Passenger Trains > Why Amtrak is detouring Empire Service to Grand Central

NY1.com photo shows the Spuyten Duyvil swing span after it was lifted by
a huge crane and set down on a barge. It will be taken to a remote site.

Second photo, also from NY1.com, shows a modified P32-ACDM locomotive,
with newly-installed nose escape hatch.

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Looks like the "Left Coast Lifter" was used to lift the swing span. This crane was used on the Oakland Bay Bridge, then came east to work on and may still be working on the replacement for and removal of the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Love the picture of the bridge, that is one heck of a lift. If the old railroader builders could see what we have now, they'd probably comment about how much more they could have gotten built.

Nathan

That nose hatch doesn't look bad.

What are they going to do with the span after it reaches the remote site? Is a replacement span going to be installed?

At one time I recall that the largest lift barge was made in Nazi Germany and was sent to the US after the war.
Is this that one, or something newer?

a couple of comments:

this is not a lift bridge -- it is a turn bridge, pivoting on a casement in the middle of the channel. I remember watching it turn and open and then close when on a Grey Line boat trip around Manhattan back in 1955. That's one old bridge given its complicated mechanics.

The new nose doors on the dual-mode locomotives were crafted by the people at Amtrak's Rensselaer shops .... they have proven such a good design that Metro-North wants to have their from-the-manufacturer escape doors replaced with the new Amtrak design to prevent the constant water intrusion allowed by the original doors. And why, you ask, need any doors? As has been reported previously, tracks 1 & 4 of the Park Avenue tunnel do not have sufficient side clearance for an engineer to leave/escape the cab in an emergency situation, hence the nose doors.

If it is possible to detour Empire Service trains, why isn't the Lake Shore included? Perhaps they couldn't get the caterer of those delicious cold meals to locate Grand Central?

To accommodate the nose hatch, the original nose number board is removed with unit number painted on each side. It looks like the hatch is hinged at the bottom - what kind of hand holds or foot holds are available to the exiting engineer on the nose?

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> If it is possible to detour Empire Service trains,
> why isn't the Lake Shore included? Perhaps they
> couldn't get the caterer of those delicious cold
> meals to locate Grand Central?


Extremely limited facilities at Grand Central, and very limited number of engines that can go to GC.

railstiesballast said,
"At one time I recall that the largest lift barge was made in Nazi Germany and was sent to the US after the war.
Is this that one, or something newer?"
The huge marine crane that you are referring to was brought back to the US after WWII by the Navy as a "war prize". It immediately got the nick name of "Herman the German" and was stationed at Long Beach, CA. (Huell Howser did a half-hour show on it!) Several years ago, it was declared surplus by the Navy, and was sold to the Panama Canal Commission. It remains docked along the Panama Canal today.

RevRandy Wrote:
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> this is not a lift bridge

They're talking about a lift BARGE -- a barge with a big crane that's used to pick up the bridge.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> If it is possible to detour Empire Service trains,
> why isn't the Lake Shore included? Perhaps they
> couldn't get the caterer of those delicious cold
> meals to locate Grand Central?

They still have to service the sleepers, beyond the scope of Metro North coach cleaners.

48 would also be sitting around some place in GCT until the following afternoon. Where would they put it ? Madison Avenue coach yard is gone. They have tracks 23 & 24 for the overnight layup of the 2 Canadian trains (which swap), but they are not very long station tracks. Historically, 49 used to leave from track 18. There is also a hell of a lot more Metro North service now than there was in the 1980's.

When it goes back to normal in September, presumably the diner, aka "sleeper-lounge" would go to NY and the Biz-dinette would still go to Boston. They always ran some take of some take-out snack service from the diner south of Albany. I don't know what they will do come September.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/18 10:16 by joemvcnj.

Remember this bridge only needs to be lifted up a matter of inches, or at the most a foot to 18 inches to be put on the barge. This is a swing bridge and not a lift bridge. If they had the barge cribbed up you could get by only with needing to lift to clear anything on the pivot part of the bridge that could not be removed or cut down. Unloading could be even easier with it being rolled off the barge onto land, see how they would launch a Bailey Bridge over where they want it to span.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> If it is possible to detour Empire Service trains,
> why isn't the Lake Shore included? Perhaps they
> couldn't get the caterer of those delicious cold
> meals to locate Grand Central?

The better question is why the Lake Shore Limited New York section is not being detoured via Springfield and New Haven, an established Amtrak route. Not as though the trip is time sensitive and it doesn't require dual mode engines.

abyler Wrote:
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>
> The better question is why the Lake Shore Limited
> New York section is not being detoured via
> Springfield and New Haven, an established Amtrak
> route. Not as though the trip is time sensitive
> and it doesn't require dual mode engines.

In order for a NY section to be combined with the Boston section at Springfield and depart at 3:53pm, it would have to arrive no later than 3pm, which means leave New York around 11:30am, 4+ hours earlier than normal, nearly 3 hours earlier than now. Ditto in reverse - it would not arrive New York until around 10pm. They would have to change engines at New Haven as well, probably kill another 20 minutes. That would be a ridiculous detour to save an Albany transfer.

They should have switched Pennsylvanian coaches to the Capitol Ltd at Pittsburgh for the summer. That would have at least offered an alternative for travel between NYPS on one hand and points Cleveland thru Chicago on the other.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> They should have switched Pennsylvanian coaches to
> the Capitol Ltd at Pittsburgh for the summer. That
> would have at least offered an alternative for
> travel between NYPS on one hand and points
> Cleveland thru Chicago on the other.

That would have made too much sense. But I would have also included coaches, one sleeper, and one Viewliner Diner (there are enough around). The Lake Shore usually operates with three Viewliner sleepers, it could have yielded one to the Pennsylvanian through car operation/test. At least it could have tested the waters on if this through train operation would have worked.

The LSL consist, or which there are 3 sets, is down by 2 coaches and 1 sleeper, and the Amfleet-2 dinette has been relieved of its duty.
The 4 cars could have been added to the Pennsylvanian and sent through to Chicago.

Cut Penn DOT's subsidy bill by 50% for the 3 months as a consolation prize for the potential eastbound delay, add that to the capital cost of the Spuyten Duyvil repair, probably around $500,000, but add back the incremental revenue over cost of the thru cars. It would have worked; Penn DOT would be glad to get a break. But Amtrak is happy to get a gentlemanly C- on running their railroad and doing anything beyond bare essentials to retain their market.

RevRandy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The new nose doors on the dual-mode locomotives
> were crafted by the people at Amtrak's Rensselaer
> shops .... they have proven such a good design
> that Metro-North wants to have their
> from-the-manufacturer escape doors replaced with
> the new Amtrak design to prevent the constant
> water intrusion allowed by the original doors. And
> why, you ask, need any doors? As has been
> reported previously, tracks 1 & 4 of the Park
> Avenue tunnel do not have sufficient side
> clearance for an engineer to leave/escape the cab
> in an emergency situation, hence the nose doors.

Thanks for the information. How does this arrangement address the need /requirement for illuminated number board(s) at night?

Not a specific answer to your question, but one significant difference between the LIRR M-7 MU and the MN M-7A MU is the LIRR cars have side lit number boards, MN ones only have decals. LIRR still has several switch towers around and need to identify trains. MN does not.

http://prr4ever.blogspot.com/2016/10/16-10-09-photos-nassau.html (3rd photo)

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/95325



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/18 11:01 by joemvcnj.