4 ms·

The two "easy" fixes (in the sense of not needing construction) are to through-run trains (which reduces the amount of time trains need to occupy tracks) and to

The two "easy" fixes (in the sense of not needing construction) are to through-run trains (which reduces the amount of time trains need to occupy tracks) and to assign and announce trains to the tracks on a permanent basis. The main reason trains aren't assigned to tracks in advance is because American passenger trains are run by incompetent people who insist that practices that are normal outside of the US are completely and totally impossible and therefore it's impossible to assign trains to tracks. There is also a subsidiary reason that the platforms at Penn Station are too narrow to have good bidirectional passenger flow, so they want to keep people off of them as much as possible.

mikepurvis 3y ago
Union Station in Toronto has the same issue with narrow platforms— if people were waiting on the platforms to get on, there'd be no room for anyone to get off the trains.
- ses1984 3y ago
  Pretty much every train I’ve ever boarded at Penn station was empty when it pulled in. Trains that come in with passengers discharge them then leave for service.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    In the Long Island direction, trains are most often coming from the West Side Yard, which is what Hudson Yards was built on top of. In the New Jersey direction you have a higher chance of encountering a train with passengers on it, because they use Sunnyside Yard in Queens for this purpose, but the yard is often at capacity or the tunnels leading to them are, so those trains may need to turn around in Penn instead.
earthboundkid 3y ago
As someone who used the train in Japan extensively, it drives me crazy that Amtrak can’t do simple stuff like knowing what platform a train is going to come to, let alone get the train to line up so the doors are in the right place. A train system run in a foreign language should not be simpler and less confusing than one in my native language!
- saghm 3y ago
  At Penn station, you used to be able to wait on the floor below (which has a staircase from the main floor as well as its own staircases down to each platform) and then just directly go down to your Amtrak as soon as you wanted rather than waiting for them to form a giant line. My dad taught me this trick, and we both used to use it to be able to avoid waiting longer, but once when I did it one of the Amtrak workers got super angry at me for it despite the fact that I did wait until after everyone leaving had come up, and as a socially awkward teen, I was too nervous to ever do it again. I suspect the rationale behind not telling people beforehand is that they don't want to have to deal with people trying to get on at the same time as people leaving, but I feel like the main reason people are so aggressive about trying to get to the train as fast as possible on Amtrak is precisely _because_ the system treats them as too irresponsible to get timely accurate information. If people didn't need to worry about having only a couple short minutes to avoid missing their train and could plan ahead where to be when the train arrived, I think that a lot of people wouldn't feel the need to try to jostle through the crowd to race each other for the earlier spots in the line.
  - benesch 3y ago
    You can still do this. In fact, it’s even easier since the construction of the new mezzanine beneath Moynihan. There are glass windows on the mezzanine looking out onto the tracks beneath. If you’re good at differentiating train set for your train, you can easily spot your Amtrak train as it pulls in and head down to the platform well before the track is announced. Knock on wood, but I’ve never had anyone give me so much as a sideways glance for this. The red caps will let you down early if you ask for assistance anyway.
    - saghm 3y ago
      Nice! I haven't ridden on Amtrak nearly as much in recent years, so I've only boarded twice in Moynihan, but it's definitely a _lot_ nicer than Penn Station, and it's nice to hear that the benefits go beyond just cosmetic.
    - meetingthrower 3y ago
nerdponx 3y ago
It's downright nonsense because the NYC MTA and even the notoriously incompetent Boston MBTA can do it. Meanwhile Amtrak apparently can't do it either, but at least they have the luxury of long wait times between arrival and departure.
steveBK123 3y ago
The crazier thing is that at Penn, the train is usually on the same stupid track. You realize this after you see the regulars lingering around certain areas of the mezzanine so they manage to get to the front of the line once it's formally announced. So I think its more a keeping people off platform thing or overall zero care for customer service.
- microtherion 3y ago
  The Zürich main station for their busiest tracks uses a system where the track is not guaranteed, but the platform is, i.e. you wait on the platform, but you will only know a few minutes in advance whether the train is going to arrive on the left hand side or the right hand side.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Completely reasonable and not stampede inducing! For those who have ridden LIRR on weekends, theres the old Long Beach summer route where everyone is sprinting down the stairs in flip flops carrying beach chairs too. It's truly insane.
flybrand 3y ago
> run by incompetent people They are very competent at keeping their jobs. Especially the guy who announced what track to go to.
bobthepanda 3y ago
Yes, the width of the platforms is basically 'tech debt' in physical form. Most of the layout of Penn Station is historical to its original construction (the destruction of Penn Station destroyed the hall, but the corridors below it are still there.) In the 1910s when Penn Station was built, commuting by railroad was miniscule and the future suburbs of New Jersey were still just woods and farms. So the layout gave large, wide platforms to the central tracks that hosted intercity trains, and narrow platforms to the commuter tracks that can barely host the width of a single escalator. This is a liability in 2023, because the share is overwhelmingly commuter traffic. Through run trains also have a problem with this, because if we implemented through running, today, the platforms would not adequately clear before the next train arrived, creating crowd crush on the platforms. The station is also fully at capacity, so there isn't really a way to expand the platforms to allow through running that wouldn't cut Penn Station's capacity for the next few years, if not a decade. (To give some perspective, the Japanese do projects fairly well, and Shibuya Station reorganization/widening started in 2015 and has stuff to do until 2027.) The current plan to maybe get a start on widening the existing platforms is to demolish a block of Manhattan to build new platforms to take the load while the existing ones can go out of service. Funding to take a block of the most expensive real estate in the world is unclear.
wnc3141 3y ago
What do you think the hiring process looks like? I'd guess it's a bunch of 3rd party consultancy or operator vendors
amluto 3y ago
At the risk of potentially being entirely wrong: There are a lot of platforms at Penn Station, and it seems to me that trains spend quite a long time at these platforms, in part due to issues related to passenger loading and unloaded. What if the number of platforms was reduced? (By placing bogeys that’s are just platforms on every second or third track, for example?) This would reduce the number of usable platforms by 1/3-1/2, but it would massively increase availability space for loading and unloading passengers. If this enabled faster train turnaround, it could plausibly increase station throughput. (Aside from being annoying and perhaps dangerous, the current scheme is absurdly inefficient. People can board a train far fast than they can go down the one or two (!) main escalators, and the train cars far from the escalators barely load at all until the nearer trains are mostly full.) edit: I’m apparently not entirely off base. Here’s a proposal that increases throughput while reducing the number of tracks: https://www.rethinknyc.org/through-running/ https://www.rethinknyc.org/through-running/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Simply bridging the platforms is not enough. You’d also need to get those people off the platforms before the next train arrived, and you would need something more permanent than platform bogies to support wider stairs and escalator banks.
  - amluto 3y ago
    A bridge gets passengers off the other side of the train to the escalators on the next platform over (I think), which could double or more-than-double the egress throughout. (More-than-double because, at least with some gates or careful monitoring, you don’t actually need the passengers off the platform to move the train - you just need the passengers off the train. Similarly, to board the train, the passengers could already be on the platform when the train arrives, allowing all cars to board simultaneously. (Of course, this isn’t terribly helpful for train cadence — you can’t board the next train until those passengers get to the platform.) As currently configured, unlike most sensible train stations, a train full of passengers can’t fit on the platform.)
ClassyJacket 3y ago
"people who insist that practices that are normal outside of the US are completely and totally impossible" This seems to be the culture in the US as a whole. Gun control? Completely impossible, even tho it's worked well in every first world country on the planet. Paying employees instead of tipping? Completely impossible, would disincentivise work and the economy would collapse, even tho it works well in every first world country on the planet. Public healthcare? Completely impossible, even tho it works well in every first world country on the planet.
- Muromec 3y ago
  The answer to all above is the class jihad
- FFP999 3y ago
  [dead]

mikepurvis 3y ago

Union Station in Toronto has the same issue with narrow platforms— if people were waiting on the platforms to get on, there'd be no room for anyone to get off the trains.

ses1984 3y ago
Pretty much every train I’ve ever boarded at Penn station was empty when it pulled in. Trains that come in with passengers discharge them then leave for service.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  In the Long Island direction, trains are most often coming from the West Side Yard, which is what Hudson Yards was built on top of. In the New Jersey direction you have a higher chance of encountering a train with passengers on it, because they use Sunnyside Yard in Queens for this purpose, but the yard is often at capacity or the tunnels leading to them are, so those trains may need to turn around in Penn instead.

earthboundkid 3y ago

As someone who used the train in Japan extensively, it drives me crazy that Amtrak can’t do simple stuff like knowing what platform a train is going to come to, let alone get the train to line up so the doors are in the right place. A train system run in a foreign language should not be simpler and less confusing than one in my native language!

saghm 3y ago
At Penn station, you used to be able to wait on the floor below (which has a staircase from the main floor as well as its own staircases down to each platform) and then just directly go down to your Amtrak as soon as you wanted rather than waiting for them to form a giant line. My dad taught me this trick, and we both used to use it to be able to avoid waiting longer, but once when I did it one of the Amtrak workers got super angry at me for it despite the fact that I did wait until after everyone leaving had come up, and as a socially awkward teen, I was too nervous to ever do it again. I suspect the rationale behind not telling people beforehand is that they don't want to have to deal with people trying to get on at the same time as people leaving, but I feel like the main reason people are so aggressive about trying to get to the train as fast as possible on Amtrak is precisely _because_ the system treats them as too irresponsible to get timely accurate information. If people didn't need to worry about having only a couple short minutes to avoid missing their train and could plan ahead where to be when the train arrived, I think that a lot of people wouldn't feel the need to try to jostle through the crowd to race each other for the earlier spots in the line.
- benesch 3y ago
  You can still do this. In fact, it’s even easier since the construction of the new mezzanine beneath Moynihan. There are glass windows on the mezzanine looking out onto the tracks beneath. If you’re good at differentiating train set for your train, you can easily spot your Amtrak train as it pulls in and head down to the platform well before the track is announced. Knock on wood, but I’ve never had anyone give me so much as a sideways glance for this. The red caps will let you down early if you ask for assistance anyway.
  - saghm 3y ago
    Nice! I haven't ridden on Amtrak nearly as much in recent years, so I've only boarded twice in Moynihan, but it's definitely a _lot_ nicer than Penn Station, and it's nice to hear that the benefits go beyond just cosmetic.
  - meetingthrower 3y ago

nerdponx 3y ago

It's downright nonsense because the NYC MTA and even the notoriously incompetent Boston MBTA can do it. Meanwhile Amtrak apparently can't do it either, but at least they have the luxury of long wait times between arrival and departure.

steveBK123 3y ago

The crazier thing is that at Penn, the train is usually on the same stupid track. You realize this after you see the regulars lingering around certain areas of the mezzanine so they manage to get to the front of the line once it's formally announced. So I think its more a keeping people off platform thing or overall zero care for customer service.

microtherion 3y ago
The Zürich main station for their busiest tracks uses a system where the track is not guaranteed, but the platform is, i.e. you wait on the platform, but you will only know a few minutes in advance whether the train is going to arrive on the left hand side or the right hand side.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Completely reasonable and not stampede inducing! For those who have ridden LIRR on weekends, theres the old Long Beach summer route where everyone is sprinting down the stairs in flip flops carrying beach chairs too. It's truly insane.

flybrand 3y ago

> run by incompetent people They are very competent at keeping their jobs. Especially the guy who announced what track to go to.

bobthepanda 3y ago

Yes, the width of the platforms is basically 'tech debt' in physical form. Most of the layout of Penn Station is historical to its original construction (the destruction of Penn Station destroyed the hall, but the corridors below it are still there.) In the 1910s when Penn Station was built, commuting by railroad was miniscule and the future suburbs of New Jersey were still just woods and farms. So the layout gave large, wide platforms to the central tracks that hosted intercity trains, and narrow platforms to the commuter tracks that can barely host the width of a single escalator. This is a liability in 2023, because the share is overwhelmingly commuter traffic. Through run trains also have a problem with this, because if we implemented through running, today, the platforms would not adequately clear before the next train arrived, creating crowd crush on the platforms. The station is also fully at capacity, so there isn't really a way to expand the platforms to allow through running that wouldn't cut Penn Station's capacity for the next few years, if not a decade. (To give some perspective, the Japanese do projects fairly well, and Shibuya Station reorganization/widening started in 2015 and has stuff to do until 2027.) The current plan to maybe get a start on widening the existing platforms is to demolish a block of Manhattan to build new platforms to take the load while the existing ones can go out of service. Funding to take a block of the most expensive real estate in the world is unclear.

wnc3141 3y ago

What do you think the hiring process looks like? I'd guess it's a bunch of 3rd party consultancy or operator vendors

amluto 3y ago

At the risk of potentially being entirely wrong: There are a lot of platforms at Penn Station, and it seems to me that trains spend quite a long time at these platforms, in part due to issues related to passenger loading and unloaded. What if the number of platforms was reduced? (By placing bogeys that’s are just platforms on every second or third track, for example?) This would reduce the number of usable platforms by 1/3-1/2, but it would massively increase availability space for loading and unloading passengers. If this enabled faster train turnaround, it could plausibly increase station throughput. (Aside from being annoying and perhaps dangerous, the current scheme is absurdly inefficient. People can board a train far fast than they can go down the one or two (!) main escalators, and the train cars far from the escalators barely load at all until the nearer trains are mostly full.) edit: I’m apparently not entirely off base. Here’s a proposal that increases throughput while reducing the number of tracks: https://www.rethinknyc.org/through-running/ https://www.rethinknyc.org/through-running/

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bobthepanda 3y ago
Simply bridging the platforms is not enough. You’d also need to get those people off the platforms before the next train arrived, and you would need something more permanent than platform bogies to support wider stairs and escalator banks.
- amluto 3y ago
  A bridge gets passengers off the other side of the train to the escalators on the next platform over (I think), which could double or more-than-double the egress throughout. (More-than-double because, at least with some gates or careful monitoring, you don’t actually need the passengers off the platform to move the train - you just need the passengers off the train. Similarly, to board the train, the passengers could already be on the platform when the train arrives, allowing all cars to board simultaneously. (Of course, this isn’t terribly helpful for train cadence — you can’t board the next train until those passengers get to the platform.) As currently configured, unlike most sensible train stations, a train full of passengers can’t fit on the platform.)

ClassyJacket 3y ago

"people who insist that practices that are normal outside of the US are completely and totally impossible" This seems to be the culture in the US as a whole. Gun control? Completely impossible, even tho it's worked well in every first world country on the planet. Paying employees instead of tipping? Completely impossible, would disincentivise work and the economy would collapse, even tho it works well in every first world country on the planet. Public healthcare? Completely impossible, even tho it works well in every first world country on the planet.

Muromec 3y ago
The answer to all above is the class jihad
FFP999 3y ago
[dead]