Manhattan, July 28, 2011 - A great deal of the focus concerning East Side Access surrounds the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) entering a new lower level of Grand Central Terminal in a few years (hopefully). On the flip-side, a relatively little-discussed part of the project involves Metro-North (MNR).
I can predict your thoughts - what does Metro-North have to do with ESA? The answer is plenty.
The new M-8 cars you're seeing plying the rails of the New Haven line in the coming years will have an additional port to call at - NY Penn Station. The cars were designed to use both MNR's under running 3rd rail and LIRR's overrunning (dragging over the power rail like the subways).
According to unnamed sources, this hasn't reached the design phase but involves adding new LIRR-style 3rd rail so that the M-8 cars don't have to interface with an additional phase of electrical over catenary power which is something the new 'tomato cans' can't handle.
Since NY Penn Station is at complete capacity, LIRR trains would have to be displaced by MNR's equipment. One of the theories behind ESA is that the 2 agencies would engineer a train 'swap' of 2:1 or even 3:1 but this still in a pipe dream as the tunnel boring 'rock eating' machine has just completed it task. Years of work are still ahead before track can be laid and signalling put into place.
An interesting possibility is that a Metro-North M-8 could go down Amtrak's Hell Gate line and still could wind up in Grand Central but in the LIRR's new lair.
I encourage you to visit Jim Cameron's
CT Rail Commuter Council blog at: www.trainweb.org/. Many concerns that crop up on the Metro-North's New Haven line are discussed on the site. This very topic can be under the banner of
Metro- North Penn Station Access Study than can be found at:
http://www.trainweb.org/ct/mnpenn.htm .
Nonetheless, I look forward to any of these developments becoming reality - I just want to see them.
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