NEW YORK — Amtrak will take a portion of one track out of service on of its Hell Gate Line between Penn Station and New Rochelle, N.Y., and adjust most Northeast Corridor schedules as of today (Monday, March 6) as part of its effort to cooperate with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Penn Station Access project, the passenger carrier has announced. Additional schedule changes will come April 3.
The Penn Station Access project will will bring Metro-North New Haven Line trains to Penn Station and add four stations along the Hell Gate Line in the Bronx.
The website The City reports that Amtrak pledged to provide the necessary time for the MTA work. MTA officials had said in January that the project, slated for completion in 2027, was already looking at a seven-month delay because of a lack of Amtrak cooperation [see “MTA runs into early delays …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 31, 2023].
But The City reports the new agreement with Amtrak could put the project back on schedule.
MTA Construction & Development President Jamie Torres-Springer told The City that Amtrak “has worked through challenges and has agreed to a long-term, single-track outage that affords us an opportunity to recover lost time.”
Amtrak, on its website, says it will be “providing track outages to support MTA crews and contractors working on the Hell Gate Line infrastructure upgrades and bringing the line into a state of good repair.” While the project will eventually result in the Hell Gate Line — between Penn Station and New Rochelle, N.Y. — having three and in some areas four tracks, most of it is now just a two-track route. The single-track outage, which will extend through October, will require north- and southbound trains to take turns operating on the same track.
As a result, starting today, most Acela and Northeast Regional departures between Boston, New York, and Washington will be adjusted by 5 to 15 minutes to minimize delays, Amtrak says. As of April 3, additional departures will see similar adjustments; new trains will be added, including a 5:15 p.m. Acela and 5:35 p.m. Northeast Regional from Boston; and the NEC’s overnight trains Nos. 65, 66, 67, will originate and terminate in New York.
Share this article
