All things Harrisburg (Keystone) Line

Why would construction of the new station at Mt Joy require a temporary schedule change?
Andy

The most likely assumption would be that the new station will have high-level platforms, the construction of which would require taking one track at a time out of service to enable the work to be done, with trains operating in both directions on the other track. This in turn would require tweaking the schedules so that no trains are scheduled to meet anywhere between the two interlockings on either side.

since all the ACS-64s became operationsl how often has Amtrak had to substitute a diesel loco on the Keystone trains ?

ExCon90 wrote:The most likely assumption would be that the new station will have high-level platforms, the construction of which would require taking one track at a time out of service to enable the work to be done, with trains operating in both directions on the other track. This in turn would require tweaking the schedules so that no trains are scheduled to meet anywhere between the two interlockings on either side.

The station is in a cut so there is limited space to work on the new platforms

twropr wrote:Why would construction of the new station at Mt Joy require a temporary schedule change?
Andy

While the crews are working at Mt.Joy one track will be taken out of service between Cork & Rheems. I believe it will be #2 that is being taken out, but I'm not 100% sure. By adjusting some train times it will reduce the amount of time trains are delayed for meets due to the single tracking.

Also, this is not a continuous track outage. The track will only be out during specific hours M-F. (Probably 0700-1500 or 0800-1600 hours)

zebrasepta wrote:Paoli station is gonna finally be ADA compliant soon

The March 2017 Amtrak Accessibility Update has a sample rendering of the new Paoli Station. In the press photo of the officials at groundbreaking, note Silverliner Vs 738 and 882 (which hints this photo shot was deliberately staged with the "newest" of the Silverliners present).

I have a question regarding the Paoli Line. As previous posters have mention and noticed, the four track main line has been cut down to 2 at Paoli. Meanwhile SEPTA has expanded operations at Frazer yards in anticipation for all the 45 new Bi-level coaches that will come in with an additional 7 locomotives. Will the bottleneck at Paoli create issues for dispatching or hows that all going to work out?

The mainline has been cut to 2 tracks after Paoli for a while now. The only difference is now it happens right before the station not after. This makes sense because Amtrak trains needed to be on 1 or 4 to make the station stop anyway. I don't see there being a major dispatching issue with the new sets since they will be on the road during peak hours, moving into and out of the yard during off-peak hours.

So, all the grade crossing's have been eliminated from the route. That's been the case for years now. When exactly is 125 mph coming along? ...

Would they have had to fix the signalling?

ChesterValley wrote:I have a question regarding the Paoli Line. As previous posters have mention and noticed, the four track main line has been cut down to 2 at Paoli. Meanwhile SEPTA has expanded operations at Frazer yards in anticipation for all the 45 new Bi-level coaches that will come in with an additional 7 locomotives. Will the bottleneck at Paoli create issues for dispatching or hows that all going to work out?

Tracks 2 & 3 were removed because Paoli will have a center high level platform serving tracks 1 & 4, built where tracks 2&3 were.

Paoli is being built with the idea that a third track could be built later to relieve the new paoli bottleneck once the bridge project moves forward

bdawe wrote:Would they have had to fix the signalling?

From what I've seen, they no longer have the dwarf signals up on the Bridge. Now they have two Amtrak style lights one in and one outbound mounted on the sides of the track at Paoli

Has anyone ridden the line recently? How's the ride? I've been on most of the NEC dozens of times, but never on this branch. I keep trying to find an excuse to

Removing tracks 2 and 3 isn't much of a loss because everything has to stop at Paoli anyway.

The center tracks only made sense back in the days when there were still many freights still using the Main Line. Once Conrail rerouted everything to the Lehigh Line they were no longer needed.

Jon