NEW YORK — The Federal Railroad Administration will grant a waiver allowing the Long Island Rail Road to open its route to the new Grand Central Madison terminal without installation of equipment to prevent Amtrak trains from inadvertently taking the wrong route, the New York Post reports.
The move should allow the long-delayed terminal, some 140 feet below Park Avenue, to open before the end of the year, as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has promised for some time. The MTA has yet to announce a specific date for the opening.
The “hazard detector” equipment will eventually be installed, the Post reports. But in granting the waiver, the newspaper reports FRA regulators rotes that “if an Amtrak train operating with oversized rolling stock is routed toward the [Madison] tunnel, a series of redundant protections exist to prevent that train from entering the tunnel. … Granting LIRR’s request is in the public interest and consistent with railroad safety.”
An MTA spokesman said the FRA waiver was anticipated because “the LIRR train control system already has features that prevent oversized trains from entering the east side tunnels.
Share this article
