Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England

So I’ve used Moynihan a few times since it opened as a replacement for Penn station for Amtrak.
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The "non-railfan" opinion of my wife and son are that Moynihan is vastly superior to the old Penn Station, but zero attention appears to have been paid to the queuing situation.
 
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Great info, thank you both. Definitely less cynical now. However, I will say...

Today there was a last minute track switch which caused chaos. It didn't have to, but all the electronic signs continued to show the wrong track, and the loudspeaker literally right up until departure kept telling passengers to go the wrong track. There were zero staff, there were both an Acela and Regional boarding at nearly the same time, and hundreds of people having no clue what to do. Finally a staff person stepped in and started yelling at people as if literally the entire train station was doing something other than live broadcasting false info. Pretty pathetic.
 
Yeah, the continued chaos around track assignments/announcements at the Penn Station complex is frustrating to say the least. Other stations don't seem to have this kind of chronic issue. And while I realize NYP is far busier than any other station in North America, figure it out, it can't be an unsolvable issue!
 
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fatnoah said:
The "non-railfan" opinion of my wife and son are that Moynihan is vastly superior to the old Penn Station, but zero attention appears to have been paid to the queuing situation.
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So my other question is around what might change with the new tunnel projects. Will the Gateway Project mean that Amtrak trains also stop at Grand Central? And if so, might this at least reduce the number of boardings at Penn?
 
FK4 said:
So my other question is around what might change with the new tunnel projects. Will the Gateway Project mean that Amtrak trains also stop at Grand Central? And if so, might this at least reduce the number of boardings at Penn?
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No. It's strictly a Penn Station capacity expansion. The Penn Station South component of the project will add +7 platform tracks to the station.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
The Penn Station South component of the project will add +7 platform tracks to the station.
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Wait, is that actually moving forward? That seemed like it was proposed a few years ago, then forgotten. In the flurry of recent Penn Station proposals, Penn Station South hardly seemed to even get mentioned.
 
ritchiew said:
Wait, is that actually moving forward? That seemed like it was proposed a few years ago, then forgotten. In the flurry of recent Penn Station proposals, Penn Station South hardly seemed to even get mentioned.
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Hasn't been funded yet because they're focusing on the all-critical tunnel capacity first and the price tag for the station expansion is laughably high, but it's still planned. A lot of transit advocates want it turfed in favor of thru-running NJ Transit and Metro-North, but there are a lot of political and technological challenges to making that happen.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
www.adirondackexplorer.org

Brakes put on Amtrak Adirondack line

Amtrak once again suspends its “Adirondack” service between New York and Montreal less than three months after resuming again.
www.adirondackexplorer.org www.adirondackexplorer.org

Amtrak Adirondack service, which just resumed to Montreal after a nearly 3-year COVID suspension, is now suspended again because of track conditions in Canada. Landlord Canadian National imposed a 10 MPH speed restriction on the entire Rousses Point Subdivision from suburban Montreal to the NY border covering all days when it's 86 degrees or higher, basically making it impossible for Amtrak to schedule for the entire summer season because the schedule on hot days will no longer stay within mandated crew work hours. The train has to terminate in Albany until further notice and can't serve upstate at all during peak tourist/weekender season because of lack of turnbacks south of the border. Lots of finger-pointing ensuing over this truly stupid restriction, much of it being pointed at CN and utterly inept Transport Canada (the lead Canadian fed gov't agency for transit).

Not a good omen for things like the Montrealer restoration north of St. Albans, VT that has to use the same track that CN is taking hostage. And a reminder that as backward as pax rail transportation is in the U.S., it's much worse in Canada. :(
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And it happens again. Adirondack service suspension starts anew on May 20, just in time for the official kickoff of summer. Another Amtrak-CN dispute over CN's horrible track conditions Rouses Point to St. Jean-sur-Richelieu with rumored 10 MPH speed restrictions planned for heat season. And once again, limp-wristed Transport Canada is useless to try to intervene.
 
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