Amtrak Revenue Trains using tracks 1-4 @ New York Penn Station

First off, hello everyone.
It's been a little while since I posted here, or rode Amtrak. It's nice to be back on track (pun intended ).

Now as for the topic, recently I took an Amtrak train to NYP. It was a Keystone to be precise, so it terminated in NYP.
As we were pulling into the station I noticed the train was diverging east / to the right rather than seemingly going "straight" into the station.

When I exited the train, I noticed it actually stopped on track 4, which is one of the four (Tracks 1-4) stub end tracks in NYP. As there was a wall & bumper blocks there instead of the East River Tunnels in the distance.

I had 4 questions on this, the irony:
1. How often do Amtrak Revenue trains actually use tracks 1-4? I've boarded a number of NJT trains from there, but only a handful of Amtrak trains.
2. If an Amtrak train uses tracks 1-4, does it simply go OOS and sit, then just start a new journey from there?
3. Or does it reverse & then head to Sunnyside? This seems dangerous and highly unnecessary.
4. Has any non Keystone train ever used tracks 1-4?

I will say that the only departing Amtrak trains I've boarded from tracks 1-4 have been Keystone trains. Which makes sense imo. It doesn't seem practical to back an Amtrak train into tracks 1-4 whether from Sunnyside or the nearby yard that has the protect engines. Maybe the train could deadhead south / west to Philly, etc after stopping on tracks 1-4 but I'm not privy to Amtrak's deadhead movements.

If anyone could give me some insight or background on this it would be appreciated.

2. Keystone Service trains are push-pull with a motor at one end and a Metroliner cab car at the other. After arrival from Harrisburg, it starts a westbound trip from there.

For a while in the winter of maybe 2018, there was a weekend (maybe only Saturday) morning westbound regional that would use a Keystone set and would board off one of the stub tracks.

@Chuchubob
I'm aware of the Keystone train being a push pull. I remember when the Keystone Corridor got upgraded and being excited to see the cab cars in regular revenue service in the Philly / NY area for the first time since Amtrak served Atlantic City .

Your answer actually makes a lot of sense. I figured that Amtrak would just keep the physical train there OOS until its next Westbound run. Therefore those tracks seem to be mostly used by Keystone trains that terminate at NYP (not heading to Sunnyside) due to the push pull configuration making it easier.

@CNJGeep

Interesting, so a Northeast Regional ran from NYP to WAS with a 5 car Keystone set? I guess the weekend made it feasible as there could've been lower ridership which could facilitate a short train running that far south on the NEC.
That would be a sight to see for sure.

On another note, why do those stub tracks exist in the first place? Was it too difficult to merge those tracks onto Lines 3 & 4 to Sunnyside and points east? Baltimore Penn's Stub track seems odd also, but that's an entirely different subject.

Many thanks to you both for your input

The original intent was to have Tracks 1-4 lead into a third East River tube if it became necessary. Somewhere in Chris Baer's chronology on the PRRT&HS website is a memo from around 1937 reporting that a third tube will not be necessary after all; I think Track 1 has the beginning of a slight curve at the end allowing for that third tube.

Wouldn't that be a 5th East River Tunnel? There's already 4.

Yes indeed; I lost count.

Do those tracks connect to Moynihan?

daybeers wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:56 pm Do those tracks connect to Moynihan?

From what I've seen at Moynihan the lowest numbered tracks with direct access are 5 & 6. Tracks 1-4 are usually just used by NJT. They don't extend far enough west to have platforms under Moynihan because they are at the end of the west ladder tracks. That's why you have to go to Penn in order to use NJT.

Aren’t these tracks available to the Empire Connection if trains heading north up there Hudson used overhead wire instead of third rail?

@ExCon90 & @Greg Moore
Awesome, thanks for the insight. It makes sense now. It was the result of a plan falling through as opposed to it being planned. Those 4 tracks always stood out to me.

@RCThompson04

I would imagine so. I took a Keystone once that terminated on track 4, right next to us was an Empire train on track 5.
That said, I don't think it's practical to bring an Empire Service train or any train that uses the Empire Connection on tracks 1-4 because they're stub end tracks. The majority of trains that use them are Push Pull. NJT uses tracks 1-4 primarily along with a handful of Keystone trains.

NortheastTrainMan wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:15 pm Interesting, so a Northeast Regional ran from NYP to WAS with a 5 car Keystone set?

That would be no business class or cafe service.

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:49 pm The original intent was to have Tracks 1-4 lead into a third East River tube if it became necessary. Somewhere in Chris Baer's chronology on the PRRT&HS website is a memo from around 1937 reporting that a third tube will not be necessary after all; I think Track 1 has the beginning of a slight curve at the end allowing for that third tube.

Very interesting! A look at the track diagram of NYP seems to confirm this phantom tunnel:

https://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/upl ... p_WORK.jpg

Can see the curve mentioned (actually in track 4) and it also appears track 5 has a stub branch that would have accessed this other tunnel also. And the curves seem to “aim” at 31st St, likely where the PRR would have had ROW for this tunnel (the other existing tunnels are under 32nd and 33rd).

Yes, now that I see that track plan with the overhead street pattern superimposed, Tracks 1-5 head toward 31st St. in the same way that 16-20 head toward 33rd St. (Try to imagine Harold if that had been completed ...)

All services besides Keystones are serviced and turned in Sunnyside so they would need to occupy a platform track anyhow - so even before Moynihan I had never heard of any non-Keystone boarding from Tracks 1-4. But pre-Moynihan Keystones frequently arrived at, deboarded, boarded, and then departed from tracks 1-4, since they do not need to be turned or serviced (no cafe) between trips.

While any Amtrak train not continuing can terminate at tracks 1-4, they cannot board there from Moynihan (it has access only to tracks 5-16 directly and then to 17-21 via the WEC), and Amtrak has been emphasizing Moynihan to all departing passengers. So I strongly suspect the practice of boarding Keystones on these tracks has come to an end. They could, like any other terminating northbound Amtrak, deboard there, but I struggle to imagine an operational advantage if they would just need to be backed up to what is left of yard A and pull back into another platform track to board.

And finally as noted Empire Service trains lack cab cars and must be reversed between each run so they never used tracks 1-4, even though the Empire Tunnel track (4A) has access to the relevant ladder tracks. They can only access tracks 1-7 and almost exclusively use tracks 5 and 6 for this reason.