Amtrak/LIRR Moynihan Train Hall

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Wed Feb 16, 2022 8:23 am Yesterday, a commentator on WBBM 780/105.9 Noon Business Report noted that RTO3X; WFH2X will become "the new normal". I hold such myself, and I think that the mass transit agencies and Amtrak NEC best move to Kubler-Ross Phase 5 - Acceptance.

You're in my camp now. I'm seeing signs of it down for the DC crowd and the stats I see from MTA bear that out as well.

Has the new food hall opened yet? If so has anyone been there yet?

It's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. I think the options are pretty good - and much better than anything in the old station. Probably some people will complain about the prices.

The passage to Ninth Avenue is also open though it lets you out mid-block and there's no way to cross over into the mid-block outdoor space between the Manhattan West buildings.

The Times reports that Amtrak has awarded a $73M contract to "draw up plans" for a new Penn Station. The article does contain a good overview of the intended project, which is independent of the tunnels.

Fair Use:

Nearly everyone agrees that something must be done to fix the chaos at Pennsylvania Station in New York City, the nation’s busiest transit hub. Now comes the hard part of devising a solution that will steer clear of controversy.

Amtrak, the national railroad that owns the station and the tracks that run through it, is moving ahead with a plan to expand the station at an estimated cost of $12 billion. That plan envisions demolishing an entire block of Midtown that is home to a 151-year-old church.

On Thursday, Amtrak awarded a contract for the design of the station expansion, which it expects will take two years and as much as $73 million to draw up.

What appears unclear is what will happen to Moynihan? It would appear, should these plans come to fruition, to be a redundant appendage. Also unclear: fate of the existing MSG.

Moynihan will be what it always was - a useless appendage.

As for MSG, I lived painfully through the demolition of the original station and I pray that I live long enough to see the abomination that squats on its remains blown to smithereens (along with its equally abominable basketball team).

Only with MSG gone can NY City be able to have 2 truly great train stations with much different architecture.

Having become a semi regular commuter at the station now, I feel like the real problem is not what's above ground, but rather the connections between the platforms and the stations. Blowing things to smithereens isn't going to change that. Conversely, changing that doesn't require spending billions of dollars or blowing anything to smithereens, no matter how satisfying it might be for some people.

The other thing that needs to happen is all the displays in the station need to stop being siloed. We have NJT, Amtrak, LIRR all with their own boards showing their own info. Moynihan won't show NJT trains even on tracks that are reachable from it. NJT's Departure Vision shows Amtrak trains, but not in the app and only on the mobile website. Escalators are never synced to whichever train is on the platform, so you have escalators operating in the track level direction even when the only train on the platform is one that has no further stops on it.

And announce track assignments more than 10 minutes before departure, for crying out loud.

I've been told that the reason for posting track numbers so late is that because of the number of trains at most times a dispatcher can't be sure that the track he plans to assign is going to be free at the time needed because the train now occupying it may still be there for any number of reasons and a last-minute track change may be required. No announcement is better than a track change after people have started downstairs. In Europe track numbers are printed out on station posters at the beginning of the timetable period (and shown on the website), with apparently little need to change them from day to day, but few stations in Europe are as chaotic as NYP on a normal weekday, where below ground it's still a lot like 1910.

I'm sure there are reasons, but I'm also pretty sure that they always wait until 10 minutes before, even if the train is already at the platform 20 minutes before.

I suspect another "reason" is they don't want too many people on the platform at once given how narrow those platforms are. But again, these are just excuses. Ultimately, it's these issues that need fixing, not the lipstick above ground.

Mr. Lensovet, Take any transportation facility and put double the number of trains and passengers it was designed to handle and you have Penn as it exists today. Add MSG (entertainment venue, not food seasoning) and the Ponn Plaza office buildings, and you've just added more fuel to the fire.

Remember, only PRR intercity operated in there when it opened, having changed their steam engines for third rail electrics (DD-1's) at Manhattan Transfer (today, an NJT maintenance facility).

LIRR? get into Suffolk County and you were talking farmland.

Finally, anyone who thinks "the place is a dump" today, should have seen the LIRR side circa, say, the 40's and even 50's (I did). The LIRR side had all the aesthetics of an NYCTA subway station.

Make no mistake, I will be the first to sing the praises of the public transit systems of the NYC metro compared to everything else that passes for transit in this country.

I just wish the scarce public funds were spent on solving the real problems at this station rather than the pretty things above ground. But as always, solving hard problems doesn't get you votes — building showy buildings does.

No mention of Amtrak and only tangential of LIRR, but this article appearing today in The Times, is nevertheless a "fun read".

Fair Use:

Liane Emerson picked the place for her third date with Austin Bailey. She knew the Midtown bar was cool, but her date wasn’t so sure. “He thought it was weird,” she said.

But by the time their cocktails arrived, Mr. Bailey, 25, had come around. “The drinks are good,” he said as he sipped his margarita. Ms. Emerson, 26, was pleased with her choice. “It’s just convenient because I’m just going to hop back on the L.I.R.R. after.” Easy enough — the tracks home to Long Island are under the same roof.

A bar in a train station has an inherently purgatorial energy, but, against all odds, the Bar at Moynihan, in the new train hall that feeds into Pennsylvania Station, is convincing New Yorkers to treat it as a destination rather than a stopover.

<hic> Still have yet to visit Moynihan; I'd love to do a pictorial essay on it. A simple Acela ticket from NRO to NYP ought to do it.

Scratch that; STM.