>>The derailment of a commuter train in New York Penn Station causes severe delays throughout the Northeast Corridor, pointing to the need to invest in additional rail capacity.
The Northeast Corridor is like a house of cards; when one card goes, the whole house comes down with it.
Such was the case yesterday, when an NJ TRANSIT train derailed in one of the tunnels between New York and New Jersey, causing delays that cascaded throughout the system and lasted over 24 hours. The headline from the Washington Post says it all: "Commuter train derails at Hudson River tunnel in NYC; disrupts trains throughout Northeast."
According to Amtrak, at approximately 8:00 AM Tuesday morning, an NJ TRANSIT train headed to Trenton, NJ, derailed just after leaving New York Penn Station in the tunnels underneath the Hudson River. The train's last two cars jumped the tracks, stranding over 300 passengers for over an hour until a rescue train arrived.
Over the past 24 hours, this one small accident has wreaked havoc on commuters as its effects reverberated throughout the NEC. As workers rushed to investigate and repair the accident, NJ commuters saw delays of 60-90 minutes that began yesterday morning and lasted throughout the day. NJ TRANSIT was forced to cut its train service in half and divert some service to its terminal in Hoboken, NJ. Over night, NJ TRANSIT canceled all service to and from NYC, and this morning, commuters continued to see delays or diversion to Hoboken Terminal.
Up and down the NEC, travelers felt the impacts of the derailment. Amtrak was reporting delays of 30-60 minutes, affecting passengers as far away as Washington, DC and Boston, as trains struggled to get through NYC. For passengers in Pennsylvania, the Keystone service was cut back to Philadelphia, canceling through-service to NYC altogether. The 150,000 daily commuters on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), who share New York Penn Station with Amtrak and NJ Transit, were not spared from the incident either. The LIRR saw delays of its own and was forced to cut some of its trains during yesterday's evening rush.
The Trans-Hudson Bottleneck
The derailment is more evidence that we need additional rail capacity between New York and New Jersey.
Major delays are caused by the severe capacity bottleneck underneath the Hudson River. Currently, there is only one set of tunnels to carry commuter and Amtrak trains from New Jersey to New York Penn Station - with one tunnel for inbound trains and one tunnel for outbound trains. When one tunnel goes out of commission for any reason - a stalled train, a power failure, a derailment - capacity is cut by more than half (for more details on the technical constraints, see note below).
As a result, the trans-Hudson tunnels are one of the most vulnerable points on the NEC. Take down the tunnels and you take down the corridor. Every day, 100 Amtrak trains and over 350 NJ TRANSIT trains move through tunnels. And during the morning rush hours, approximately 70,000 NJ TRANSIT commuters rely on their steady operation. If this critical link is broken, service on the entire corridor is disrupted. The situation is made worse by the fact that the tunnels were constructed in 1910. Service disruptions are common, as both NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak trains occasionally lose power inside.
New Tunnels
Yesterday's derailment is salt in the wounds of supporters of the now-defunct ARC tunnel,which was canceled by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2010. The project would have completed a new set of rail tunnels under the Hudson, effectively doubling capacity between New York and New Jersey and providing a back-up system in the case of a disruption in the current tunnels.
After ARC was canceled, Amtrak put forth its own proposal for increasing trans-Hudson capacity in February 2011. The Gateway Project would add two new tunnels between New York and New Jersey. While the ARC tunnel was primarily a commuter rail project, Gateway would be aimed at supporting the expansion of Amtrak's service on the NEC. The project would also enable an increase of NJ TRANSIT service, but not to the same extent as ARC. In April, Amtrak applied to the federal high-speed rail program for almost $200 million to perform preliminary engineering and environmental analysis for the new tunnels, as part of a larger application for investments on the NEC, but was rejected.
While the Gateway plans are good news for the NEC, the Trans-Hudson issue is still far from being solved because of a serious lack of political will among local leaders. The states of New York and New Jersey have each faced major budget crises and appear unready to tackle the challenge of new trans-Hudson capacity. And the Port Authority, which is responsible for investing in major bi-state connections, has turned its attention to other important projects.
With ARC gone and the Gateway Tunnel stuck in the planning stages, the NEC needs strong leadership to make the trans-Hudson issue a top priority for local and regional investments.
(Note on Capacity: In the event that one tunnel in a pair is put out of commission, overall capacity is cut by more than 50%. When trains go through a single tunnel in one direction, they can follow each other one after the other with minimal space in between. But if a single tunnel serves trains going in both directions, the trains must be more spaced out, because a train going in one direction must wait for the train in the opposite direction to clear the tunnel. So, for example, two tunnels each serving 25 trains per hour, becomes one tunnel serving 15.)
Images
Photo: NJ Transit.
Postcard of Hudson River Tunnels: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
While ARC would have been nice, the issue of no connection to Penn station for me was a deal breaker. However, they need to try and keep the cost down for the Gateway project. I would like to see a massive reform such as getting rid of the 15 minute dwell at Penn station, widen the narrow platforms and make it a bit more lively down there since it looks quite old and dreary.