Is The PATH Considered a Subway or Railroad

[Bonanza123d]

I would like to know, because I would like to see how much World Of Subways fails at realizing this.

[553 Bridgeton]

IIRC PATH is a railroad and is operated under FRA rules.

[theaveragejoe]

IIRC PATH is a railroad and is operated under FRA rules.

 

Only cause of its outside track connection to the NEC

[Bstyles]

No, its a railroad. It operates as a bi-state agency, like Metro-North and LIRR(which pass through the counties unlike NYCTA, which passes through the boroughs) unlike the mass transit systems of New York and New Jersey, which are fixated in one city(no, not NJT. Look them up).

[Amtrak7]

By FRA rules, it is a railroad. However, it has several exemptions so it doesn't need to follow every single railroad rule (like SIR). It no longer has outside track connections, but it used to have NEC connections.

[error46146]

what about journal square and newark?

[Amtrak7]

what about journal square and newark?

 

No track connections (they run next to each other)

[metsfan]

PATH, or Port Authority Trans Hudson, was originally the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, and it ran between manhattan and hudson county via tunnels under the east river. They expanded to run downtown manhattan via tunnel from NJ and to manhattan transfer then newark later. The right of way was shared with all number of PRR diesel steam and electric powered trains to New York Terminal, located where the hyatt hotel now stands, the katyn memorial would have been under the elevated tracks & "bubble" canopy coming down christopher columbus drive. PATH is a heavy rail rapid transit system operating as a partially exempt FRA wavier which gives them permission to operate "subway" style cars with no vestibules for crumple zones, and other more technical aspects. The original "hudson tube" cars ran ~65-70 mph between manhattan transfer and summit ave (now journal square) and similar speeds in the tunnels. The right of way between the current harrison station and hudson yard was configured to allow PRR trains to go on the same tracks, often within 2 signal blocks (well within view of each other) of the H&M trains. The 3rd rail DD1 trains went between manhattan transfer and new york penn station. The connection survived till the mid 60's i believe.

 

Yes, it's a railroad, just not the kind you'd think of when you hear the word railroad.

 

- A

[mark1447]

By FRA rules, it is a railroad. However, it has several exemptions so it doesn't need to follow every single railroad rule (like SIR). It no longer has outside track connections, but it used to have NEC connections.

 

I think there maybe a connection to the Railroad tho, I see CSX tracks interlining the PATH in Nj.

[Cait Sith]

I think there maybe a connection to the Railroad tho, I see CSX tracks interlining the PATH in Nj.

 

There is I think. I think there is a switch connection when going in and out of the Grove Street Portal (or tunnel or w/e)

[Y2Julio]

By FRA rules, it is a railroad. However, it has several exemptions so it doesn't need to follow every single railroad rule (like SIR). It no longer has outside track connections, but it used to have NEC connections.

 

We don't need to follow FRA rules either. We're exempt.

[metsfan]

There is one diamond from hudson yard into harrison facility that crosses the typically nwk-wtc track, that connection goes directly into the far side of the yard towards the river. There was another connection onto the running track but it was torn up i think about 10 years ago. Removal of that connection simplified the signaling in and around the hudson yard/harrison PATH facility for both NEC ops and PATH ops. Since the one link is a diamond and not a switch you only need a crossing signal vs a running signal for the involved block which it crosses. Conrail sometimes takes away or delivers MOW vehicles for PATH, sometimes they are stored at the tail track near the portal east of journal square before/after they are scheduled to be handed off. Sometimes they are stored in hudson yard.

 

I have often worried about that one last connection being severed, but i don't think it will be, because equipment on flat cars is cheaper via rail vs truck, plus any far away shops/lease companies have a yard from which to send and receive such equipment.

 

- A

[trainluv]

the PATH is a high speed rail like the PATCO between philly and south jersey. they stand between subways(NYCT) and commuter railroads(LIRR), so basically its half commuter rail and half subway. they're not railroads. why? because they don't go through the railroad crossings, they don't share tracks with transport railroads like the CSX or share tracks with Amtrak if they did then you will call it the PATH railroad.

[Bonanza123d]

So world of subways fails

[553 Bridgeton]

World of Subways was not ment to give you a 100% feel of the route due to obvious reasons and even if 9/11 didnt happen you still wouldnt get the full feel of the route.

 

Its ment to give you a non accurate feel of the route. If you dont like it then become a PATH operator.

 

To the average person(non railbuff) PATH is subway.

[nyland8]

PATH fits the first definition of "Subway"

 

" ... an underground electric railroad, usually in a large city." But bureaucratic anomalies render it a hybrid - neither fish nor fowl.

 

As an aside, it would be nice if it went further south, only one stop beyond its proposed Newark Airport expansion, and linked up with another modified FRA hybrid - the SIR. If the Staten Island Railway follows through in its plans to reopen its northern corridor, it can run across the bascule bridge on the Arthur Kill and up the right-of-way to Elizabeth Station. Then Staten Islanders could link to the WTC or Herald Square with the swipe of a MetroCard. The MTA could run the modified SIR/PATH as an FRA "C" division.

 

In a sane world, practical mass-transit decisions would be made that serve the needs of the region, rather than only narrow political and jurisdictional interests.

[lilbluefoxie]

it is a Railroad that behaves like a Subway/Metro

[GojiMet86]

There's a track before Journal Square that has some crossings to PATH, but is also connected to a freight line (Passaic and Harsimus Line). There is also that direct connection to the Northeast Corridor around the "start" of the PATH Harrison Yard.

[Kamen Rider]

Please, watch the Nazi Banksters Crimes Ripple Effect at http://jforjustice.co.uk/banksters

[N-Trizzy2609]

SIRT is built to the BMT/IND specifications, a 10 foot loading gauge. PATH is based on IRT specifications, and is a foot narrower. the MTA has no authority to operate intrastate service in New Jersey. Aurther Kill is a single tracked lift span.

 

SIRTOA and PATH have thier wavers becuase they run independantly. you're asking Staten Island trains to mix with Conrail and CSX

 

"C division" is taken, that's the MTA's work fleet.

 

Don't say never too quick about a subway line running into Jersey. If y'all remember, Gov. Christie tried to push for the extension to Seacacus but then Amtrak came with the Gateway tunnel and now they wanna send the to Penn Station.

 

Too add there was some ambitious plan to send the SIR from St. George to Arlington and having a NJT diesel light rail connect at Arlington to Elizabeth and Newark Airport. Now that was shelved when CSX mouthing off, and now their pushing a HBLR extension down Rt. 440 and the Bayonne Bridge.

[nyland8]

SIRT is built to the BMT/IND specifications, a 10 foot loading gauge. PATH is based on IRT specifications, and is a foot narrower. the MTA has no authority to operate intrastate service in New Jersey. Aurther Kill is a single tracked lift span.

 

SIRTOA and PATH have thier wavers becuase they run independantly. you're asking Staten Island trains to mix with Conrail and CSX

 

"C division" is taken, that's the MTA's work fleet.

The lines needn't connect, Kamen Rider. In fact, the place where the SIR comes into Elizabeth would put it at right angles to the PATH system - no easy transition there. SIR riders could simply switch trains in Elizabeth - just as most commuters in the city require more than one train to get where they're going. Of course, it would be nicer if trains could run from Tottenville all the way to Herald Square unrestricted. It would require altering the SIR line to take PATH rolling stock - an expense perhaps, but not impossible, and not a fraction of the time or cost of tunnel connections to Brooklyn. The same issue goes with the bridge. They can shunt trains onto a single track until a higher, two lane bridge is built - again at a tiny fraction of tunneling to connect to a Brooklyn BMT/IND type line. The crossing is small.

 

And the designation for divisions is simply a nomenclature issue. Who cares if the MTA calls them the XYZ division? They're not likely to run out of letters, numbers or symbols anytime soon.

 

Interstate "authority" is the smallest issue of all. That happens with the wave a pen. All that's required is the bi-state recognition of the need - and the political will to get it done. Again, all of this can materialize - and more - at a fraction of the time and money that it will take to build connections under the Narrows.

 

The underutilized right-of-ways already exist - the only thing that's missing is the vision.

[Nova RTS 9147]

You guys can call it what you want, but as far as the FRA is concerned PATH is a railway with waivers.

 

Don't say never too quick about a subway line running into Jersey. If y'all remember, Gov. Christie tried to push for the extension to Seacacus but then Amtrak came with the Gateway tunnel and now they wanna send the to Penn Station.

 

Too add there was some ambitious plan to send the SIR from St. George to Arlington and having a NJT diesel light rail connect at Arlington to Elizabeth and Newark Airport. Now that was shelved when CSX mouthing off, and now their pushing a HBLR extension down Rt. 440 and the Bayonne Bridge.

 

That idea to NJ was dead before it was even proposed. As for the Gateway proposal (which if planned right could actually be feasible), I'll believe if when I see it. And by that I mean when Amtrak has a source of income that would make me confident about its future.

[Kamen Rider]

Please, watch the Nazi Banksters Crimes Ripple Effect at http://jforjustice.co.uk/banksters

[nyland8]

That was your suggestion...

 

 

 

It's not so much they can't use the bridge is that the SIR has NEVER used the bridge. the crossing isn't "small", it's the longest movable span of it's class in the world. main span is nearly 600 feet. It abuts a reactived container terminal, Howland Hook. To operater a new service as you suggest, on top of the Garbage trains and the COFA trains, the double track span would need to be immoble. to allow it to be immoble, it would need to be as high as the lift span is when open.

 

 

 

Nothing is "simply" anything when the MTA is concered.

 

 

 

No, it can't metrialize, infact, it's illegal, and if you know anything about the situation you'd know why. Reason #1 is the MTA is funded by albany, and MTA funding can't be used to provided point to point service within another state. Lets say I got on your SIR/PATH super system in Elizabeth, and was only going to, say, Harrision or Grove street. That is an intrastate trip, only in New Jersery. So unless Trenton wants to start footing bills, which red or blue an't gonna happen, MTA funds would be spent helping people not going to a point in New York state.

 

The MTA can operated the New Haven Line, and NJT does MNR west of hudson, under contract only. NH is funded by the Connecticut, which owns 2/3rds of the New Haven fleet.

 

Secondly, outside of the CDOT deal, the MTA is legealy confined by it's charter as a corporation to the 12 downstate counties the MTA services.

 

Now I know what you're saying, the whole wave of a pen bit. This is New York. I don't know how old you are or how long you've lived here, I think you've giving our state government WAY to much credit here. the MTA is Albany's punching bag. They take money away from it and expect it to provide MORE service. They're resistant to any change. the MTA went to the legislautre several times, asking permession to merger the LIRR and Metro-North into one legal entity.

 

 

 

245 truck loads worth of trash a day leaving SI is not underuilization.

All points well made and well taken ... and I appreciate the insights. Thanks for taking the time to hash this out with me, because it's clear that you are conversant with the limitations. But your observations still don't dispel the underlying assumptions of my argument - which are these:

 

Engineering designs, feasibility and environmental studies, land acquisition, actual tunneling across the Narrows and the logistics of interconnecting currently active trains ... all of these things represent tangible obstacles - REAL obstacles - that still put connectivity of the fifth borough at least a generation away - probably two. And that's to say nothing of the costs. Real costs!!

 

But what you're trying to sell, it seems to me, is that the greater obstacle to connectivity through New Jersey rests with relationships between Trenton and Albany ??!!?? Do you buy that yourself?

 

You ask me how old I am? I'll tell you this ... I'm old enough to remember when Bulgaria and Romania were part of the Warsaw pact - Soviet client states behind the Iron Curtain - and Croatia and Slovenia didn't even exist. But today I can buy a single Eurail Pass and, for a single price, have unlimited travel through those countries - AND 18 OTHERS !!

 

If 22 different countries - 22 entirely different political systems that don't even speak the same language - can iron out the legalities, overcome their respective bureaucracies and calculate equitable revenue sharing for a single rail pass, I believe that two neighboring states with profoundly interconnected interests can work out rational mass-transit solutions that, while they may be less than perfect, still serve the greater interests of the region. You tell me that I give Albany way too much credit, and I say that, on a scale of demonstrated human achievement, you set the bar way too low. What I'm suggesting is E-A-S-Y !!

 

All that's required is for enough people to share the vision. This creates the political will to move things in a direction which is faster, saner and much, much cheaper. In fact, pennies on the dollar. And the shortest distance - in both time and money - is to subsume the PATH system into the MTA. That process, unto itself, doesn't require building a single foot of track. But the door that it opens up to potential benefits to the region will go on for generations.

 

It can materialize - but only if enough people on both sides of the estuary can be made to understand the benefits - in both time and money - and those are easy to demonstrate. But that won't happen with limited thinking and myopic vision. I'm not suggesting building a canal from San Diego to Brownsville. I'm not suggesting building a bridge from Miami to Havana, or a viable submarine base in Sheboygan, or a dam that turns the Grand Canyon into a reservoir, or a subterranean bullet train from New York to L.A. Quite the contrary, from a purely infrastructural standpoint, what I'm suggesting is the easiest thing to do!! It doesn't even require land acquisition for new right-of-ways. 95% of what is needed to make this happen already exists!!! All that's required to fulfill this idea is the other 5% ... AND mustering the political will to see it done. That comes with sharing the vision.

 

Building a pair of rail tunnels across the Narrows is a big leap. In fact, it's huge. Start to finish, it might amount to $4 billion - or more. By comparison, building a high-enough fixed span across the Arthur Kill, including elevating the approaches on both sides, would be nothing. If it cost $100 million, you'd still have a difference of $3.9 BILLION. Even with all of the infrastructure alterations, you'd still be paying a nickel on the dollar. The money saved alone would be enough to run the 7 train to Secaucus Transfer - and by that time, the issues of interstate legality would already have been ironed out.

 

The rest is just paperwork.

 

Thanks again for the insights.