MTA Budget - Brewster Yard improvements

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... d-project/

The Metro-North Brewster Yard project, which also includes the adjacent Southeast station, will proceed in three phases, including expansion into an adjacent, undeveloped 52-acre property. The first phase will address station parking and access improvements; the second will see a northward expansion of the yard, and the third will reconfigure the existing yard. When complete, the MTA says the facility will be a “strategic maintenance facility and transportation hub.”

Overdue.

But increased capacity at Brewster Yard does nothing for actual train service. Without a new signal system to replace the 1981 cheapo signal system, and a thoroughly upgraded DC traction power system, including new substations, you can’t do a thing to increase service, or even lengthen trains, north of North White Plains. You need all of it to get any benefit at all.

If you are curious about the project plan:
https://southeast-ny.gov/DocumentCenter ... entation_1

Erie-Lackawanna wrote:Overdue.

But increased capacity at Brewster Yard does nothing for actual train service. Without a new signal system to replace the 1981 cheapo signal system, and a thoroughly upgraded DC traction power system, including new substations, you can’t do a thing to increase service, or even lengthen trains, north of North White Plains. You need all of it to get any benefit at all.

What is cheapo about the existing signal system? Also, isn't it from 1984 when the electrification was completed? As I recall it originally included wayside tri color signals, but I don't remember what year they were taken down. Were cab signals part of that system?

The signal system is a three-aspect system: clear, approach, stop/restricting. The length of the blocks and the lack of a limited speed (45 mph) signal aspect, make it a total throughput killer.

Cab signals were overlaid on the 1983 wayside system in the late 1980s, with no changes other than the addition of cab signals and elimination of wayside intermediate signals.

It was a cheapo installation at the time and it is a major impediment to increased service levels today.

But let’s not forget that replacing the signal system gets you nothing without BOTH an expanded Brewster Yard AND all of the (8 or so, IIRC) new DC substations that are required to support longer train lengths and additional trains.

We’ll all be old and decrepit (or dead) before peak service can be improved on the upper Harlem.

I was under the impression that Metro-North cab signalling had more signal/speed aspects than just those three?

Restricting
Limited
Medium
Normal

From Flickr...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/milantram/5649578377

The on-board apparatus supports four aspects: clear cab (normal speed), limited cab (45 mph), medium cab (30 mph), and restricting (15 mph).

The wayside system determines what aspect is displayed in the cab, by sending the appropriate pulse code rates through the rails, which is picked up by the on-board receiver and converted into a visual aspect for the locomotive engineer. On the Upper Harlem between North White Plains and Dykemans, the wayside system supports only three of the four cab aspects; it can’t send a limited speed code. As a result, you should never get a limited cab aspect in that territory. The on-board apparatus supports it, but the wayside doesn’t.

Which raises the question: what signal system is in place north of Dykemans?

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 6:03 am Which raises the question: what signal system is in place north of Dykemans?

The one installed in 2000 when the Upper Harlem was upgraded and extended to Wassaic. It’s cab signals without intermediate wayside signals. I’m fairly certain it’s a four-aspect system but I don’t know authoritatively. Prior to the line upgrade it was Manual Block Signal System.