Idea to alleviate the congestion between NYP & SEC

I think I may have found an idea to alleviate the congestion between New York and Secaucus during the rush hour. This idea involves using both tracks for rush hour service between “A” interlocking and Allied Interlocking.

Just for clarification, before I go on with my idea, A interlocking is the interlocking just slightly to the west of Penn Station. It is where all of the station tracks merge into two tracks, No. 2 and No. 3. Even though No. 2 is normally used for eastbound service, and No. 3 for westbound service, both tracks are signaled bidirectional. Allied Interlocking is about 4 miles to the west of that. It is where the two tracks split into three tracks, No. 2, A track, and No. 3, and is the start of the Secaucus Junction complex.

For simplicity reasons, we will only discuss the evening peak period. Most trains that stop at Secaucus platform on A or B track. That is the island platform. Trains stopping at Secaucus would operate on No. 2 track from A interlocking to Allied, and then cross over to A track for the route into Secaucus. Trains that do not stop at Secaucus would operate via No. 3 track the entire way. Unfortunately, the trains stopping at Secaucus would have to enter No. 3 at the west end of Secaucus, either at Lack or Portal.

How do we schedule the eastbound trains to allow for both tracks to be used during these periods?

I remember from when I worked at Hudson Tower, it took four minutes to go from A to Bergen Interlocking, approximately 0.4 miles, or 25 seconds east of Allied. So at worse scenario, it is 5 minutes from A to Allied. Assuming nothing is perfectly on time, we will allow 8 minutes running time from Secaucus to New York.

Now, let’s dedicate the heaviest time of the evening rush hour for dual running westbound, 5:10pm until 5:40pm. Amtrak train 94 is due in to New York at 5:18pm. This means the first westbound up No. 2 track could depart New York at around 5:20pm; arrive at Secaucus at 5:28pm. The next Amtrak train, 2170, leaves Newark at 5:33pm, going through Secaucus at 5:39pm. If NJ Transit could adjust their inbound M&E, Boonton, NEC and Coast line schedules to run no inbounds during this time period, No. 2 track could be used for westbound trains.

Also, there is another gap in eastbound Amtrak service. Between trains 148 (6:25 at NYP), and 2172 (6:38pm at Secaucus), one or two more NJT westbounds could sneak west on 2 if things line up nice

I realize this is not a very reliable method, as trains are seldom exactly on time, so I would not recommend that NJT schedule additional westbound departures in this slot, but if it works out even only 60 percent of the time, it would speed things up in the very congested area in a very busy time period.

Any questions or comments would be appreciated.

A few weeks back, when the frog at the switch at Bergen took a crap, thats exactly what they were doing, and trains were backed up like you wouldn't believe. (avg one hour delay) They were using both tracks to run westbounds, then run eastbounds in when they had to.

There are at least 5 NJT trains that I can think of right now off the top of my head that would be directly effected by this, and would have to wait, 3860, 3260, X322, 3510 (I think its 3510, but its a S. Amboy local goign to NY) X624 or have their schedules changed. This causes havoc when these trains would become westbounds, because there would be much less time in NY to prepare the trains for boarding, and load them up and ship them out.

I don't think a large block of time like that would work well, but if there was like 8 minutes where there were no eastbounds, sure, run a westbound out the south tube. But unless every other train stops at SEC, and passes one in the station at full speed, there is going to be a bottle neck at Portal because you are now in essance single tracking from double tracking, and causing a delay there, albeit relatively minor compared to the mess out caused on a daily basis in NYP.........

They just need to build the new tunnel, and quad track from NYP to Hudson!!!!

IMHO, nothing short of building a huge new terminal station in Manhattan (i.e. other than NYP or GCT) would alleviate congestion. Penn Station is currently running at 250 percent of capacity passenger-wise—and although it may not be related strictly to train capacity, it indicates that if you jammed more trains into that area, you won't have anywhere for the passengers to go, since everything above platform level will be crowded to the point where people cannot move, literally. Right now, NYP from the west is handling the passengers that about two waterfront terminals used to see—and it was never built for that, so you'll never get the passenger capacity of five waterfront terminals into there. It's almost like asking Chicago to close LaSalle Street and CNW terminal and send the trains from there into Union Station.

The leading job growth clusters in Manhattan seem to be in Lower Manhattan, right around Times Square, and on the east side from the 40s to high 50s Madison-Park-Lex. Expanding NYP really doesn't address any of these places. The growth around Jersey City seems to have stalled for now.

The Lower Manhattan plan called for a stub ended PATH station at the Pine Street / Water street area, about five blocks east of WTC. That, along with a third PATH tunnel, would go a long way to opening up that area.

A deep tunnel pair from the SEC area under the river to a station at 47th and 7th, continuing east to 50th and Park, where they'd link up with the new LIRR tunnels would be a great idea.

Thinking boldly, a very deep, very straight tunnel from Harrison NJ to 42nd and 7th, then to 42nd and Park, and continuing underground on a straight line to SHELL would be exactly what the region needs. High speed, bypass Hell Gate, NYP etc

Irish Chieftain wrote:Penn Station is currently running at 250 percent of capacity passenger-wise

What (in this case) is the definition of 100% capacity?

The trouble, Lackawanna, is that your tunnel would have to bypass Governor Pataki and the Port Authority. Pataki is against NJT getting to Grand Central because he thinks it would somehow interfere with his plan for the Long Island RR to get to Grand Central via 63rd St. (Why these 2 goals should be mutually exclusive, I don't know.) The Port Authority seems opposed also. The real trouble is that New Jersey officials haven't pushed for East Side access at all. If NJ officials insisted on it, they could have a lot of leverage by stalling all Port Authority business until they got some concessions. I hope that McGreevey's replacement pushes on this issue.

Incidentally, the East Side Access project is at the moment stalled by Amtrak's objections. Part of the project will involve some reconfigurations of tracks around Sunnyside Yard. The changes could be to Amtrak's benefit, but meanwhile Amtrak doesn't want to pay for any of the work, since it has no money. NY and Amtrak are having a fight about several things, and East Side Access is included.

Pataki's alternative to East Side Access for NJT would be his "287 rail corridor" project, which would include a resurrected Piermont branch and a Hudson rail crossing between Nyack and Tarrytown. Aside from being of limited value to NJ residents, the project would have a lot of NIMBY problems. Its biggest problem is that cost estimates keep rising. The last number I saw was around $9 billion, and I'm not sure if that included the part from Tarrytown to Port Chester. Unless oil gets to $10 a gallon, causing a major restructuring of national priorities, I don't see much hope for massive rail projects. Even the minimal 2-more-tracks-to-NYP project hasn't been financed yet.

I've always liked this idea for a WTC Transit Center proposed by a NYCsubway.org Subtalk member. It provides for both NJT and LIRR service to lower manhattan in addition to creating a cross-harbor freight tunnel in the same deal. Really the only problems I could see with it would be that more connections would be needed on the NJ side to bring the MN West Side lines, and the RVL into the terminal (DM30AC, P32DM-ACs, a Dual-mode PL42AC, or perhaps even full-scale electrification of the routes would be required), as well as increasing the number of platforms, 4 island platforms seems a bit low, even with constant through-running. Perhaps 6 Island high platforms, with a seventh low platform in the middle of the two 'freight' bypass tracks for emergency use by NJT equipment.

Anyone know where an additional 20 billion dollars is lying around? I'd think it wouldn't be a problem funding it, given that the WTC is the most recognizable plot of land on earth at this point. The groups who claimed it was a sacrilege to build on a 'grave site' have basically been overruled, and there will be some sort of building over it. So why not have a world class transit center in the basement? Wouldn't the improved commuting abilities of the area with a direct commuter line go a long way toward healing damage done by the terrorists? I guess none of this must make any sense, cause instead of building something to fix the area where two of the three strikes occured that day, we're spending money on Turbotrains that will never run, a station for the high risk area of Syracuse, and a BRT system for Albany.

Quad track the NEC to the tunnel allowing trains to queue up before entering the tunnel.