The greatest issue facing new LIRR President Philip Eng is dealing with ongoing Penn Station capacity and operational problems.
His predecessors were unsuccessful to solve these issues for decades.
“Ex E.W. resident names LIRR prez” (Luke Torrance — April 20).
Several hundred Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains operate daily during rush hours.
The ongoing problems at Penn Station Mr. Eng now inherits is nothing new.
In the early 1990’s, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority & Long Island Rail Road conducted the East River Tunnels Life Safety Study.
This report clearly documented the need for investing several hundred million dollars to bring the East River Tunnels back up to a state of good repair.
All four tunnels built between 1904 and 1909 outlived their useful life long ago.
They have been in desperate need for major upgrades decades ago. Sadly since that study, over past Five Year Capital Plans, the MTA & LIRR programmed insufficient funding to perform these tasks.
As a result, over time there has been an increase in the frequency of major service disruptions due to storm and signal problems in the East River Tunnels.
These problems periodically also occur between the Tunnel Portals and Harold Interlockings west of the Woodside Station. The MTA and LIRR also failed to develop and complete a specific implementation plan with Amtrak who actually owns the tunnels to complete this badly needed work within our lifetime.
There is no room to run additional trains into or out of Penn Station during rush hours via the East River tunnels with connections to Long Island.
This has been the case for decades. Three of four tunnels running inbound mornings and evening rush hours have tight spacing between trains.
One tunnel is shared by the LIRR, NJ Transit and Amtrak for reverse train movements with equally tight spacing during rush hours.
There is no platform capacity at Penn Station to accommodate additional trains during rush hour.
Penn Station is currently operating at 100 percent capacity during rush hours. If one of the four tunnels is temporarily out of service, the result is numerous delays and cancellation of trains.
There are a number of competing new services looking for nonexistent rush hour Penn Station platform, track and East River tunnel capacity.
Metro North wants to begin service at a cost of $700 million plus from the east Bronx via the Hell Gate Bridge and Harold Interlocking in Sunnyside Queens to Penn Station by 2023. Metro North also has future plans ($200 million) to run additional service from Poughkeepsie and other stations via Amtrak Empire Corridor Hudson Line using tracks on Manhattan West Side.
The LIRR has invested $450 million to complete double tracking on the Ronkonkoma branch.
Once the Main Line Third Track is completed at a cost of $2.6 billion, the LIRR has plans to expand Ronkonkoma branch rush hour Penn Station service.
Gov. Cuomo wants to provide new frequent direct LIRR service on the Port Washington branch between Penn Station and Mets Willets Point station.
This is to support his $1 billion LaGuardia Air Train. Additional service from Grand Central Terminal to Mets Willets Point station may also begin once LIRR East Side Access to Grand Central Terminal is completed.
Cuomo also wants a “One Seat Ride” from Penn Station and probably Grand Central Terminal to Kennedy Airport.
Cuomo has recently requested the LIRR to create frequent service from Penn Station to the new Belmont Park Islanders Arena by 2022 to coincide with facility opening.
Some Queens residents want restoration of LIRR service on the old Rockaway Beach branch, which suspended service in 1962. (Today NYC Transit runs the A subway along a significant portion of the old LIRR right of way.)
Both Amtrak (Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston along with Empire Service north to Albany & Buffalo) and NJ Transit have future plans to expand Penn Station service.
Both the $29 billion Hudson River Gateway Tunnel (two additional tracks connecting New Jersey to Penn Station) and $3 billion Moynihan Station Farley Building projects fail to add any new additional Penn Station tracks or platforms.
This results in no capacity increase for any new rush hour Amtrak, NJ Transit, LIRR or future new Metro North trains to serve Penn Station.
The LIRR may begin service into Grand Central Terminal in December 2023.
Most of the promised 24 peak hour train service will be either new trains or those which previously terminated at Atlantic Terminal Brooklyn. Few will be diverted from Penn Station.
It is doubtful that the LIRR will give up any current peak hour service train slots at Penn Station when expanding operations into Grand Central Terminal.
Amtrak continues to delay the decade’s overdue major repairs to the four East River tunnels until after the LIRR begins service into Grand Central Terminal in December 2023.
Delaying the start of work by six years from 2019 to 2025 will increase costs by 300% to $1 billion.
Continued deterioration of the East River Tunnels over this time period could result in an increased scope of work. and accompanying service disruptions.
Combined with responses to the procurement process from contractors, this could then result in a final price tag of several hundred million more than the current engineers’ estimate.
Only one of four East River Tunnels can be taken out of service at a time for reconstruction.
It will take one to two years to finish work on each tunnel. As a result, this project may not be completed until 2032.
Until this work is over, it is virtually impossible to increase rush hour Penn Station capacity and guarantee reliable uninterrupted service.
There will continue to be a three-way competition between Amtrak, LIRR and NJ Transit for rush hour access to Penn Station, Metro North will also looking for rush hour access to Penn Station resulting in a four-way competition.
There may be no changes to level of Penn Station rush hour service in the foreseeable future until 2032.
Will new LIRR President Philip Eng be any more successful than his predecessors? Time will tell.
Larry Penner
(Larry Penner is a transportation historian and advocate who previously worked in 31 years for the US Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Region 2 NY Office) .
