumer or Gillibrand will get funding for that before someone builds on top of it.
 

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