The state of PATH.

What is going on with PATH today? This month, year? What are any projects underway and what is their purpose?

I see lots of activity in the last year or so. Rails laying places, various equipment at locations such as under the interstate bridge by kerney yard, the new yard tracks and related activities at the facility in harrison, orange road cones stuck upside down into some sort of fittings in the ground.

Also, i've noticed recently that a lot of the rails, especially through curves, are really developing a very worn flat head. It can't be good for the new cars to be rolling over flattened rail heads with wavy ripple-like bumps in them. Are there any plans to replace the rails anytime soon?

What was behind the decision to sever the link with hudson yard?

Also, what is the schedule, if any, to begin lengthening platforms for 10 car operation?

HBLR wrote:.............

Also, what is the schedule, if any, to begin lengthening platforms for 10 car operation?

I am not sure they intend to go to 10 cars anytime soon. They are just getting going with the 8 car trains Newark - WTC .

That is the only line that can go to 8 cars. The Hoboken terminal is physically limited to 7 car trains as the switches are just outside the station (of course if enough trains slam into the bumper block it might take 8 )

The 33rd Street line would have a problem at 33rd St with trains longer than 7 cars since the switches are right outside the station. If they extended Christopher St and 9th St for longer trains, there would barely be any distance between them (sort of like a Bowling Green - Wall Street situation on the 4/5).

Well I know the plan is to only do 10 cars on the busiest line, which is the nwk-wtc line. Two additional cars plus better signals via the current upgrade plans should massively increase peak hour capacity & reduce crowding.

What about the worn out rails?

Another concern I've had is flooding along the river near kerney junction. It has happened not so long ago. It will happen again. Are there any plans to raise the tracks or construct a flood barrier along that stretch? All it takes is one bad storm at high tide and you've got trouble.

Can NWK-WTC go to 10 cars without any platform extensions except for Harrison?

HBLR wrote:Well I know the plan is to only do 10 cars on the busiest line, which is the nwk-wtc line. Two additional cars plus better signals via the current upgrade plans should massively increase peak hour capacity & reduce crowding.

It's going to take time to upgrade all the station platforms to accommodate longer consists. Relax - baby steps. We just made it to 8 cars. Small victories.

What about the worn out rails?

They have their track department to take care of the rails, not you.

Another concern I've had is flooding along the river near kerney junction. It has happened not so long ago. It will happen again. Are there any plans to raise the tracks or construct a flood barrier along that stretch? All it takes is one bad storm at high tide and you've got trouble.

It is known as the Kearny pocket track and is sandwiched between tracks G and H. If they were interested in raising the grade they would probably consult with Amtrak, and PSEG as both their ROW's are adjacent to PATH's ROW.

Amtrak7 wrote:Can NWK-WTC go to 10 cars without any platform extensions except for Harrison?

I think Exchange Place is already good for 10 cars.

OportRailfan wrote:It's going to take time to upgrade all the station platforms to accommodate longer consists. Relax - baby steps. We just made it to 8 cars. Small victories.

We HAD 8-car trains prior to 9/11. Remember "The first car will not open at Exchange Place" and the grand (failed) plan that re-fitted the PA-1 through PA-3 car conductor positions with separate door controls for the PA-4 doors?

10 car platforms on the NWK/WTC route:
Newak - no problem
Harrison - rebuild planned
Journal Square - no problem
Grove Street - problematic past 8 cars. Platforms can only be extended to the east (crossover at the west end) and the recently-reopened east exit is there. You also have the junction where NWK-bound trains come in, a little further down the track. It should be possible, but will be a lot of work.
Exchange Place - no problem
WTC - no problem, though if they use the existing platforms, they'll probably have to take down the fences blocking off the south end of the platform 4/5.

They have their track department to take care of the rails, not you.

I see a lot of new rail delivered and laying in the trackbed. I'm more concerned with the "permanent" temporary speed restrictions (fortunately, the one going into the portal seems to be pretty universally ignored). I'm talking about the yellow "S" / green "R" signs on the 3rd rail cover board, not the "Your speed is..." displays. Another pet peeve is the full stop timer at the junction where 33rd Street-bound trains diverge from the Hoboken route. It seems like that's been there forever. If it is due to the water condition, that should have been fixable since the Port Authority took over the H&M. [The NY-bound Holland Tunnel approach ramp outer casing is only about a foot above the top of the H&M, and the Holland Tunnel drains water into the PATH there.]

I know it isnt my job to worry bout the rails, I was purely wondering what was going to be done and when.

As for the water... On rainy days parts of the tunnels leak quite badly, even a day later you'll have water splashed all over the cab end but no rain since yesterday. As far as the speed restrictions, I'm wonderig if it's due to cost or if it's a more involved fix that would both be money and possible service disruptions.

Also, I noticed they still have the "ghost" rails to keep the shoes from hitting stuff on curves... are they still wooden? Any plans to replace those?

HBLR wrote:As far as the speed restrictions, I'm wonderig if it's due to cost or if it's a more involved fix that would both be money and possible service disruptions.

I don't know the specific reasoning for the ones on PATH. Normally the Slow/Resume markers are for a temporary condition like skeletonized track during construction.

Also, I noticed they still have the "ghost" rails to keep the shoes from hitting stuff on curves... are they still wooden? Any plans to replace those?

The H&M was very proud of those - they were originally made out of mahogany wood.

For some reason the trackbed is very low in the invert in those areas, which (as you noted) can cause the shoes to flop down and contact the tunnel, potentially shorting out the 3rd rail supply.

A track improvement study that the the Port Authority commissioned soon after taking over the H&M recommended fixing this by raising the trackbed. The problem is that the track would be out of service for an extended period of time while the work was done. Since they decided to modify the tunnel sidewalls (chipping away at the ductwork) when the PA-1 cars didn't clear them* instead of raising the trackbed, I doubt they have any plans to do this unless they have a 9/11-length closure of the line (the downtown tunnels were extensively rehabilitated with the trackbed aligned and using direct fixation while they were out of service).

* The bulge in the side of the PA-series cars was intended to be above the level of the sidewall ducting. Due to the low trackbed in the Morton Street area, the sides of the cars would hit the ducting, so parts were chipped away. The side bulge is also the reason the half-crossover west of 9th St. was taken up - while the K cars and earlier could clear it, the PA-series cars couldn't.

So the ghost rails will stay till trackbed raised or ties get additional height I'm guessing.

Would be interesting to see what the plan would be if they had say 4-6 months of single tracking to fix those spots.

HBLR wrote:So the ghost rails will stay till trackbed raised or ties get additional height I'm guessing.

Would be interesting to see what the plan would be if they had say 4-6 months of single tracking to fix those spots.

I hope to scan and make available the 1967 Track Improvement Program book within the next week or two:


If you don't see anything on this subject from me in the next couple weeks, send me a reminder. It is getting close to racing season and I tend to drop out of sight (driving the race car cross-country single-handedly will do that).

Terry Kennedy wrote:I hope to scan and make available the 1967 Track Improvement Program book within the next week or two.

Here's (well, there would be *) some relvant pages from that book:

Description of the dummy 3rd rail and other Morton St. issues:
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Drawing of "normal" tunnel segment in curve:
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Drawing of Morton St. tunnel segment in curve:
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An interesting view of the 1967 track speeds in Tunnel A (the oldest tunnel). Note the lack of any full stops (other than for interlocking) and no track speed below 15MPH, with most at 40MPH:
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Here is a PDF (2.5MB) of all 4 of those scans, full-size.

* You're going to need to click on each of the links, as this forum is enforcing a maximum image width of 800 pixels (even for images I'm hosting on my own web site) and I'm not going to re-size and edit them, particularly since text selection in this forum has been broken (at least in IE8) for well over a year now, making editing a PITA.

That is really interesting stuff. Quite detailed and specific. Reminds me of something... To quote some PA employees/contractors as we passed into the journal square area: "now that's a retaining wall!" referring to the concrete wall with tiebacks. "Conrail would have just put in some rock bolts and wire mesh" PATH really has a lot going for it, including a well solvent parent organization that can supply it with the best technology and techniques to do whatever needs done. That yard track that got an over-exuberant PA-5 up in the air is totally repaired, took i think a week to fix it. New ties, new rail welded in place past the point of damage, new ballast, and new bumper.

Great reading and viewing of the map, Terry; thanks for sharing.

I can imagine the looks I'd get if I printed out that map and followed along during a trip from HOB to 33. Maybe I'd better perish that thought...

umtrr-author wrote:Great reading and viewing of the map, Terry; thanks for sharing.

No problem!

I can imagine the looks I'd get if I printed out that map and followed along during a trip from HOB to 33. Maybe I'd better perish that thought...

I've actually seen people with large blueprints comparing the drawings to the actual tunnel. That was for one of the contractors installing conduit for fiber optic cables - not the original TCG ones, but the later Level 3 (and others) ones.

If you really want to get talked about, bring something like this (click the pictures for much larger versions):





That's one of Haskins' original pen-and-ink drawings which was used by Burr for his book. It is one single drawing, and it really is that big.

Every once in a while some of my collection gets shown (these pictures are from a 2003 show at the Hoboken Historical Museum). Of course, I'll post any future exhibition info in this forum.