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.
I got clarification. There are four tunnels in the ESA project. Two are for NYCTA B Division (IND/BMT) subway trains, and two are for the LIRR trains to Grand Central Terminal-Madison (GCT-Mad.) These are different from the four Amtrak/LIRR tubes from LI City to Penn Station, dating to 1910.
The LIRR ESA tunnels (the ESA tunnels are called “Tunnels” while the PRR-AMTK-LIRR Penn Station tubes are called “Tubes”) The LIRR ESA tunnels are built to Penn Station (PSNY) clearances more or less. ESA has four tunnels under SSYD merging into two under the East River.
The ESA tunnels begin on the Queens side at “HAROLD” interlocking at Sunnyside Yard. They go under the East River and end under the lower level of Metro-North (MNR) track at GCT. The ESA line has a special Cab Signal pulse code; LIRR equipment authorised to use ESA can read this pulse code but unauthorised trains can not. Unauthorised trains will receive a “Restricting” signal on the cab signal (no code), and the Speed Control function will limit speed to 20 MPH. This should be enough to inform the engineer the train’s on the wrong line. There’s no overhead power on the ESA, only overrunning third rail.
So it was originally planned as a Subway tunnel to Division B standards (IND/BMT) and not for real RR cars. And with grades too steep for R1-9 cars.
Phil & Al: The East Side Access tunnels are from what I’ve been hearing, only barely larger (if that much) than the IND subway tunnels that sit atop them while crossing the East River, as the only cars that fit in the tunnels are 3rd-rail-only electrics. Metro-North M8’s (New Haven line) arre too tall owing to their rooftop equipment (pantographs+transformers) and even LIRR’s older MU’s (M3’s) are (supposedly) barred from entering ESA owing to insufficient ability to climb the grades into or out of the terminal and/or Queens portals.
Strange – weeks ago this was a waiver from having PTC in operation before opening, now it’s about misrouted Amtrak trains? Sure, the 63rd St tunnel level for LIRR is too low for certain equipment, but PTC does far more than block specific trains. So what’s actually going on here?
Also wondering – when will LIRR begin disaster recovery testing (like evacuation drills, blackout drills, etc.), and when will they start doing the sort of testing that TFL did for months before Elizabeth Line opened? Or is the attitude that LIRR has daily breakdowns of cars, switches, signals, tracks, so we don’t really need to test? And, escalators that have almost no usage so far – how do they already need major maintenance?
This makes no sense.
If they need such a device, it should be on the Hell Gate Line where freight equipment goes onto the freight tracks and down the the Bronx River or Brooklyn.
No Superliners north of DC, so what’s the problem?
Amtrak has a tight loading gauge for Penn Station. What is oversized?
The FRA granting a ‘waiver’ to the Long Island RR without installing signal/safety equipment that’s to prevent Amtrak trains from taking “the wrong track …” into the LIRR terminal at Grand Central …..
What could possibly go wrong?
Amtrak is always on “the wrong track …” (Ba-da, bump …)
Nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong.