Southern Tier - East of Binghamton

Well the bad news is that NS has been shut out in the quest for a TIGER II grant.......

Yeah, so I guess no replacement of the Portageville Bridge now?? Is that what you are talking about?? If so, NS may change their plans about using the Tier for more trains after all!!!

Is there any specific reason why NS was shut out? Not knowing the ins and outs of the process, one question comes to my mind: Are any of these people who make decisions regarding Tiger Grants the same ones who were told by NS that they'd use the Tier more as part of the CR split? Maybe if NS goes through with the additional trains folks in authority will see that NS is indeed serious and not just looking for a handout. Am I partially correct here or am I way off base?

In their presentation it sounded like NS had a timetable for more traffic, especially intermodal out of NJ to Buffalo that was going to run regardless of when the bridge gets replaced.When is the next round of Tiger grants, or was it a one-time deal?

Jim Rowland

I'm still trying to find something "official" about the denial of the TIGER II grant money. Do we know if it was denied in total or in part and do we know that the bridge was specifically excluded?

The reason that I bring this up is that a lot of the TIGER II funding was scheduled to go for upgrades to the Crescent Corridor, mostly in VA and PA, which I find hard to believe that the Feds would deny totally. I could see the Feds denying funds for new capabilities or capacities on the Corridor but the bridge project is to rehab the existing infrastructure, has nothing to do directly with the Corridor, and fits naturally with the Administration's argument that the nation's current capital infrastructure needs repair.

As I said, I'd like to see the rationale for whatever decision was made before jumping to conclusions.

Poppyl

BTW, just to put this situation in some perspective -- TIGER II was funded at $600M against requests totaling a little over $19B. So you can see that about 97% of the requested project scopes were not going to get funded. Looking at it from that perspective, obtaining funding for the bridge replacement via TIGER II was always a long shot at best. I hope that NS (and maybe NYS) have a Plan B. Otherwise it may be another generation before the bridge is replaced.

Does the lack of a modern Portageville Bridge affect whatever strategy NS has for the Tier? I don't know, except to say that I doubt that NS would have made the investments between Waverly and Binghamton if their strategy had to have a modern Portageville Bridge to work. They would have secured the bridge funding before embarking on the ROW upgrades.

Poppyl

Most of the money went to either short line/regional rail or passenger rail projects. Approximately the same amount that NS was asking for was given to build a new Niagara Falls passenger station. I don't see how that could be anywhere near as important.

I wouldn't be shocked if they looked at these applications and figured NS would probably build the bridge anyway, even if they didn't get money from the Feds. With the money given by CP and NYDOT, NS could probably build this bridge for about a quarter of the price they are spending on that new intermodal facility in PA. It shouldn't be a huge project for them.

Yes, there will probably be some sort of "TIGER III" grants given out next year.

Is there any clue about how much traffic PANJNY and NS are looking at moving between the Ports and Buffalo?

Jim

Did NYSW complete the trackwork they had planned for the Tier east of Binghamton? I haven't heard any updates in a while.

Jim

It looks like the "Tier East" could be getting in on some of this Mechanicsville/Ayer/PAS traffic in the not too distant future...

Keep your fingers crossed....

What type of traffic potential are you hearing about. "Tier East" to PAS seems circuitous at best. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see it and nothing would make me happier than to be proven wrong in this case.

Jim

SecaucusJunction wrote:It looks like the "Tier East" could be getting in on some of this Mechanicsville/Ayer/PAS traffic in the not too distant future...

Keep your fingers crossed....

Well, you really should source your information... Where did you get your info from??
Not believing it until i see it!!!

It is one of the lesser seen points in the Portageville Presentation. The reason it is believable is because it has nothing to do with getting money for the bridge, so there is little reason for them to "exaggerate" the truth about it. Their quote states "The Clearance Work Being Done On The Bergen Tunnel will allow use of the Southern Tier Route into Buffalo and New England Markets"... "Market Expansion to include Ayer MA, Cincinnati OH, Albany NY and Buffalo NY"

There is also a purple line on the map that illustrates this.

Thoughts? Comments?

Purple lines on charts made by powerpoint jockeys and artists and press release PR are cheap and don't mean much to me. Sure NS and CSX (and probably the feds) spent $$ on Waldo and Bergen tunnels, but the southern Tier I'm sure was pretty far down on the list of reasons they did that. Maybe SJ has some inside information he doesn't want to share, maybe not. JS

If NS did spend money on this tunnel project, the Southern Tier would be the only reason why. I'm not saying whether or not they did spend money, but it doesn't really help them anywhere else on their system.

I understand everyone's skepticism, but when several people have heard the exact same thing from NS, it makes it hard to not believe. From what I've heard, talks about using the Southern Tier Line have been going on between NS and PANYNJ for years and are now finally coming to reality. Again, they'd have no reason to lie about this.

We'll see what happens....

I've been reading this thread for the past several days. Purely conjecture on my part, and I'm not particularly familiar with the remaining rail lines in Hudson County, NJ anymore. But to SJ's posts, if the Port Authority actually opens up the Military Terminal in Bayonne, NJ to container operations, and this container volume offers a net increase in containers through the port, and NS secures some part of this volume... can the existing NS Lehigh Line handle this volume without additional sidings / double tracking, or might some incremental traffic get funneled north? I know the MN/NJT issues below Port Jervis... and I'm not even going down the Resources Terminal / NYSW routing...

Just thinking....