Amtrak, NJ Transit discuss partnership to build Hudson River tunnel Options

[KevinKorell]

Newark, NJ Star-Ledger, 11/8/10:

Amtrak, NJ Transit discuss partnership to build canceled ARC Hudson River tunnel

Amtrak and NJ Transit are discussing the possibility of a partnership to revive a huge train tunnel project that Gov. Chris Christie killed last month, according to officials at both agencies.

Story is here.

[KevinKorell]

Update on same story, from Newark, NJ Star-Ledger, 11/9/10:

Hudson River tunnel project proposed by Amtrak, NJ Transit would take decades to complete

Anyone holding their breath for another rail tunnel under the Hudson River better be prepared not to exhale for 20 years.

Story is there.

[KevinKorell]

Wall Street Journal, 11/12/10:

Amtrak has no interest in NJ Transit tunnel

Amtrak said it is not interested in taking over the Hudson River commuter rail tunnel project that New Jersey's governor killed last month.

Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said the national railroad's primary focus is advancing a Northeast Corridor high-speed rail service and that it had "no interest in a partnership" with NJ Transit on reviving the tunnel project.

Now what? Read this

[KevinKorell]

Reuters, 11/12/10:
Put another way......

Amtrak, New Jersey end talks over alternate tunnel

The U.S. passenger rail network Amtrak has ended talks about building a new commuter rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey and has no plans to restart them, Amtrak said on Friday.

[jis]

From Asbury Park Press:

Amtrak backs away from shared tunnel

By LARRY HIGGS • STAFF WRITER • November 12, 2010


Amtrak officials have pulled the plug on talks about a shared tunnel project with NJ Transit, using engineering and design work already done.

...

Using NJ Transit's engineering for a joint tunnel was ruled out because the ARC project designs aren't conducive for intercity train travel, said Clifford Cole, Amtrak spokesman. That design had tracks ending in a dead-end station under 34th Street.

...

Amtrak officials said in a release they "remain open to exploring ways to expand trans-Hudson passenger rail capacity with NJ Transit, but Amtrak's primary interest is in advancing Northeast Corridor high-speed rail service."

....

Cost sharing by NJ Transit appears to be a concern for Amtrak officials.

"Such a collaboration with NJT would require their commitment to fully fund all costs associated with creating additional commuter train capacity," Amtrak officials said.

You can read the whole article here.

[KevinKorell]

Well the obvious problem is that the tunnel that NJT conceived and began building was physically incapable of serving Penn Station due to the required upgrade on the Manhattan side of the river, and because the 7 line extension tunnel is also in the way.

So that problem would have existed for Amtrak as well. Perhaps had Amtrak been involved from the start as they should have been, the new tunnel would not have been located where it was, and the construction that already took place in North Bergen at the location of the new NJ portal would not have happened.

And Amtrak isn't going to want a station in the bedrock underneath Macy's because those trains cannot continue to Sunnyside Yard or New England. And for passengers to transfer to/from Boston trains would have been very cumbersome.

[jis]

That problem leading to failure to connect to Penn Station is apparently of NJTransit's own making. They decided that their trains cannot deal with gradients higher than 2%. Experts that I have talked to say that even NJT's heavy trains with lard-a$$ed MLVs powered by quite capable ALP-46As should have no problem dealing with 2.5% grade in an enclosed and environment controlled space like in a tunnel. It is not like leaves will fall in the tunnel or snow and ice will form in the tunnel.

Apparently all it takes is 2.5% grade to make all the connections necessary without getting in the way of the 7 line. It is not like they will be running coal drags through those tunnels. They will be running light weight passenger trains with hugely powerful locomotives, and if they ever get their heads out for very dark places, even EMUs!!

So as usual there is more to the story than NJT has been willing to tell us. When you want to post-facto justify something that you want to do, one technique is to set oneself up with fake requirements. And the other is to carefully hide away the document that contains the actual facts that might contradict the decision. Notice that already in order to get the Portal South bridge to be 10' higher so that it does not have to be a movable bridge NJT has apparently agreed to greater than 2% grade, and that out in the open. When asked about that cryptic answer apparently was "Oh but that is different!". Ah yes.... of course!

My guess is that there are two problems.... one is the grade issue, and the other related one is the bowed out alignment of the tunnel which was mainly designed to get to 34th St station , in the absence of which the detour down to North Hoboken becomes questionable.