by ElectricTraction
Ridgefielder wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:19 pmA direct connection to the Harlem would be way less of an engineering challenge than the Hudson, for what it's worth. You wouldn't necessarily need to take land, either.Yup. The Harlem Line makes infinitely more sense than the Hudson Line plan, and ends up taking about the same amount of time. The Suffern-Port Chester line should be built along 287, mostly it would need to be elevated, with 25kV/60 power. The Hudson Line should also be electrified from Highbridge to Poughkeepsie with 25Kv/60 replacing third rail Highbridge-Croton.
Assuming the line is on top of or next to I-287, you could build a connection that branches off at Exit 5, runs 2-3k feet on a viaduct over Tarrytown Road, crosses in front of the County Center, bridges the Bronx River and joins the Harlem just north of the White Plains station. A light rail operation wouldn't even need to be elevated-- you could just run down the Tarrytown Rd. median to a terminus next to the White Plains station.
The Harlem Line needs some serious capacity improvements to White Plains, but the capacity into GCT isn't an issue, both due to some trains from the New Haven Line being diverted to Penn, a few future diversions from the Hudson Line, as well as the fact that trains to White Plains could be extended to Suffern, using the same slots they use today. The whole Hudson Line needs to be upgraded for 12-car sets at full power/speed.
Your concept would work (except for the light rail part), but it's not really needed, the tie-in could be done directly on a tight loop down from 287 to the existing Harlem Line ROW north of White Plains.
There's a bunch of office parks and strip malls and such right along the 287 corridor that with careful planning could have pedestrian infrastructure to tie them to stations, or redeveloped as denser TOD.
I'd run it all the way to Stamford; lots of traffic between Stamford and White Plains.The challenge is where to site a White Plains station for the Suffern-Stamford service that's useful to White Plains, as 287 is a bit north of White Plains proper. A station on the Northeast side of White Plains with a small streetcar/light rail circulator through downtown proper might work. I think the primary draw for the line would still be direct service to GCT.
Suffern itself provides some challenges as to how to structure that service for transfers coming down from PJ, but that's another issue from the 287 corridor.