OportRailfan wrote:Renovations will most likely be needed. I know there are a pair of X crossovers on one end, not sure about the other end.Yea; in that case, it would make more practical sense to extend towards the Journal Square direction.
Railroad Forums
New Harrison Station?..
- Discussion relating to the past and present operations of the NYC Subway, PATH, and Staten Island Railway (SIRT).
Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain
The Construction Committee presented discussed the costs of building out the full Newark-WTC line to ten car capability. He said that some small amount of spending is required at Newark, the $250mm+ project at Harrison, about $160mm at Grove, and he also mentioned something like $60mm at Exchange Place. None of those other projects are at the authorization stage.
Can PATH just run trains all of the cars of which don't platform at each station? The MTA did this for years at South Ferry. The LIRR and NJT do this now at certain stations, albeit open air stations. If PATH went that route, you'd actually want the 10 car capability at Grove and Exchange more than at Harrison and Newark, given that the trains fill out beyond bursting at Grove during the morning rush.
Can PATH just run trains all of the cars of which don't platform at each station? The MTA did this for years at South Ferry. The LIRR and NJT do this now at certain stations, albeit open air stations. If PATH went that route, you'd actually want the 10 car capability at Grove and Exchange more than at Harrison and Newark, given that the trains fill out beyond bursting at Grove during the morning rush.
JCGUY wrote:Those of you interested in this project might want to get on the PA's website. The construction committee's video record of the public meeting held on March 28 describes the project partly in detail and partly in broad strokes (i.e., they have a specific idea of what they want built and where but they have not commenced final design work). The project is fairly complex, essentially involving the building of four separate headhouse structures. The presenter took the view that additional modern head houses on the east side of Rodgers Blvd. would come on line two years after construction commences. Commencement of construction is going to hinge on completion of property acquisition, demolition, remediation and probably nuisance permitting and other matters left undiscussed, as well as final design I suppose.First of all, thank you for posting the link.
There was a reference in the meeting to the "realignment" of NEC and PATH tracks. There was no explanation of that statement. Given the lack of explanation, I suppose the alignment alteration is a simple matter of moving tracks slightly to align to new platform configurations. I was wondering, however, whether anyone knew if the new station contemplates an alignment change that would allow for additional through tracks in the area for NEC movements?
My interpretation is that the plan discussed at said meeting involves simply realigning the curve east of Harrison station. It seemed as if there would be sufficient new ROW acquired to shift the eastward PATH main "inside" of where it is in the curve to allow Amtrak to add more tracks.
Not that a peon like me would have any sway, but I still view the separate platforms--with a total of four headhouses to boot--as a cumbersome design. I'd much rather have the PA take five or six years to build a consolidated, island-platform station than move forward with the current plan in three years and lock themselves and Amtrak into the current track/station layout.
As far as I could understand, the expenditure of funds is well on its way to being approved in advance of the capital program for the next ten years being approved. That being said, a couple of people had concerns about doing that. If the PA decides to wait for the capital program, I'd think there would be a window to redo the plans for more extensive mods to the track configuration.
I still do not understand why PATH trains are not run direct from Newark to Midtown. Very good news that Harrison is being rebuilt. I hope the new station becomes heavily used, not just on gamedays.
Direct NWK-33rd service was indeed run, from 9/11/01 until the Exchange Place reopening on 6/29/03. But other than that period, it has not been done (other for emergency reroutes and construction).
Since my friend continues to chain smoke nonstop, she is probably an Alco.
I assume that the direct runs from NWK to 33rd were a temporary service caused by the terrorist attacks.
TDowling wrote:I assume that the direct runs from NWK to 33rd were a temporary service caused by the terrorist attacks.Since wtc ceased to exist and exp was not set up to turn trains at the time, they opted to run them to 33rd. Some of the older cars actually had nwk-33rd on the conductor station's destination/route selector.
Next stop the square, journal square station next!
nyrmetros wrote:I still do not understand why PATH trains are not run direct from Newark to Midtown.The simple answer is that there is not enough track capacity at Newark Penn to turn trains from both lines around during rush hours.
Fan Railer wrote:Actually, it's because it would conflict with hob-exp and 33rd-jsq trains on the old section. They all ready run every 5 minutes on nwk-wtc and they share exp with hob-exp trains... Gap ends up being about 3 minutes at exp. The other pinch point is pavonia newport, which all ready has to fit wtc-hob and 33rd-jsq trains. Not to mention the limitations of the uptown stations to handle high volumes of people due to their restricted platform space and confined street access. Only a new signaling system (which is being installed) could have any chance of fitting more trains. One easy way to temporarily boost trains per hour is stage them on the 2 tall tracks & let them load & go at nwk, then hold them at wtc and alternate departures from one side of the platform & the other. I'm not sure if they have enough cars to do this at peak hours though. I was thinking if they did that plus skipped grove street all together every other train you could gain a bit more tph as well. Not sure if that's possible either.nyrmetros wrote:I still do not understand why PATH trains are not run direct from Newark to Midtown.The simple answer is that there is not enough track capacity at Newark Penn to turn trains from both lines around during rush hours.
Next stop the square, journal square station next!
There has been much work on the Newark bound station staircase and front entrance.
Fan Railer wrote:I got off at Grove Street this week and exited at the east end of the station. The way out is actually level for a good two car lengths before heading up a flight of stairs. That makes me think the extension will be constructed by breaking through the walls separating this passageway from the trackways, rather than extending the platform westward.OportRailfan wrote:Renovations will most likely be needed. I know there are a pair of X crossovers on one end, not sure about the other end.Yea; in that case, it would make more practical sense to extend towards the Journal Square direction.
At the bottom of this page on NYCSubway.org there is a map showing that there are dual crossovers west, not east, of the station.
What's the latest with the Harrison Station rebuild, are they going to rebuild the entire station as previously announced or are they doing something less? So far I'm only reading about renovations to access points to the current station.
From what I understand the preliminary work will be the current newark bound exit/entrance. Eventually the rest of the station will have work started on it. I have no idea when that will be.
The current work on the Newark bound platform is a stop gap, that doesn't really have anything to do with the station rebuild.
When the new station is built, the new stuff will be staged on the east side of Frank Rogers Blvd. first, then the antiquated stuff on the west side, decomissioned and rebuilt.
The amount of time it is taking the PA to complete this small job of rennovating the existing westbound platform entrance should be a source of enormous embarrasment to the PA. The entire landscape of Harrison and Newark has been changing while the PA has struggled for years to add a single staircase landing, some pavers and a bike rack to an existing train station. Panasonic has topped out a 12-storey building on the other side of the river, and an entire residential building, with ground floor retail has opened and become occupied literally 100 feet down the street, while finishing work on the entrace at the station has ground to a halt. The PA has serially missed its own self-imposed completion dates on this and they should be aware that the public does notice. Although in this context, it underscores that the PA can probably never replace the Goethals Bridge. That project involves at least twice as many staircases, so we're probably looking at 50 years of construction time on that one. Better to use the original bridge constructed by guys with hammers and pickaxes in the 1920s.
When the new station is built, the new stuff will be staged on the east side of Frank Rogers Blvd. first, then the antiquated stuff on the west side, decomissioned and rebuilt.
The amount of time it is taking the PA to complete this small job of rennovating the existing westbound platform entrance should be a source of enormous embarrasment to the PA. The entire landscape of Harrison and Newark has been changing while the PA has struggled for years to add a single staircase landing, some pavers and a bike rack to an existing train station. Panasonic has topped out a 12-storey building on the other side of the river, and an entire residential building, with ground floor retail has opened and become occupied literally 100 feet down the street, while finishing work on the entrace at the station has ground to a halt. The PA has serially missed its own self-imposed completion dates on this and they should be aware that the public does notice. Although in this context, it underscores that the PA can probably never replace the Goethals Bridge. That project involves at least twice as many staircases, so we're probably looking at 50 years of construction time on that one. Better to use the original bridge constructed by guys with hammers and pickaxes in the 1920s.