Feb 17 & 18 - PATH work on 6th Avenue line

From the PATH website:

PATH Service Change February 17 & 18

From 7 a.m. Saturday, February 17 until 6 p.m.

Sunday, February 18, PATH will perform essential switch replacement outside of Hoboken Terminal.

As a result of this work, passengers traveling to or from 33rd Street station MUST TRANSFER AT 9th STREET to continue their trip.

In addition, service on the Journal Square to 33rd Street via Hoboken line will operate on a 20-minute schedule during this same time period.

Seems to be a very strange routing of service. Why change trains at 9th Street due to work in Hoboken?

blasito wrote:Seems to be a very strange routing of service. Why change trains at 9th Street due to work in Hoboken?

The switch (well, one of them) is in the northern tunnel at the junction leading to either Hoboken or Pavonia. I saw the new rails in between the existing rails.

This means that PATH will be running a two-train service:

• One train will run as a shuttle between 33rd Street and 9th Street on the downtown (westbound) track. At 9th Street, passengers will transfer to a train on the uptown (eastbound) track which will operate to Hoboken and then continue as normal on the Journal Square via Hoboken run. This is why trains will operate on a 20-minute headway.

All PATH tracks are signaled for operation in either direction.

I'll bet PATH regrets removing the old H&M switches between Christopher & 9th Streets and between 19th & 23rd Streets.

Allan wrote:I'll bet PATH regrets removing the old H&M switches between Christopher & 9th Streets and between 19th & 23rd Streets.

The one at 9th Street didn't support the increased clearances required by the PA-series cars. The PA decided to remove it rather than modify the tunnel walls (remember, the tunnel is in cast iron rings at that point). Since it wasn't a full X-over, it wasn't as useful as it could have been, anyway.

The switches at 19th were an artifact of 19th Street being the temporary uptown terminus while the line was being constructed. Since there's only one station (23rd) now between these and the next set of switches at 33rd, they didn't add much flexibility, while still requiring the expense of maintaining them (substantially more than straight rail).