NY to Chicago

[railiner]

Going via 30th St should not add more than 15-20 mins to the schedule, specially if the engine change is done at 30th St as is the case now. The slowdown mostly is west of Harrisburg anyway.

The other big benefit of not going in and out of 30th Street Station, is not having to reverse directions, and have the passengers riding backwards from New York to Philadelphia...In the Penn Central era, of all the New York to Pittsburg/Chicago/St. Louis trains operated, only the late night Pennsylvania Limited ran via 30th Street.

 

[AlanB]

PA did ask the US DOT to allow the state to turn I-80 into a toll road to raise money for highway and road maintenance, but the state was turned down. Which was a major setback to the state transportation budget plans.

They were turned down because the plan was to take that toll money and use it to support transit in Philly & Pittsburgh. The USDOT said, "No, you're not going to do that. Figure out how to fund that public transit in a normal way; not by slapping tolls on what is supposed to be a toll free highway."

 

[Anderson]

I don't see North Philadelphia being turned into "the" stop for Philly for any longer-distance trains barring a major station rebuild/expansion. As I understand it, the station is a very "functional" commuter station with very little Amtrak traffic; if you want to have the Pennsylvanian, Three Rivers/Broadway, or anything else major only stop there, you're going to have to do something to allow for connectivity with trains such as the Silvers, Crescent, and the Regionals (among others)...and you're going to need a moderate-sized waiting area meant to have folks waiting for a few hours for those connections (i.e. probably containing a coffee/snack concession that is open all day). Also, the station would likely need a boost to parking as well.

 

[jis]

I don't see North Philadelphia being turned into "the" stop for Philly for any longer-distance trains barring a major station rebuild/expansion. As I understand it, the station is a very "functional" commuter station with very little Amtrak traffic; if you want to have the Pennsylvanian, Three Rivers/Broadway, or anything else major only stop there, you're going to have to do something to allow for connectivity with trains such as the Silvers, Crescent, and the Regionals (among others)...and you're going to need a moderate-sized waiting area meant to have folks waiting for a few hours for those connections (i.e. probably containing a coffee/snack concession that is open all day). Also, the station would likely need a boost to parking as well.

I agree. North Philly being resurrected as a major Amtrak stop in the Philly area is highly unlikely unless a few major miracles come to pass.

 

[afigg]

I don't see North Philadelphia being turned into "the" stop for Philly for any longer-distance trains barring a major station rebuild/expansion. As I understand it, the station is a very "functional" commuter station with very little Amtrak traffic; if you want to have the Pennsylvanian, Three Rivers/Broadway, or anything else major only stop there, you're going to have to do something to allow for connectivity with trains such as the Silvers, Crescent, and the Regionals (among others)...and you're going to need a moderate-sized waiting area meant to have folks waiting for a few hours for those connections (i.e. probably containing a coffee/snack concession that is open all day). Also, the station would likely need a boost to parking as well.

At the risk of veering way OT, I was not referring to any of the southbound LD trains. The North Philadelphia station is barely used anymore by Amtrak because of the decades of industrial decline, rust belt, urban blight, high crime rates, and effectively broken political system synonymous with North Philadelphia. What I am struck by when I look at the North Philadelphia station is the legacy of transit connections that could be used as the linchpin of Transit Oriented Development or Redevelopment in this case.

The Amtrak North Philadelphia station is on the NEC with Newark Airport station only 55 minutes on the one Keystone that stops at both, less than 75 mins from NYP. Much faster if Acelas were to stop there after the improvements in NJ. The location also has the North Broad SEPTA station leading to the entire Reading RR system and providing direct transit connections to downtown and the Philly Airport. It also has the North Philadelphia station on the Broad Street subway line. I could see a developer with deep pockets and willing to deal with the complex Philadelphia and PA state politics seeking to rebuild the area around the station into a new gentrified centrally located business district and neighborhood that offers direct access to NYC, PHL, DC, Harrisburg, 3 major airports (PHL, EWR, BAL). And if a true HSR line were built from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, PGH would only be a few hours away. But that is enough on that. For now, North Philadelphia is an all but abandoned stop on the NEC.

The key point is that Keystone #643, which skips several Keystone east stops, takes 3:10 from NYP to HAR. Not much longer than the 1956 Broadway Limited which had very few stops and bypassed 30th Street. If 15-20 minutes can be trimmed from the PHL to HAR segment and 5-10 minutes from PHL-NYP, we could get some ~2:45 NYP-HAR Keystone trains, despite stopping and reversing at 30th Street. Which makes the NYP-HAR segment measurably faster than the 1956 schedule, which is not something we can say for many of the Amtrak routes in the US. Get to a sub 5 hour HAR-PGH time and Amtrak could have a scheduled NYP-PGH train that does not take much longer than the 1956 BL even with a stop and engine change at 30th St and multiple local stops on the route. Progress of sorts.

 

[George Harris]

If 15-20 minutes can be trimmed from the PHL to HAR segment and 5-10 minutes from PHL-NYP, we could get some ~2:45 NYP-HAR Keystone trains, despite stopping and reversing at 30th Street. Which makes the NYP-HAR segment measurably faster than the 1956 schedule, which is not something we can say for many of the Amtrak routes in the US.

Which has a lot to do with the significant increase in speed limits on these tracks since 1956. That has not happened west of Harrisburg. Time on this segment will be longer than 1956, probably much longer.

Get to a sub 5 hour HAR-PGH time and Amtrak could have a scheduled NYP-PGH train that does not take much longer than the 1956 BL even with a stop and engine change at 30th St and multiple local stops on the route. Progress of sorts.

 

[Anderson]

The Florida Trains are important, though, if for nothing but connectivity. If the Broadway or Pennsylvanian doesn't stop at 30th Street but the Silvers skip PHN, you force an additional connection to get wherever those folks want to go. On the one hand, such a gap may not be the end of the world...but it certainly seems to be a non-trivial weakness to me.