Amtrak Grand Central Terminal Operations

I'm glad that Amtrak at GCT is now showing up on departure boards/screens.

Usually Amtrak trains show up in Metro-North's "Train Time" screens, at Yonkers and other stations.

It was definitely not there last Friday in the GCT departure board or Train Time screen at around 5:40pm.

train 233 and train 235 Tuesday

Probably an inane question, but:

1. When Metro-North runs its push-pull trains with the locomotives at the rear, nobody seems to be in the locomotive. (Or at least I can't see the person.)

2. When Amtrak's Empire Service train arrived at GCT this afternoon, with locomotives on both ends, there were people in both locomotives.

So...is there a need to have someone in a locomotive at the rear of a train- never, sometimes or always?

The functions of MN P32acdm are 100% controlled as trailing locomotive from cab car
on Amtrak trains the P42 in cab car mode can only handle direction and throttle in Emode , no resets , no computer resets etc

Discussion in the Acela Replacement thread has led me to the inference that Amtrak may be planning to reopen NYG as s permanent station. The number of Acela trainsets will be increasing from 20 to 28 with the likely consequent increase in arrivals and departures at NYP.

Without impacting the commuter services it would appear that the most obvious solution is to run Empire Service trains to/from NYG permanently beginning in 2021.

Is this a reasonable conclusion?

Believe MN wants Amtrak to go back to NY Penn,DV Bridge is back in place. Would rather use the platform space for their Trains!

I'm sure they would. Question being which of the two has capacity to spare ... Pretty sure it isn't NYP. Those Avelia Liberty trainsets aren't going to magically grow a 3rd rail shoe and find their way to Yonkers.

If Amtrak tries to do a permanent return to GCT would invite a "Micascope" like review by some of the "Critters" in DC

Why would Amtrak go back to GCT? Easier for Amtrak to tighten up its signaling and platform the Empire Service trains on Platform 1 or some other underused space, and run push-pull for at least one trip a day rather than looping through Sunnyside. They should be able to find a cab car somewhere anyway.

That's an interesting point.

At the moment there appears to be only a small handful of cab cars available from former use in Michigan. Last report was they had already been stripped extensively for parts.

Currently the Keystone Service and the Springfield Shuttle are the only two I know of that use single level cab cars. Neither of these services will be receiving new equipment anytime before the Amfleet replacement order comes in.

Obviously I'm assuming an F40 NPCU is not an option.

I'd dedicate a small fleet of P40/42s as cab cars to avoid moving back into GCT full-time. Amtrak ought to have a few to spare now that the Chargers have come into play.

Any spare P40's/P42's has by now would up in the LD power pool,to cover the increasing "crap outs" in LD power on the road.
If possible Beech Grove should make Cab Cars out of the parted out P40's,and rig them for remote ops of the P32 DM's and ACSES.
There were 6 P40's that yielded their trucks to handle a botched GE Maintenance procedure on the P42 trucks.
There should now enough trucks rebuilt,pull off the traction motors and get those demotored P40's back in service as cab cars!

I think you guys are overthinking this. So what if there are more high speed trainsets. Unless additional tunnels magically open up under the Hudson, they won't be able run them close enough together where platform space will suddenly become a bigger challenge than it is now at NYP. This is not going to be an issue in 2021, it'll be an issue in 2121 when they finally build new tubes.

Ok ... So what's going to get cut? Something clearly has to change in order to accommodate these trainsets. Fewer Northeast Regionals perhaps?

No idea if Amtrak is planning to permanently move some service back into GCT. Remember, Grand Central isn't exactly underused by Metro-North.

However, if they were, it seems to me that it would make more sense to do it on a train-by-train basis rather than a wholesale move along the lines of "everything on the ex-New York Central goes to GCT." If, for instance, more than say 80% of the passengers on a given train have NYC as their origin or destination, moving that train to GCT wouldn't be that disruptive. Doesn't matter if that train is going to Boston, Springfield, Niagara Falls, or wherever.

And yes I know that there is no current AC/DC dual-mode electric locomotive that could operate into Grand Central. Doesn't mean such a thing will never exist again in the future.