"What if" 9th st branch extended to Atlantic terminal?

The PRR only even bought the LIRR becuase the LIRR had the rights to build the tunnels the PRR needed

That sounds correct only in the case where the PRR was seriously considering the new long route from Rahway via Staten Island and Brooklyn, operating into the Penn Station location via the East River, an option they abandoned. Aside from that, you make it sound like the LIRR had rights to build a tunnel under the Hudson River.

BTW, it appears that the LIRR originally intended, for its first attempt at crossing the East River, extending from Atlantic Terminal and via a rather long route through Manhattan up to Grand Central.

I say let's not make the railroad in question, though, into the Hudson, Manhattan and Kings...

your forgetting Sunnyside yard and the hell gate line.

Why would you extend the 9th Street stub toward Atlantic Terminal, when the WTC PATH station is much closer to Brooklyn? If anything, the WTC branch should be the one considered to be extended to Brooklyn.

That said, I don't think the Atlantic Terminal area of Brooklyn would be a major destination for PATH commuters. There's not a lot of office space there; it's mostly retail and entertainment establishments. There are more office and government buildings near Brooklyn Borough Hall (the Jay Street/Court Street area). That's downtown Brooklyn and it's already well-served by the NYC subway. Most of the lines that serve downtown Brooklyn already connect with PATH.

The reason is because the WTC site is not able, due to past and current rebuilding plans, to have a line running east. Have you ever been to WTC station during the rebuilding? If not please do, and take note were track & platform level is compared to the street level concourse.

Now, if they had left the station closer to street level during the WTC construction (which removed hudson terminal & moved a new loop, with longer platforms & farther towards the river) it may have been possible, but as it stands the "PATH" loop is in the "bathtub" and therefore going east underground means exiting the area through the slurry wall, drilling through a bit of soil and a lot of bedrock to even get to the east river and any tunnels therein.

If you saw the structure where there is now open air where 2 world trade center is going up below grade, that was part of the old hudson terminal underground complex, the part which connected to the H&M loop terminal platforms/tracks.

So there's that.

From 9th street, if it went across the east river and turned south, then west, it would provide a connecting service to and from brooklyn, the nearby subway lines, LIRR, and new jersey, and give a link between LIRR terminals and subway in the case of an incident.

If PATH were to extend anywhere on the NY side, it should be to GCT as originally planned.

I would like to see some diagrams of what's under the possible routes as far as subway stuff & bedrock between 34th & 42nd and from 7th to park ave. Maybe they did stop because of bedrock? I mean don't get me wrong, the rock it goes through in NJ isn't greek yogurt by any stretch, but it has been demonstrated that "manhattan schist" is notoriously difficult to excavate, requiring blasting, or carbide cutting blades on TBM. I mean, they use it as conduit for both water tunnels and the 3rd one too i believe...

There's a little something called the Sixth Avenue Line in the way. The PATH tracks actually sit between the Sixth Ave local tracks, and above the express tracks, which rise to the level of the local tracks at 34th Street. (Despite the name, which presages the current station structures, the 33rd Street PATH station platforms are actually between 30th and 32nd streets.)

So while it may have been conceivable to extend the line to Grand Central before the building of the Sixth Avenue Line, today it is pretty much impossible, unless they were to completely destroy a very busy Manhattan trunk line.

Could they turn it north from the current station & then go under 6th ave line? I'm seeing this as more feasible than to long island. You could make 33rd street a through terminal like journal square. Over near grand central you'd have to cross below the 7 line, then to avoid the ESA you could then again turn north and have the station connect to the lower level on the west side...

JasW wrote:If PATH were to extend anywhere on the NY side, it should be to GCT as originally planned.

That was the purpose of ARC/THE TUNNEL. But now...

ARC wasn't going to GCT. Consideration was given to the idea, but dropped very early on. By the time Christie cancelled it, the idea was long dead. So that wasn't the purpose of ARC at all.

HBLR wrote:I would like to see some diagrams of what's under the possible routes as far as subway stuff & bedrock between 34th & 42nd and from 7th to park ave. Maybe they did stop because of bedrock?

They had other projects with higher priority, such as completing 2 more tunnels from Hudson Terminal to Erie (Pavonia/Newport). Remember, the H&M's goal was providing a better method for people to get between the railroads in NJ that stopped at the waterfront and Manhattan. Getting the Erie's customers to/from Hudson Terminal without stopping at a competitor (PRR's Exchange Place) was a higher priority than taking them from a NJ long-distance railroad to a NY one at Grand Central.

By the time they started thinking about it (late 1913/early 1914) subways were operating in Manhattan and NYC realized that it could leverage the asset of street right-of-way for underground transit. Only the piece of the H&M from 9th St. to 33rd St. had been built under a public street - the rest was on private right-of-way.

Remember that the H&M didn't get to 33rd until early 1910, and McAdoo had left the H&M in 1913 to become US Secretary of the Treasury. One could argue that this deprived the H&M of the single great visionary that created the existing system.

Then in 1917 the US entered WWI. Once recovery from the war was complete at home, the Holland Tunnel opened in 1927, causing H&M revenue to plummet (and sowing the seeds of the eventual 1958 bankruptcy). Then you had the Great Depression, and any and all grand plans came to a screeching halt.

Currently, you have such a stack of things near 33rd that it wouldn't be possible without an incredible amount of hardship and billions in engineering- From the top down, you have the BMT subway, 6th Avenue subway, PRR cross-town tunnels, trunk sewer lines, and the main water tunnel. Even if you get past that, once you get up to Bryant park you have the 7 line and the shuttle to contend with.

We've discussed this in the past - here is a post I made some years ago which includes some original H&M drawings of the plans.

So what exactly is in the way now in 2011?

Did you actually read the previous post? Seriously?

Currently, you have such a stack of things near 33rd that it wouldn't be possible without an incredible amount of hardship and billions in engineering- From the top down, you have the BMT subway, 6th Avenue subway, PRR cross-town tunnels, trunk sewer lines, and the main water tunnel. Even if you get past that, once you get up to Bryant park you have the 7 line and the shuttle to contend with.

There's absolutely no reason to do anything. The Subway already provides every connection from 33rd one would need. So what if someone has to transfer. This is New York City. We do transfers.

This is PATH, it's cheaper.

HBLR wrote:This is PATH, it's cheaper.

It's been stated numerous times in this forum that the reason the failing/bankrupt H&M was taken over by the Port Authority was so that NJ would agree to let them build the world trade center in NY.

The PA runs the railroad as a service to the region, and thus don't expect any more expansion on the system. It is what it is. OK, A?

- F