Amtrak Speeds in New York

Station Aficionado wrote: ↑Fri Nov 03, 2023 6:03 pm

Railjunkie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 02, 2023 8:23 am

Greg Moore wrote: ↑Wed Nov 01, 2023 5:52 pm Railjunkie, thanks for weighing in. I thought that was the case (about tracks being on the "wrong side" from the stations but wasn't 100% sure.

The platform for Rome is an island and I think the old NYC tunnels are still there, use them to access the current platform. The rest of them may have been filled with slurry though by Conrail back in the day. Rochester and Depew are both on the south side but there were yards in both Rochester and Depew. With time though I think CSX has managed to kill the traffic to both. In the case of Rochester Kodak being gone just furthered the cause. Again its been twenty years since I have gone past Syracuse by rail and I'm sure a lot has changed. The old rolodex is spinning ever so slowly even with a couple cups of coffee

The places with the platform problems are Syracuse and Depew. Utica has both an island platform (accessed by a bridge) and a side platform , although Amtrak access to the track on the north side of the island platform looks like it would require a new connection east of the station.

The new station at Rochester has an island platform, with tunnel access. The old side platform next to the station is still there, but heavily decayed. More importantly, there’s no longer a track at that platform.

Syracuse and Depew only have side platforms, with access to only a single track. IIRC, when Syracuse was built, they planned for commuter service of some sort on the NYS&W. There was to be a separate platform on the north side of the tracks for that. Don’t know how they planned to access it.

The north side of the platform at Utica is for the Adirondack Scenic Railroad it would require some work putting the controlled siding back in that ran from CP235 to CP 237 I believe. CP237 was wiped out in a derailment years ago. Plus some permission from MA&N to use there tracks.

Maybe we should start a separate topic on "how to improve Syracuse", but I'll leave this here for now. Railjunkie's comments led me to taking a closer look (at least via Google maps) at the station site. It's right next to a wetland that feeds the lake. I can see where the sinkage problem comes from. Fixing that would likely be very expensive and very complicated permit-wise. Which probably means we're stuck with the single side platform for now. To my layman's eyes, another problem would appear to be the lack of crossovers east of the station. Unless I missed something, you have to go almost back to where the current line split from the old line through downtown before you come to a crossover. Would another crossover closer to the station make things more fluid and maybe cut a little time from the aggregate trip times for Amtrak? There is a crossover not far west of the station.

While the current Amtrak station has Greyhound and transit connections that the old one lacked and is a little more centrally located, it's not the panacea we sometimes think new stations will be. The old station, at least in its early years ('60's and '70's) had two platforms, both with canopies, and access to three through tracks and a stub. At least until the second platform was removed, there may have been more flexibility than at the current location. There used to a fifth frequency on the corridor that started/terminated in Syracuse. I haven't checked the timetables to confirm, but I'd bet that ended no later than the move to the new station, where there doesn't appear to be anyplace to turn, store, or service a trainset.