Amtrak Empire Service (New York State)

[Jeff Smith]

I think part of the poor financial performance/ratio may be that Amtrak is leasing the line north of Poughkeepsie (if they haven't bought it yet) and is now staffing dispatch. I'm not sure what they were paying Crash Spill Explode CSX before this arrangement. NYS can't fold it in to the MTA without an amendment to the law. They should perhaps just buy the line outright, and bid "Empire South" operation out as a franchise. Amtrak and the LD's go back to being a tenant in this manner.

[Greg Moore]

I know a few folks in the Albany area that have driven to Poughkeepsie to ride Metro-North and the general consensus is, "only if I'm being really penny-pinching!" Far less comfortable than Amtrak. But it is definitely cheaper.

As for Wassiac, as others have commented that really attracts more from the east and points to the northeast.

To expand upon this corridor:
I suspect if anything, the lease agreement from CSX is now cheaper than it used to be because in part Amtrak has taken over maintenance.
That said, again, I think NYS has to start thinking about service to Pittsfield, with a stop in Chatham (i.e. partner with MA on their proposed service) as well as adding additional trains south and additional ones to Schenectady and Saratoga Springs and other points not to far away.

As long as I can I'm going to be pushing my local politicians for more service.

[NaugyRR]

This is gonna sound like a crappy pun, but I wonder if the track in Saratoga would be willing to pony up and fund some extra trains from Albany, or at least some longer ones. I avoid traveling to see my family up there like the plague when pony season is on; 68/69 gets wicked sardine-canned with people headed to/from the track. Even off season those trains can get full, but when the ponies run, damn.

[shadyjay]

This is gonna sound like a crappy pun, but I wonder if the track in Saratoga would be willing to pony up and fund some extra trains from Albany, or at least some longer ones. I avoid traveling to see my family up there like the plague when pony season is on; 68/69 gets wicked sardine-canned with people headed to/from the track. Even off season those trains can get full, but when the ponies run, damn.

No horsin' around (:-D ), but Amtrak did run the "Saratogian" at a point in the early 90s for that purpose. The 1996 version can be seen in this timetable clip, but by that time it had reverted to just being an extended "Empire" train:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?grou ... &item=0020

[Ridgefielder]

Determining whether to drive to Wassaic or Poughkeepsie would probably depend on where in Columbia and Duchess Counties you live. If you live very close to the Hudson River or a few miles, then you would drive to Poughkeepsie. However, the closer you live to the NY/MA border, the closer you are to Wassaic. Although the service to Wassaic isn’t as frequent as Poughkeepsie plus you have to change, that station does very well with ridership. Wassaic is off the beaten path and there aren’t many straight highways nearby so you must build in extra time for traffic when catching a train at Wassaic. Wassaic is great if you are heading to or from the Berkshires and NW Connecticut. I have family friends who live in Great Barrington. When they head to NYC, they use Wassaic for MNR. If they take Amtrak, they will use Hudson.

Just to elaborate on this for folks that don't know the area- there's a pretty rugged range of hills that runs right down the center of Dutchess and Columbia counties between the river and the MA border. Going north-south on either side of the range is no problem- on the east is NY 22, on the west is US 9 (the Albany Post Road). But going east-west can be an issue, especially in bad weather. US 44 drops ~500 ft in 1/2 mile going east from Lithgow to Amenia, for instance. You're talking hairpin-turns-trucks-use-low-gear territory. There's a reason the New Haven abandoned their multiple routes between the CT border and the Hudson in this area as long ago as the 1920's.

[NaugyRR]

Thanks for sharing that shady, I always enjoy seeing older timetables.

I wonder how feasible it would be to send a couple Albany-terminating trains north to Saratoga (at least during pony season)? Would CP allow extra trains? Would the layover be any easier now that the SNC is gone? That'd probably involve a reverse move into the station, yes? What would the crew situation be like?

[NaugyRR]

Determining whether to drive to Wassaic or Poughkeepsie would probably depend on where in Columbia and Duchess Counties you live. If you live very close to the Hudson River or a few miles, then you would drive to Poughkeepsie. However, the closer you live to the NY/MA border, the closer you are to Wassaic. Although the service to Wassaic isn’t as frequent as Poughkeepsie plus you have to change, that station does very well with ridership. Wassaic is off the beaten path and there aren’t many straight highways nearby so you must build in extra time for traffic when catching a train at Wassaic. Wassaic is great if you are heading to or from the Berkshires and NW Connecticut. I have family friends who live in Great Barrington. When they head to NYC, they use Wassaic for MNR. If they take Amtrak, they will use Hudson.

Just to elaborate on this for folks that don't know the area- there's a pretty rugged range of hills that runs right down the center of Dutchess and Columbia counties between the river and the MA border. Going north-south on either side of the range is no problem- on the east is NY 22, on the west is US 9 (the Albany Post Road). But going east-west can be an issue, especially in bad weather. US 44 drops ~500 ft in 1/2 mile going east from Lithgow to Amenia, for instance. You're talking hairpin-turns-trucks-use-low-gear territory. There's a reason the New Haven abandoned their multiple routes between the CT border and the Hudson in this area as long ago as the 1920's.

DeLavergne Hill suuucks in the winter time. 44's not bad for the bit it shares with 22, but once you make that right at the light at Four Brothers she gets real rough and twisty real fast. My girlfriend and I drove out to the Trevor Zoo and Innisfree the weekend before last and I didn't realize the section of 44 between Amenia and Troop K had gotten so rough.

9 (9 & 9G), 22, the Taconic, and 82 all make going north/south super easy, but like you said, east/west... you've got 23 which actually isn't bad, 44 which gets sketchy in spots, and 199 which is full of potholes, twists, turns, and deer. After that I think the next major east/west road is 55 down by Pawling. 55 will really give you a sense for the terrain the Beacon Line/Maybrook ran on.

[Riverduckexpress]

By coincidence, a Bloomberg article answered some of my questions.

Although also somewhat of a trip report, it appears the writer's main point is the money; appropriately enough the article appears on: Bloomberg.com

The Amtrak That Works, and the Amtrak That Doesn’t

Its long-distance trains are expensive anachronisms that are dragging down the more successful parts of the system. But Congress can’t bear to give them up.
...
(see chart in article)

The chart I'm referring to is the corridor service chart. Empire SOUTH lost $17.4M on 1,150,498 passenger trips, with a revenue to cost ratio of .73, the WORST of Amtrak's most popular routes by ridership for FY18.

That's bad. The ALB-NYP route I would have thought would have been break even or better. It certainly should be.

Completely agreed. I'm shocked at the poor farebox recovery. If the trains are consistently selling out and they're running 10 round-trips per day either fares are too low, trains are too short or both. It's an unfortunate policy choice which prevents additional service that could provide better utilization of public resources.

Does the Empire South calculation include the Lake Shore Limited? I would imagine it would drag down the statistics. Seems like the Lake Shore's erratic nature also forces unideal scheduling practices. On weekdays going southbound from ALB you have trains 242 and 244 flanking the Lake Shore (with 242 departing ALB at 3:15 PM weekdays only, train 48 leaving at 3:45 PM and 244 leaving at 4:20 PM) which would be a ridiculous cluster (especially given the 2-hour gaps during other times of day) if not for the Lake Shore's possible lateness. Likewise going northbound from NYP you have train 235 on weekdays (on weekends, 295/the Ethan Allen Express) leaving at 3:15 PM, barely a half-hour before the Lake Shore.

My first couple of trips on the Empire Service this year were all all-sold-out affairs so I figured that was the norm, but I took train 48/the LSL southbound from ALB-NYP one weekday right before Easter (thankfully running on time) and it didn't look to be sold out at all. It was fairly populated but I had nobody sitting next to me for the entire trip! I also took 235 one weekday in June and it was surprisingly pretty empty, and I again had nobody sitting next to me for the entire ride. Not sure if that was a function of the time of day, the date, its proximity to the Lake Shore, or something else entirely. For what it's worth, from my observations, $45 appears to be the typical "floor" for prices for ALB-NYP trips - that was always the lowest price I saw, except one day several days ago when I was putzing around on the Amtrak site and saw a $35 saver fare from NYP to ALB miraculously available one day on the LSL - I didn't even know the prices went that low. But it seemingly disappeared quickly. Granted the former broke college student in me wants to protest the idea that $45 is "too low" (especially when NYP-ALB coach seat prices typically jump up to $63-$80 as supply decreases) but it looks the Lake Shore might be bad for business? (big surprise, I know).

The next best comparison to the ALB-NYP route is the Keystone, which is pretty close to break even ($3 per rider subsidy is nominal).

Empire South and the Philadelphia-Harrisburg portion of the Keystone seem to have a lot in common - right down to a similar level of service between each pair of cities and even similar average speeds according to the schedules (54-57 MPH for both city pairs). I admittedly have never used the Keystone but I think PHL-HAR has a few things going for it that Empire South doesn't have though.

NY has discussed (it's good at discussing) adding more trains.
A goal stated at one point was to increase to hourly service, not including the LSL (and perhaps not including the other named trains, I can't recall) so there would be a minimum of 12 trains a day in each direction.

For the longest time, all Empire Service trains with 5 cars (4 coach, 1 cafe/business) but over time more have started to run with 6.
The platforms can now support I believe 10 cars.

One thing that has been annoying is that the scheduled times have INCREASED over the years. This is frustrating. There's a variety of reasons, but a lot come down to the fact that NY can't get Metro-North and Amtrak on the same page.

Honestly, this is an area where NY should be spending the funds to get trip towns down to sub 2 hours. (I've been on trains that completed the route in just under 2:10, with 10 minute holds at POU and all "discharge only north of there).

There's a fair number of folks that already commute to NYC either daily (not common, but a few do) or weekly (far more common) from ALB or HUD.

As for the cafe cars, yes as stated, if the train begins or ends past Albany, it has a cafe car.
It would be great to bring back cafe cars for trains terminating in Albany. I know I'd prefer that for the times I've had to leave NYP around dinner time and didn't have time to get a decent meal before boarding.

But yeah.. this is one route I definitely don't think lives up to its potential.

Agree with you there. It's absurd that travel times are now 2 hr 30 mins on a typical trip. The infrastructure situation is definitely not ideal but it's one of those situations where you really wonder how the travel time got this long. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the existence of another group of occasional commuters the Empire Service doesn't do the best job of serving - state assembly members, senators, staffers etc. traveling to/from Albany! Due to the nature of the state legislature these people usually travel to/from Albany once a week while the state legislature is in session (from January until June). The first trains to reach Albany each morning (train 63/Maple Leaf from NYP and train 280 from Niagara Falls) don't arrive until roughly 9:45 - meaning that anybody using them is probably not going to reach the state capitol until 10:15-10:30, potentially missing an early morning legislative hearing or committee meeting (which often start as early as 9:00/9:30 AM - to say nothing of performing other work in the office early in the morning!). And since the first northbound train is the Maple Leaf, that means travelers to Albany may be fighting for seats with people traveling as far as Toronto.

Going back southbound on weekday afternoons the scheduling is decent for a supercommuter/visitor to Albany but could be better with 242, 48 and 244 all back-to-back at 3:15, 3:45 and 4:15 PM (although understandable as I mentioned above) followed by an awkward two-hour gap until train 68/Adirondack at 6:15 and train 69/Maple Leaf, the last train on weeknights, at 7:15 PM. This doesn't seem to be a problem on the Keystone where the amount of service between PHL-HAR is similar to Empire South, but looks to be scheduled more conveniently for a commuter/visitor to/from the state capitol in Harrisburg. The more favorable geography (shorter distance) between PHL-HAR probably doesn't hurt either. Although again I've never used the Keystone so I have no idea how much usage it gets for that purpose.

This isn't part of Empire South but the grand total of four round trips a day between Albany and Buffalo speaks for itself. This New York Times article from January about this year's brand-new state senators seemingly agrees:

They Won Senate Seats. Now Comes the Hard Part: Adjusting to Albany.

Senator Rachel May had trouble finding parking.

Ms. May, a Democrat who represents the Syracuse area, was a few minutes late to her first tour of her office because she could not get into the parking garage for lawmakers near the Capitol.

“Somehow the magic words ‘incoming senator’ didn’t quite work,” she said with a laugh.

Ms. May, who coordinated sustainability education at Syracuse University before running for office, at times seemed almost surprised to realize the influence she could wield in state policy. She had hoped to take the train to Albany most weeks, she said, because it was a low-carbon alternative to driving, but only a few trains ran each day from Syracuse.

Then she perked up as she remembered that she could talk to her fellow legislators about improving infrastructure upstate.

[Hudson2640]

I've been reading through some of the old post on this thread and the consensus is that obtaining 110 mph while on MTA property is basically impossible, to which I agree. But after thinking about it, I thought of a few ways to increase the travel time, even if it's just by a few minutes. But even those few minutes could add up. It comes down to where the biggest bottlenecks are and find a way to increase the flexibility through those areas. After riding these trains for over a year now I would say the biggest bottlenecks are at CP12 and between Beacon and Poughkeepsie. Here are a few ideas I came up with.

1. Double track from Inwood and across the DV Bridge. Have track 1 come in at CP 12 and have track 2 turn into a fifth main track and have it merge into track 4 (along with a new interlocking) just south of Riverdale. Or extend it further to Yonkers using the freight track that runs behind Riverdale and Ludlow. I would also consider adding a new interlocking somewhere between Inwood and Empire.

2. At Beacon there appears to be what was once a temporary platform on the siding track. I would put that platform back in service. I would also turn the interlock south of the station into a high speed interlocking and turn the siding track into a main line track and extend it to just south of New Hamburg. I've lost count of the number of times my trains have caught up to an MTA train around Beacon and had to follow it all the way to Poughkeepsie.

3. From Poughkeepsie I would extend track 3 all the was to New Hamburg. There is a good stretch of straight track just south of Trap Rock, have track 3 end there and put in a high speed interlocking. I would like to triple track from Poughkeepsie to Beacon but the are too many logistical issues at New Hamburg including the platforms, the bridge and the rock cut. At the very least, increase the speed on track 3 at Poughkeepsie. Its current max is 30 mph which eats up a good amount of time.

4. A new interlocking between CP 72 and New Hamburg is desperately needed. That is ~10 miles or so without a crossover. The track work the MTA did earlier this summer made this area a major bottleneck.

5. At Poughkeepsie I would put track 5 back into regular service. There have been several times that my trains have had to wait outside of Poughkeepsie for a track to open up. I know the MTA uses track 5 as a storage track, I would try to use the unused freight yard north of the station and use that to store all of their trains at night.

6. More high speed interlockings north of Croton-Harmon.

7. Back onto Amtrak territory, make Rhinecliff a high level platform and relocate Hudson to have a high level platform. These are two major stations with a lot of people getting on and off. I've been stopped at these stations for upwards of 5 to 10 minutes because 30 to 100 passengers are getting on or off through two doors with lots of luggage up and down the stairs, and also the occasional use of the lift.

These ideas might not save a lot of time, but they certainly help prevent any loss of time. They could also help cut down on some of the fat that is built into the schedule.

[njtmnrrbuff]

It would be great to have high level platforms up at both Rhinecliff and Hudson. Rhinecliff would probably be a little easier than Hudson since the right of way at Rhinecliff station is straight as an arrow. The canopy would have to be raised though. As for Hudson Station, the problem is that the current station is on a slight curve. The approach to the station in both directions involves curves. in MNR territory, it would probably be nice to have some more crossovers, especially between Beacon and Poughkeepsie. It would also be nice for the Hudson Line north of Cortlandt to be at east triple track. There are many areas though that can probably only handle two tracks, especially where the river causeways are. That would be nice to have that temporary platform at Beacon in use. Beacon sees plenty of ridership on MNR Hudson Line trains. I have traveled to Beacon many times by Metro North and I must say that even on weekends, the platform there is very crowded. I can certainly imagine that station dwells at RHI and HUD have been a long time. There are plenty of people who get off at those stations especially nice they are very close to the eastern end of the Catskills. It would be nice to have double track on the DV Bridge. It seems that where the north end of the bridge is where it's like one track is about to turn into a four track railroad which it is.

[Railjunkie]

While good ideas in theory, MNRR isn't going to make those types of changes unless it helps their trains first. Their toys their game. Your late or have to follow the local ohh well we will attempt to get you around, maybe ish. Your talking millions of $$$$$$$ to make these changes for the every once in a while issue. The days of "give me a good move between x&y" are gone PTC took care of that.

As for HUD and RHI the hysterical societies will have a say in what happens in both those stations, they have talked about high level platforms at both for years. I could see it happening at RHI before HUD. Hudson will require a pedestrian bridge and clearance not only for trains on tracks one and two but also the siding into the yard and wye. I believe hoppers of grain still go up the hill, but with CSX you never know for sure.

[njtmnrrbuff]

That is correct about MNR. Never say never. It could happen and if it can benefit MNR first, then Amtrak will benefit from it as well.

I didn't think of a pedestrian bridge at the Hudson Station itself. I know that there is one just north of the station but it has nothing to do with the train station. It links a street with a park. If two side platforms ever get built at Hudson, then a footbridge for the station would be beneficial. I know that the CSX track in Hudson to go up the hill leaves the Empire Corridor just south of the Amtrak Station. What would also be nice for Hudson passengers is for Enterprise to extend its hours well into the evening especially on Friday evenings when many passengers who are heading to the Berkshires get off of Amtrak trains at Hudson. I checked and saw that the Enterprise Car rental place is a ways from the Amtrak station.

[Railjunkie]

The siding for the yard starts just north of the station off a hand thrown just underneath the bridge. Its still active, not as much as it once once but its still used. High level platforms at Hudson on the trk2 side would need a bridge to get over the tracks and the platform for trk1 would be an island. You wouldnt be able to just walk down a flight of stairs onto a live track even one that is used maybe once a month.

Hudson is one of those stops where special rules are in place to keep trains from discharging passengers across live tracks.In the Conrail days you could drop people on trk1 and pass by on track 2, CSX started that way then they came up with ill give you the signal in but dont go by the train in the station. When Amtrak took over we could still do this until the day a train was on trk2 and the dispatcher lined a train in on one. Again there are rules to protect against this from happening and the crews followed those rules. Now the signal system is set up so that only one train at a time can enter Hudson.

[njtmnrrbuff]

Yes, only one train can serve Hudson at a time and that's one reason why I don't like the platform layout there. Many trains meet close to Hudson. 283 is scheduled into Hudson about ten minutes before 242 arrives. 242 is a weekday only train so on weekends, there isn't anything coming south for 45 minutes at the earliest-Amtrak Train # 48 when it's operating on time.

[NaugyRR]

Huge hypothetical thought here, but I wonder if moving the Hudson station to the base of the Rip would yield any quality of life improvements. Theoretically you'd have room to have better parking and be in a better position for intermodal service with bus and possibly better rental access. Plus it would be in a better spot for a park and ride with 9 and 23 intersecting there, with easier access to Catskill and points east without really losing any access to Hudson. With Olana on the hill and the new path on the Rip into Catskill you could tap into the tourist market beyond Warren Street and some of the sketchier adjacent streets.