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.
I would also point out that only Amtrak’s track has wire over it.
I would also wonder what kind of shape the CSX tracks are in. Looking at Google Maps there is a marked difference between who maintains which tracks.
Before Penn Central, there were more First Class trains in the overnight than by day. Most Boston-NY day trains ran to GCT; there were 2 or 3 day trains via Penn Station (Colonial, Patriot and Senator) and the overnight Federal.
But there were a number of overnight mail and express trains. The NY Post Office was at Penn Station and had a special platform (the “diagonal platform”) directly under the Post Office. In addition through mail South and West could go through the tubes under the East and North Rivers.
Amtrak on the NEC is mostly commuter rail so I a not sure how your comparisons of former intercity 1st Class Passenger trains compares, I doubt Amtrak plans to go back to that model anytime soon.
They bitch enough as it is about the long haul trains not contributing enough to supporting the NEC when the accounting shows that just the opposite is true, a truly “Rube Goldberg” accounting method…. If they want to really fix something, fix that!
They connected both at FC snd NYP. Not great times, but now a hotel night will be the only way.
Starting/ending trains 65-67 in New York eliminates the only New York to Boston trip that offers a full business day in the AM in Boston and Providence and breaks the connections from the Silver Star, Cardinal, Carolinian and Palmetto to points north of New York at either DC or NYP without an overnight layover. October is a long time to wait if you wanted to get from Raleigh to Boston!
How does a train leaving NYP at 2:45 am miss all the trains you mentioned?
For those keeping score at home, the Hell Gate Bridge has slots for four tracks. Currently, there are three: two Amtrak going from New Rochelle to HAROLD and Penn Station and one freight track from New Rochelle to Fresh Pond Jct and South Brooklyn including 65th St Yard and carfloats to Greenville NJ.