Fed Agency Studies How to Speed More Trains Through Penn Station

Amtrak and commuter trains sit at their platforms in Penn Station far longer than trains at any of a dozen global rail hubs, and speeding them on their way would allow a big increase in service at much less cost than physically expanding the station into the neighborhood, according to a Federal report.

“Every minute a train occupies a platform is a minute that the platform cannot serve the next train,” according to the report, from the Federal Railroad Administration.

The report, requested by Andy Byford, Amtrak’s man in charge of rebuilding Penn Station, refocuses the Penn Station debates past architecture and reversing the demolition of the original Penn Station.

Instead, it dryly notes what most passengers know, “the reliability of operations at the station also leaves room for improvement.”

The purpose of the report, the first of two on the topic, is to ensure that Byford and his private partner, Penn Transformation Partners, include those improvements in their remaking of the station, or at least don’t do anything to preclude them later.

Hanging over that work, and over the neighborhood, is the question of whether a remade Penn Station can by the end of the next decade accommodate a doubling of Amtrak and New Jersey Transit service under the Hudson River.

The railroads had long argued, over objections from the neighborhood, that they would need an expansion, with the most likely option a $16-billion terminal just south of the existing station.

But Byford has said it would be unconscionable to tear down the neighborhood, often described by its tax roll number, block 780, without first wringing every bit of capacity out of the existing station. He asked the Federal Railroad Administration to conduct an independent study.

The FRA did not settle the matter in its first report, but it did say that various steps to speed trains through the station could add eight trains an hour to the morning rush service from New Jersey, to 32 trains from the present 24.

“These improvements could provide up to a third of the additional capacity envisioned under the previous Penn Station Expansion project at a fraction of its estimated $16.7 billion cost,” the agency reported.

That is still short of the 48 trains an hour the railroads will be able to run under the river when the new Gateway tunnel project is completed in 2038. The railroads have said they will need all of that extra capacity and more to accommodate the growth in demand they forecast for trans-Hudson service.

“Once these Gateway Program investments are complete, Penn Station itself—its tracks, platforms, stairs, and operations—becomes the binding constraint on how much passenger rail service the system can accommodate,” The federal report said. “If the station cannot process passengers quickly, safely, and more reliably, the benefits of these adjacent rail infrastructure investments will not reach riders.”

The report compared train operations at Penn Station to 11 other rail hubs in major world cities. Penn Station came in dead last for how long it took to move trains through the station-- by a lot.

Commuter trains spend an average of six to 15 minutes at the Penn Station platform and Amtrak’s intercity trains spend 15 minutes, the report said. That is three times as long as the next closest peer city – Istanbul for intercity trains and Berlin for commuter trains.

The main explanation for this is that Penn Station has the narrowest, and most obstacle strewn platforms, of any station, the report said.

“Penn Station’s platform widths average less than 20 feet, representing the narrowest width in the Study Team’s international comparison dataset” according to the report. “Peer stations with similar or higher train volumes utilize wider platforms to help clear platforms quickly, such as Utrecht Central Station (about 39 feet) located in Utrecht, Netherlands or Waterloo Station (about 33 feet) located in London, England.”

Clearing away obstacles on the platform and adding more stairs, escalators or elevators would allow trains to be emptied or boarded “an estimated 2.4 minutes faster than currently, an improvement of 28 percent over existing conditions.”

One of the most obvious physical impediments are the 1,000 columns that have held up Madison Square garden, the 2 Penn Office tower and the rest of the station since the original Penn was demolished in the 1960s’

The Penn Transformation offered by Byford would remove about 100 of those columns. The Federal Report does not directly address what would have been possible if Madison Square Garden were moved, an idea project officials appear to have examined and abandoned as unrealistic.

The Federal Report said there was a second problem that contributed to the station’s inefficiency – the poor on time performance of both Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. “When trains do not arrive or depart on schedule, delays often cascade such that a late train on one track can delay movements across the entire station,” the report said.

The report said only 76% of Amtrak trains arrive on time as do 81% of New Jersey Transit trains. Only the Long Island Railroad has an on-time rate above 90%. The FRA said that in its second report, due in 2028, it would examine both operational and infrastructure changes across the region that could improve performance.

That is also where the agency will examine a radical operational change known as “through-running,” that transit and neighborhood advocates have long argued would increase speed through Penn station and alleviate any need for a physical expansion into the neighborhood.

In this first report the FRA said only that what it characterized as a “gradual shift” to through running, combined with improving platforms, would produce about the same improvement

Under through running, commuter trains from Long Island and New Jersey would continue with passengers through Penn Station into each other’s territory before turning around.

Through-running has gained considerable currency in local debates, so much so that Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Manhattan Borough president held a town hall to discuss it, the first time a city elected official has invited debate on the topic.

At the Town Hall, Tom Wright, head of the Regional Plan Association, said he did not believe through-running would solve the demand for increased service under the Hudson.

“But we have to be thinking long term about the capacity issues too,” Wright said, “and I think it was a mistake to shut down the study, thinking about what those options are.”

But at the same session, Blair Lorenzo, Executive Director of the Effective Transit Alliance, noted that the demand to double service, to 48 trains an hour, could be met by reducing average time trains spend in the station to ten minutes.

That would be a significant improvement from current performance yet still well above peer cities in the FRA report.