Through Running Instead of Penn South?

Are y’all forgetting the joint MNR/NJT Meadowlands football trains?

It can be done, it HAS BEEN done, and if they wanted to do it again, they could. The issue is that it doesn't give NJT enough additional capacity to meet their projected needs.

I would argue that building Penn South should be first, and when/if that fills up, then talk about through running to further increase capacity. The longer you wait for big projects, the more they cost. Get it done sooner rather than later.

But the passengers on the Meadowlands trains aren't going to Penn Station. Nobody's getting on or off there, so platform occupancy isn't an issue. It's a different story if most of the passengers are getting off and being impeded by boarding pssengers trying to get on.

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 30, 2023 7:32 pm It's a different story if most of the passengers are getting off and being impeded by boarding pssengers trying to get on.

Is this an actual problem that exists, or a theoretical one that makes sense in general but has no actual bearing on RR operations?

How many trains get delayed due to passenger conflicts on the platforms? How many passengers are inconvenienced by having to transfer at Penn? How many people from Long Island are going to be commuting to Newark? Are there people in New Brunswick who are dying to go to Yonkers? Longer distance travelers already have through running, Amtrak provides it.

Btw, where are all these new LIRR/MNR/CTDot trains going to go on the other side of the Hudson? The choke point that is the Portal Bridge, or the nonexistent layover yard at MMC?

I will say this — I have seen multiple times that a single track has two trains on it because there’s nowhere else to put them. That definitely causes passenger confusion and conflicts.

What equipment does LIRR have that can run in NJ? Just the DMs? Using them would cancel almost all non electrified thru running.

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 30, 2023 7:32 pm But the passengers on the Meadowlands trains aren't going to Penn Station. Nobody's getting on or off there, so platform occupancy isn't an issue. It's a different story if most of the passengers are getting off and being impeded by boarding pssengers trying to get on.

A couple of points:

1. I take it you’ve never seen a rush hour departure from track 17 when the inbound equipment is a revenue train arriving at its turn’s scheduled departure time. Train full of passengers getting off onto a platform packed with people waiting to get on. It happens with NJT trains, too. Is it pretty? No. But it’s done All. The. Time. and nobody has died yet.

2. Minor point, but those Meadowlands trains became regular NJT trains at Penn, and picked up a trainload of riders at Penn. Granted, there were few riders getting off at Penn, so it wasn’t the typical rush-hour sh*t-show.

As to your numbered points:

1, I have not only seen but have been a participant on occasion, but what you describe is the result of a late arrival. What I'm talking about would be a daily occurrence with every scheduled through movement. That "nobody has died yet" is setting the bar pretty low for customer service.

2. I was assuming that the Meadowlands trains were full leaving the NH.

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 11:16 pm 2. I was assuming that the Meadowlands trains were full leaving the NH.

Ridership on the football trains was very low, which is why we dumped the service at the very first opportunity (and political pressure to keep it going to keep our foot in the door had eased). Even if that weren’t so, technically riders weren’t allowed to ride to Penn, they had to go to Secaucus. Now, you couldn’t stop them from deboarding when the train stopped at Penn, but they had to buy a ticket to the Meadowlands to ride that train, so not many actually got off at Penn.

Now I'm curious about why initial ridership was so low. Was it because of early horror stories about lengthy delays in boarding trains to get home after the game, and has anything been done to fix that? Seems like it ought to be a popular alternative to driving.

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2023 7:42 pm Now I'm curious about why initial ridership was so low. Was it because of early horror stories about lengthy delays in boarding trains to get home after the game, and has anything been done to fix that? Seems like it ought to be a popular alternative to driving.

Ought to? What were the door to door times like? How many people could walk to the train station at the start of the trip?

Erie-Lackawanna wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2023 5:23 pm

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 11:16 pm 2. I was assuming that the Meadowlands trains were full leaving the NH.

Ridership on the football trains was very low, which is why we dumped the service at the very first opportunity (and political pressure to keep it going to keep our foot in the door had eased). Even if that weren’t so, technically riders weren’t allowed to ride to Penn, they had to go to Secaucus. Now, you couldn’t stop them from deboarding when the train stopped at Penn, but they had to buy a ticket to the Meadowlands to ride that train, so not many actually got off at Penn.

You have to remember that there is no direct rail connection between the NEC from NYC to the Bergen Line that is used to get to the Meadowlands. To get there from NYC, you have to go to Penn Station and take a NJ Transit train to Secaucus, then walk *down* to a Meadowlands train originating from Hoboken. Any other way, you got a reverse move and engine swap that ties up an interlocking or two because the infrastructure is not there and you don't have the right equipment.

I also bet the Main/Bergen lines are NOT electric, which would make me repeat that last sentence there.

If you want a one seat, you need the equipment and infrastructure. You have NEITHER right now. You want it in the future, you need money.

Dual modes solve the equipment problem.

I don't think having a one seat ride would have solved the ridership problem. The travel time door to door just made no sense.

I just assumed that the drive from Fairfield County to the stadium during the pregame time period would be an incentive to take the train even with the up-and-down transfer at Secaucus, but evidently not, since people weren't doing it.

More from the Gothamist

...
Byford also argued that expanding Penn Station a block south would not be necessary if the train hub employed “through-running,” or consolidated NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road service so each railroad wouldn’t need to stop and turn around after reaching Midtown.

He said he oversaw similar changes as the head of London’s transit system from 2020 to 2022 through the completion of the Elizabeth Line that now runs through the city’s center.

“Why not take the opportunity to fix the damn thing once and for all, which is, I’m going to say: get rid of the pillars, which means move MSG, but at the very least, do something with the track configuration to enable through-running,” Byford said.
...

How many studies have been done on thru-running trains?

How many cover folk who have to transfer from NJ Transit to Metro-North or LIRR? How many have to take the 1/2 or A/E or even transfer to a 7 to get where they're going? What is the average commute like that could be improved by thru-running trains?

That's the real questions, equipment aside (which we'll need to get more of anyway).

Given that ridership hasn’t recovered from covid, not sure why we’re buying more equipment.

It also seems weird to draw a parallel to London, where everything was owned and operated by a single agency.

I’m having a hard time believing that anyone commuting from NJ is transferring to MNR or LIRR. Subway, yes. Other trains? Where are these people going? Jamaica?

That said, I completely support removing MSG and getting the pillars out of the station.