Lackawanna Cutoff Passenger Service Restoration

We're back to this k-rap again?

Maybe have two or three intermediate stops if Amtrak does this. As said before, doing stops very frequently on this long and windy route will make the service a big waste of money, as it will be significantly longer than driving.

If it's almost a straight shot from NYC to wherever and back, with one or two stops in medium to larger-sized towns along the way, it can be faster than driving to NYC with traffic, but still still be slower than driving to NYC without traffic. A good improvement!

If there's demand to have local service after the city-to-city is implemented, then you could have NJT hop on and do so. But I doubt that demand will happen fast, if ever.

Will the construction start this year or is the beginning in 2023?

Crews have begun work on the portion to Andover.

Mr. Volpini, is Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ5) safe, or is there some County or Township level election that could upset the progress you have reported?

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Mr. Volpini, is Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ5) safe, or is there some County or Township level election that could upset the progress you have reported?

That money is already allocated and spent.


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Biden made brief remarks during Wednesday’s press conference about the notion of rail service between NY and Scranton—and even the possibility of high-speed service.

… (A)nd then someone in — up in Scranton, Pennsylvania — the Congressman who got elected. And he said, “Can you help us make sure we’re able to have high-speed rail ser- — rail service from Scranton to New York — New York City?” I said, “Yeah, we can. We can.”

First of all, it’ll make it a lot easier, take a lot of vehicles off the road. And we have more money in the — in the pot now already — already out there — we voted for — than the entire money we spent on Amtrak to begin with. …

I can only presume the congressman alluded to is Matt Cartwright.

Mr. Amtrakowitz, in the fourteen years that this site has been active in its present incarnation (it had two prior) and this topic active, finally the first of some eight miles of track is being laid. Need we take seriously an offhand comment made by a POTUS who somehow avoided being swept away by a "Red wave"?

Lest we forget, there is a "mite bit" more involved in laying (what is it?) twenty eight miles of track through Sussex and Warren Counties, shoring up the viaducts and the bridge over I-80 and the River so this train in Joe's imagination could "play George Washington (albeit a bit up stream)", then upgrading some sixty miles of still-existing but at best Class 2 former DL&W track, to Class 4 into Pennsylvania, and then funding an agency, presumably Amtrak, to operate the service..

Moderator: if "too political", just kill.

More nasty than political.

photobug56 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 2:12 pm More nasty than political.

But he does have a point. I remember in the 1980s on a trip from Steam Town we stopped at Tobyhanna where they had a big layout showing us the service that was going to be restarted between NYC and Scranton. Keep in mind that at that time most of the track was still there. If service ever does return to Scranton they'll be nobody now on this board that will live long enough to see it.

That's probably true. And neither political or nasty.

What’s in Scranton anyway? Last I saw there was half empty shopping mall downtown and when I went to the courthouse to contest a traffic ticket some pretty rough looking criminals and cops…. By the time I was done at night I needed a Vet Friend with a conceal carry permit just to go get pizza and a beer and escort me back to my car

Scranton is the center of an urbanization of ~570,000 people (~3,100 per sq mi) equidistant between NYC and Philadelphia. It has a little railroad museum and a trolley museum for any train buffs.

May we not lose sight that, according to a Wiki article, Joe had left Scranton for Wilmington during 1953 at age eleven.

sextant wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 5:28 pm What’s in Scranton anyway? Last I saw there was half empty shopping mall downtown and when I went to the courthouse to contest a traffic ticket some pretty rough looking criminals and cops…. By the time I was done at night I needed a Vet Friend with a conceal carry permit just to go get pizza and a beer and escort me back to my car

If you are talking about the Justice of the Peace office across from the courthouse, I spent 2 summers working there. As to the merits of restoring commuter and passenger rail service to Scranton, it would be a big boost to Scranton, the Poconos, Stroudsburg, western NJ, and various schools and resorts and other tourist attractions including skiing, and as commuting gradually comes back, make it easier to commute. Plus it can get a lot of cars off of I80 and I380.