Hurricane Sandy and Amtrak.
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from the MTA of the pump train working down at South Ferry. When this video was shot the pump train was right at the interlocking where the old line to the South Ferry loop intersects with the new line to the relatively new station that opened about 2 years ago or so. As a guess, that puts the train at least 3 blocks away from the actual station, maybe more.
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Nathanael
Guest
This depends on how fast a massive washout can be fixed north of Croton-Harmon, which is said to require "eight rail cars of ballast". That will probably have to be delivered from the north by rail, which means the line has to be restored from Albany down to Cortlandt first, and I have no idea how fast that's going. In fact, I'm not even sure who's doing it -- the line is CSX-controlled north of Poughkeepsie but was scheduled to be transferred to Amtrak tomorrow!
There also may be problems in the Empire Connection tunnel near Penn Station, I've heard no reports on that, but areas directly over it were flooded...
That Empire Connection tunnel comes in on the southern side of Penn by 31st Street. The flooding came through from the LIRR Westend yard on the north side by 33rd. Street. In between are the two North River tubes, which took all the water that made it past the barrier that the LIRR had erected in the hope of stopping all flooding. Sadly the river and tidal surge over topped the barrier for a few hours, which is what led to the flooding in the tunnels.
So those tunnels in effect saved the Empire Corridor's tunnel. Of course I'm sure that Amtrak would have preferred the opposite!
Amtrak reports #80 into NYP just a little late. Doesn't list times for Trenton or Newark.
PHL * * 1 711P * 712P Departed: 1 minute late.
TRE * * 1 743P
NWK * * 1 823P
* NYP 1 843P * * 918P * Arrived: 35 minutes late.
I'm wondering if it bypassed those stations and if so what track it was running on? Or maybe the stations are closed so couldn't discharge passengers? Or maybe just nobody logged the times.
Still pretty impressive to have service back up this soon.
PHL * * 1 711P * 712P Departed: 1 minute late.
TRE * * 1 743P
NWK * * 1 823P
* NYP 1 843P * * 918P * Arrived: 35 minutes late.
I'm wondering if it bypassed those stations and if so what track it was running on? Or maybe the stations are closed so couldn't discharge passengers? Or maybe just nobody logged the times.
Still pretty impressive to have service back up this soon.
johnny.menhennet
Conductor
Fantastic! Great news all around. I am very impressed with Amtrak's progress, and the progress by all transportation agencies throughout this. Although it left a lot to be desired, I'd still say Amtrak has been better about updating the status throughout the storm and recovery than previously. Glad to see things returning to normal, and I'm especially glad that the damaged and in some places fully-down catenary on the New Haven Line was restored to be able to provide service.
Now, why can the Silver Meteor operate normally all the way to NYC, but the Silver Star only go as far north as JAX? CJ
I think you're right. Someone at Amtrak has finally figured out how to update their website, although it generally takes them longer to do that than to post the same material on Facebook and Twitter.
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Nathanael
Guest
This is equipment positioning again; the same reason why the Capitol Limited only ran one-way the first day it was restored, and why the Vermonter is running to St. Albans in one direction and not the other on Friday.
During the NEC shutdown, the Silver Meteor ran to WAS and the Silver Star shuttled around Florida. No, I'm not sure why they didn't go to WAS, but that seems to be a common 'emergency operations plan' for Amtrak; they've done it before; perhaps without New York City service there just isn't enough demand to run both the Star and the Meteor.
So, too many Silver Star trainsets are in Florida. The southbound has to start at JAX because that's where it *is*. The northbound will run all the way through to NYP, and then turn to become a southbound, and we'll eventually get back to normal.
Exactly how many days of "half moves" are necessary depends on exactly how many of the trainsets were moved to Florida, which of course I don't know, versus how many were kept in Washington or somewhere similarly 'north'. I'm sure Amtrak is trying to get everything up and running ASAP.
A couple of sets of equipment got trapped in Sunnyside, I think. I'd expect the Star to be heading "back to normal" in a day or two, but...note that Amtrak ran the Meteor only to WAS as the storm was approaching. They were trying to keep equipment out of the NEC. The only shame is that they weren't able to deadhead some more equipment out of Sunnyside ahead of the storm, but...eh, nobody knew how bad this was going to get.
While the storm was a bit worse than expected, they didn't dead head more equipment out because they knew it was safe. NY has 3 flood zone areas. Sunnyside is partly in zone 2 and part in zone 3. Only zone 1 was ever affected by the storm in terms of storm surge. So the equipment was quite safe.
What no one expected was the fact that the surge would over top the barrier that the LIRR erected to stop the expected flooding in the West End yard from flooding the North River tunnels. I'm still trying to figure out just how the surge reached the East River tunnels, or rather how it hit 2 of the 4 tunnels. The Line 2 tunnel shown in the video opening is within the zone 1 or A flood zone which was impacted by the surge. So it does make some sense that tunnel went down. But the other 3 tunnels all open within the zone 2 or B area which was out of the impacted area.
If you find out, let me know; I'm wondering about the dynamics of all of this. Likewise, I'm also wondering about how they're handling turning subway trains at Penn Station (i.e. are there enough crossover tracks to let them shift trains over to the opposite direction platforms? Or are they just using the express tracks for the reversals?).
I know they ran 98 northbound on Wed., and again yesterday. CJ
Surprised this did not get discussed yesterday, but Amtrak is in discussions with NJ Transit to provide Amtrak equipment to make up for the flood damaged NJT rolling stock and is talking to VIA about leasing VIA equipment for the NY state corridor services to make up for the equipment Amtrak may send to NJT. So VIA is a fall-back for a possible source of intercity passenger cars.
Wash Post article: "Amtrak to restore service from NYC to Boston on Friday, and send equipment to help NJ". It may behind a subscription wall, but this is a AP story, so it should be available elsewhere.
Key excerpt:
Wash Post article: "Amtrak to restore service from NYC to Boston on Friday, and send equipment to help NJ". It may behind a subscription wall, but this is a AP story, so it should be available elsewhere.
Key excerpt:
Tracktwentynine
OBS Chief
NYCSubway.org has a full set of track maps for the subway system.
The 34th Street/Penn Station stations are on the Midtown map.
amamba
Engineer
My H rode the 66 this morning from BOS - PVD PVD - BOS. It was practically empty. Very strange. The train was listed as sold out online and the ticket agents were not able to sell tickets for it, so the conductors made an announcement (there is generally 10 minutes dwell time) that anyone that didn't have a ticket should buy a ticket for the 190 and then just use it on the 66.
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As shown on the map linked to by Track29, the A trains pull into 34th Street on the local track making their final stop at 34th and discharging all pax. Then then pull out southbound and use the interlocking south of the station to cross to that middle layup track, change ends, and then pull out heading northbound to return to 168th Street on the local track.
In the case of the #1 & #2 trains, they pull into 42nd Street on the local track. Upon leaving there, they must cross over to the express track to pull into 34th Street. After discharging there, they change ends right on the express platform and pull back out north using the layup track in the middle so as to be able to cross over to the local track just south of 42nd Street.
It is because of this limited ability to turn trains in this are that normal service is not running on these lines. Normal rush hour service on the #1 for example would see a train every 2 to 3 minutes. AFAIK they're still running on 10 minute headways all day long because they simply cannot turn trains any faster at 34th Street.
This is why the ability of ConEd to restore power south of 39th Street is so critical. With that power back on, they could turn the #2 trains at 34th Street more or less normally by running them down the express tracks from 96th Street and probably even restore the #3 service. The #1 trains would continue down the local tracks all the way to Chambers Street, before they reversed ends. Similar arrangements could be done with the A & C trains, turning the express at 34th and the local at Chambers.
Or course it would help far more to get the East River tunnels back open, and I understand that the MTA is actually ready to restore 1 tunnel to service between lower Manhattan & Brooklyn once ConEd can provide power to them for the tunnel and the tracks in lower Manhattan. Even if they have no power for stations, they could at least run express through the blacked out area, relieving pressure on the buses if only they had power.
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I have a scheduled trip on the 50 Cardinal on Sunday morning, from WV to NY. It's scheduled to get there at 10PM and every time I've taken this trip it gets there between 1AM and 2AM. Earlier this year I took the Cardinal to Philly and it got there at about 2AM, so NY was at least 3AM.
I caled Amtrak and asked about delays, and they said the train will likely be operating at slower speeds (no doubt between DC and NY, when it's often ~120 MPH i believe). I can imagine the train getting there after sunrise... They suggest it won't be very late. Anyone know what kind of delays they're seeing now on similar routes? I'm very tempted to drive instead.
I caled Amtrak and asked about delays, and they said the train will likely be operating at slower speeds (no doubt between DC and NY, when it's often ~120 MPH i believe). I can imagine the train getting there after sunrise... They suggest it won't be very late. Anyone know what kind of delays they're seeing now on similar routes? I'm very tempted to drive instead.
The #50 Cardinal on-time performance has gotten better in recent months. Of course, with the amount of snow in WV, the train may get delayed running through WV and on the Buckingham Branch. The Cardinal is limited to 110 mph on the NEC because of the Heritage baggage car and Viewliner sleeper.
But, here are the times for the 4 eastbound trips using Amtrak Status map archives to look them up:
#50 (10/20) arrived WAS 1 hr 57 minutes late, arrived NYP 1:44 late
#50 (10/23) arrived WAS 1:14 late, arrived NYP 1:16 late
#50 (10/25) arrived WAS 7 minutes early, arrived NYP 27 mins early - probably one of the best runs in a long time
#50 (10/27) departed IND 1:20 late, arrived WAS 1:15 late, arrived NYP 1:10 late
So 1 trip to NYP getting in early, 3 arriving NYP between 1:10 and 1:44 late. At least they all arrived NYP before midnight. The trip this Sunday could be late because of the storm damage, but then again, if your end destination is the NYC region, driving may run into any number of traffic jams or closed roads in the Metro region.
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