Amtrak balking at Farley Station deal

Sounds like Mr. Gargano is a bit desperate. He can forget about NJ Transit paying money to move into Farley, especially when having extra tracks/platforms/slots is more worthwhile.

The title "Penn Station Expansion" is inaccurate.

Crain's is a paid-subscription site.

It appears that despite other more "pressing' matters such as adequate tunnel security, the Farley Project is moving ahead, or at least so thinks a reporter and editor at The New York Times

Of interest, note which party is reported as the principal tenant. Note the absence of any mention of another.

I'm led to wonder if Amtrak is simply planning to 'stay put'?

I think Amtrak made a good move not to go into Farley Station with all of the budget issues Amtrak is having.

WCBS-TV also ran a piece on this, but focused more on the political aspirations of Gov. Pataki.

You can find it (for the next day or two, at least) by searching the WCBS-TV website http://www.cbsnewyork.com/ .

An off topic follow up to your point, Mr. Damon; now WHY has Gov. Pataki become so interested in watching the tall corn grow???

Irish Chieftain wrote:

trainhq wrote:However, NYP has gotten many jeers over its current "architecture". In writing and spoken word, the current NYP is one of the most villified rail stations there is. This view is held worldwide.

It seems to me very similar to Birmingham New Street, where an originally generous station was buried under a shopping centre with platforms that look underground. New Street is one of the busiest stations in Britain and is at the centre of the whole network. I gather the old Penn Station was a magnificent building based on the Baths of Caracalla.

Noel Weaver wrote:The proposal to use the Farley Building will require at least one long block of additional walking to connect to Amtrak from any of the other lines and might result in two long blocks in some cases.

Noel Weaver

Can't they put in the type of moving travolator they have in airports? There is one at Manchester Piccadilly in Britain, just to move from one part of the station to another (put in for the Commonwealth Games).

It's hard to figure out how to interpret that NYT comment . . .

"principal tenant [or words to that effect] NJ Transit." No mention, not the slightest, of any other users.

Perhaps --- and this is just wild speculation by me --- they've determined that NJ Transit has agreed or will agree to use it. I can't imiagine how the NJ Transit name could have appeared in that context if this were not the case. Of course it will be interesting to see the next couple of days' Letters to the Editor to see if the head of NJT disowns that claim!

I would also guess --- again, my seat of the pants opinion --- that if one railroad uses it the others will follow.

I'd like to see it happen.

Yeah, I know the disadvantages.

The observation that 8th Avenue is a whole long block less convenient is right on.

And how about the stairs? I was there not long ago (to use the post office, since that one is open on Sunday) and I recall thinking there's not another building in New York that has more damned stairs!!!!! How in the name of God will they make it handicapped-accessible?

And here's a subtlety: the stairways to the platforms would be nowhere near the center of the platforms, rather all the way down near the west end.

But hey, New York needs another world-class Beaux-Arts rail terminal to complement GCT!!! Geez, it's incongruous enough that the capital of the world has such crummy airports!!!* Here's an option to relieve ourselves of a crummy rail terminal.


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* I feel free to make that airport appraisal speaking as a gold-class flyer who has been in nearly every major city airport in the US as well as lots of foreign ones.

So if NJT is supposed to be the major (maybe only) tenant now, why is NY State continuing ot pay for it??

Also what about the proposed new NJT station (in conjunction with ARC) at 34th and 7th??

I don't see how moving to Farley would help NJT, Amtrak I somewhat understood. I also thought Farley would make sense if there was ever enough tunnel capacity to run direct airport shuttles, EWR-NYP-JFK.

Just to clarify, the post office public space will continue in its current function, so the stairs won't be an issue for passengers - the entrance to the station will be at street level halfway down the block between eigth and ninth.

New York State again puts the "cart before the horse".
Amtrak would be very smart to completely wash their hands to this total
waste of vital funds.
If New York State really wanted to help passenger service they would
put the funds into buying the line between Poughkeepsie and Hoffmans
and boot CSX out on their fanny. Then and only then is there a chance
for a decent, high speed, on time operation between New York - Albany
and intermediate points.
A move to the Farley building will not benefit Amtrak passengers one
least little bit and in fact could cause major inconvience to them. I think
Amtrak is smart to realize this one right from the start.
Noel Weaver

updrumcorpsguy wrote:Just to clarify, the post office public space will continue in its current function, so the stairs won't be an issue for passengers - the entrance to the station will be at street level halfway down the block between eigth and ninth.

So that means the entrance would be a full 1.5 long blocks further west than the existing Penn Station entrance. Penn Station is a dump, but at least it's a convenient dump. IMO, this whole project has "boondoggle" written all over it.

I do consider the destruction of the McKim, Meade, and White masterpiece to be one of the greatest architechtual atrocities ever. In it's place is a rail station with no character, that was built to service passenger levels of broke railroads. Move to today, and the current NYP is a mess. Even with the extra space that NJT carved out for itself, the station can not handle the passenger loads. Some solution is necessary. Moving NJT in to what I would call the "nicer" space, does not really solve anything.

In agreement with Tom, that considering that NYC is by many accounts considered to be the best city in the world (I personally feel that way), people certainly have some really horrible means of getting in to it (the lone exception being GCT).

I have used Penn Station many times and have never witnessed any
problems with the facility handling whatever business came its way.
The present facility really is not that much different than the original
station except that there is not dozens of feet of useless space over the
passenger areas, it is much cleaner and warmer in the winter and cooler
in the summer.
I know that some on here do not agree with me but in my opinion, the
present facility is much more pleasant to rail travelers than the old Penn
Station ever was or ever could be. The Amtrak facilities are better today
than the facilities in the old station were and you can sit in reasonable
comfort and not have to dodge dirt, pigeons and suffer through extreme
noise in the process.
Do any of the people who well remember the old Penn Station recall how
difficult it was to hear train announcements there, it was like being in an
echo chamber and half the time it was impossible to try to figure out what
was being said. I have a recording of the announcement in the old place
for a long haul train and most of it is impossible to understand.
Yes, I agree that the old Penn Station was an interesting building and well
constructed but it had nowhere near the beauty of Grand Central Terminal
and the railroad was being "robbed" by the property and facility taxes
imposed on that structure.
I had no great love for the Pennsylvania Railroad at the time but I don't
blame them one bit for wanting out. They did what they had to do and
really and truly, the public ended up with a pleasanter facility as a result.
Noel Weaver

Well, I triggered a good-sized festouche on this matter (not difficult to do on this forum). I certainly agree the existing Penn Station is a perfectly efficient, operationally adequate facility; it just suffers from the disadvantage of being ugly, which is an issue of esthetics and not of transportation. I also have to agree that Penn in its best days couldn't architecturally hold a candle to Grand Central; even so I admit to being one has never emotionally gotten over the destruction of Penn. I always thought its grandest feature was the two-blocks-long row of Roman columns lining the sidewalk on Seventh Ave. When you rounded the corner from 34th St., or emerged up the subway stairs on the same corner you couldn't NOT say "wow!" I had the misfortune* to be a college student in NY during the 60s and to witness the progress, if you can call it that, of the whole demolition job. Now that I have actually become [recently] a New Yorker I am really tuned in to what is and isn't well done about the esthetics of the city --- and I must say the existing Penn is a huge esthetic blunder.


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*One reason I say "misfortune" is that the 60s was a lousy time in general to be in college.