Amtrak coming to Lehigh Valley next spring?

Well, once.

Passenger rail coming to Lehigh Valley next spring sort of

Strictly speaking it sounds as though they may be coming TWICE.

Once to deadhead the equipment to Allentown in the first place.

The second time to bring all those bigwigs back from NYC at the end of the day.

(unless they're bussing them back, which I suppose is a possibility. The article doesn't specifically call it a round-trip train ride)

I, too, wondered about the roundtrip aspect.

Does anyone know much about the "inspection" car that will be used (picture in that article)? The double row of windows along the side reminds me of a Viewliner style.

That's because it is, in fact, a Viewliner. It's the American View, constructed from one of the original three VL prototypes (the other two being the diner Indianapolis and a shell banging around Wilmington).

Cho Cho Charlie said:

I, too, wondered about the roundtrip aspect.

Does anyone know much about the "inspection" car that will be used (picture in that article)? The double row of windows along the side reminds me of a Viewliner style.

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I have toured the inspection car at NTD. There is a large window at the back as the picture shows and theater type seating inside. There is also a conference table in the rear,a lage video screen, and a closed cicuit televison with a camera view of the tracks.

Every time that I pass the historic Allentown railroad station (now abandoned) it brings back sad memoies of the days when all small cities had passenger train service. The logical route would have been for SEPTA or PATCO to bring back service to Philadelphia but there is little interest in doing that.The Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Phillipsburg, to NYC route was formerly run by the Lehigh Valley Railroad. IN NJ they ran on CNJ tracks, now NJT.

dlagrua said:

Every time that I pass the historic Allentown railroad station (now abandoned) it brings back sad memoies of the days when all small cities had passenger train service.

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The Allentown station has been a restaurant, and a club, but as you mention, now abandoned.

The main rail that serviced that station has been long torn up, and a highway built on its right-of-way (the American Parkway). One the problems with bringing back rail, is that those in local power, want to link such with restoration of the use of the Allentown station. They consider this part of their revitalization of downtown Allentown. With no track, I don't think reopening the station to serve passengers is reasonable expectation. IMHO, it would be better to think of a new station, located long the operating NS tracks.

Looking at Google Maps, the tracks (shortline tracks, admittedly) come within spitting distance of the old station. It seems entirely feasible to reestablish it as a terminal station. There's even room for a locomotive run-around if you don't want to use cab cars.

You'd have to run on the tracks which run on the south side of the Lehigh River, not the ones on the north side. But this seems to have the advantage of avoiding the busiest freight yard on the route.

NS would undoubtedly prefer a station which was OFF their mainline.

It really shouldn't be that expensive to reestablish service. It comes in on what is a branch line for NS (whether from High Bridge or Hackettstown) and leaves on another branch line; it only goes through their mainline for a short distance, so their capacity demands should be pretty low. The branchline tracks might need rehabilitation to be fast, but that's a fast, not-that-pricey "send a track-laying machine through" project unless the bridges are failing.

It won't come either from Highbridge or Hackettstown at present. It will run straight down Conrail/NS ex-Lehigh Valley Line taking off from the NEC at Hunter. The line beyond Highbridge is not in any usable shape and there is no usable connection at present to Philipsburg from it.

"It's very preliminary, but we're going to make it happen," said McHugh, Amtrak's vice president of government affairs. "We'll start in Allentown, go into Bethlehem, pass Bethlehem Steel onto Freemansburg, Easton and then New Jersey, probably at High Bridge. I'm committed to getting this done."

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In terms of long-term restoration, it's completely irrelevant that the track's in bad condition; that's by far the cheapest thing to restore. The junctions to both the High Bridge and Hackettstown lines are intact and visible on Google Maps as of 2015, though they may be low-speed hand-throws.

I wish Allentown luck; it's probably the best "bang for the buck" intercity rail expansion in the country. What they really need to do is evaluate the condition of the bridges; that's what determined the costs of the Hartford Line project in Connecticut.

If you are looking at Google maps, you need to scroll south a bit, to around Basin Street, around the labelled Mascaro and Maaco businesses. That's the main line in the area. You'll need to easily get to the old Allentown station, and back again from the main line. Yea, there are some old tracks, that gets you about a block away from the remaining station (I think such tracks supported the "other", now long gone, station), but I don't know if such would really work well. However, those old tracks are still passable. I see a loco ride them about once a year.

Personally, I would think a new station, located around the intersection of Lehigh St and Rt78, would be far better. The main track is right there. Most (all?) commuter traffic goes to/from NYC using Rt78. Rt78 would offer easy access to such a station, and one could even promote a "park and ride" for the commuters currently taking Rt78. Lehigh St would offer a way to still get into downtown Allentown, but such would be way too far to promote foot traffic into downtown with their fat wallets. However, a new station requires capital, for a dream that has very little. I also wonder if it would be economically feasible to move the old Allentown station?

Well, one major advantage of the old station location is (dare I say it) that it would be easy to build lots and lots of parking in that large, empty block. It would have quite a lot within walking distance, and four bus routes running by it, which would help; it's not usually easy to get a downtown location with all of that and room for parking. Your suggested location near the airport would be OK for parking too, of course, but for train stations it is generally advantageous to locate them downtown.

If Allentown-NYC service is actually implemented, there would presumably also be a Bethlehem station near the former steel mill -- room for lots more parking, and decently close to the expressways for park-and-ride service -- and a Easton or Phillipsburg station, providing a third possible park-and-ride location.

Any study should consider all three routes (Hackettstown, High Bridge, and the through freight route), to see which has the most potential. I'm betting it's not the freight route.

Would it be ridiculous to consider an extension beyond the Allentown/Bethlehem area through Reading to Harrisburg? Or is that getting way too far into fantasy-land?

Eric S said:

Would it be ridiculous to consider an extension beyond the Allentown/Bethlehem area through Reading to Harrisburg? Or is that getting way too far into fantasy-land?

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That is a variation of what I think would be an interesting proposal.

Keep the Pennsylvania going from Pittsburg to Harrisburg, but then re-route it from Harrisburg to Reading, onto the ABE area, and finally toward NYC. Those wishing to still go to Philly, would need to change at Harrisburg to get onto the Keystone, and with creative scheduling, inconvenience could be kept to a minimum. The biggest objection I get from such a proposal, is from those who cling into not having to change trains going from Philly to Pittsburg, and basically simply don't want any changes to their lives.

I think its a good idea given it uses existing train sets, and uses existing track. A way to keep such an experiment's cost as low as possible; at least for initial testing.

I think that is a terrible idea, considering most of the Keystone Corridor/Pittsburgh ridership originates at Philadelphia and not New York. Starting a new train between Harrisburg and Newark along this new route is the only way to go IMHO. Think of it as diverting one Keystone Service on this route using the push-pull consist from a Keystone corridor train, but with a P42 instead of an ACS-64. This consist could run PHL - HAR - NWK - HAR - PHL, with a P42 homed in PHL.

I am also certain that trying to do an engine change in Newark Penn Station will be looked down upon, so service into New York will be tough.

Anyway, no one is seriously talking about going all the way to Harrisburg yet. It would be an interesting exercise getting such a train into Harrisburg station too, given the track layout at Harrisburg.

I was thinking more along the lines of a separate corridor running NYP or NWK - HAR via Allentown/Bethlehem, not diverting the Pennsylvanian or something like that. As for NYP or NWK - either NWK-HAR with a diesel or NYP-HAR with a dual-mode (assuming such a locomotive is used for future Amtrak/intercity rail corridor service) - but not something I'm too concerned about with this general idea.

And, yeah, the HAR station presents challenges - perhaps it's not really possible to serve the existing stations tracks/platforms.\

Anyway, just was curious if this seemed like a plausible corridor to others, or just a fantasy.

It is plausible if one can get NS on board for using their heavily used trunk, even with the current track layout at HAR, provided push-pull sets are used. Trains coming in from Reading will have to go past the station to Lucknow and reverse back into the station, and vice-versa. Not that big a deal really. Fits right in if the actual consist does PHL - HAR - NWK - HAR - PHL.

The problem with currently available dual modes is that the Amtrak dual mode P32ACDMs are all fully accounted for in the Empire Corridor, with none to spare. The ALP45DPs from NJT could work and they do have spares at least for the moment. They could operate electric from NWK to NYP like they do for NJT RVL through service to NYP, and operate diesel from NWK to Allentown/Bethlehem or even all the way to HAR. And they are push pull operation capable, though I am not sure Amtrak cab cars mode switch (if there is one) is compatible with them. Probably not.

jis said:

I think that is a terrible idea, considering most of the Keystone Corridor/Pittsburgh ridership originates at Philadelphia and not New York. Starting a new train between Harrisburg and Newark along this new route is the only way to go IMHO. Think of it as diverting one Keystone Service on this route using the push-pull consist from a Keystone corridor train, but with a P42 instead of an ACS-64. This consist could run PHL - HAR - NWK - HAR - PHL, with a P42 homed in PHL.

I am also certain that trying to do an engine change in Newark Penn Station will be looked down upon, so service into New York will be tough.

Anyway, no one is seriously talking about going all the way to Harrisburg yet. It would be an interesting exercise getting such a train into Harrisburg station too, given the track layout at Harrisburg.

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I agree with this....

Not to mention, the running time from New York to Harrisburg (and on to Pittsburgh) on this new route would take considerably longer than the Pennsylvanian route...

Eric S said:

Would it be ridiculous to consider an extension beyond the Allentown/Bethlehem area through Reading to Harrisburg? Or is that getting way too far into fantasy-land?

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One step at a time. We may have long-term plans to run Syracuse-Cortland-Binghamton-Scranton-New York City, but we need to get to Scranton first!

Same principle applies at Bethlehem/Allentown.

For more short-term variations of the same principle:

- passenger rail advocates in NY State have been saying for decades that the state needed to buy the Albany-Poughkeepsie line and get it up to snuff before we could create the political conditions necessary to get real improvements west of Schenectady. They *finally* did that a couple of years ago.

- And nobody was going to put in lots of money west of Harrisburg until Harrisburg-Philadelphia was fixed up (which it finally has been).

- And the Vermonter wasn't likely to go back to Montreal until it first got back on the "Knoweldge Corridor" line in Massachusetts (which finally happened).

- And Bennington VT won't get service until after Burlington VT gets service.

You get the idea. It's fine to have expansive long-term plans (vision to inspire people), but it's important to build shorter operable segments (practical steps which you may be able to get funding for). In this case, Bethelehem-Allentown is a big metro area and worth it by itself, but if talking about future extensions to Reading gets more politicians on board, go for it.