Freight Rail in NYC

[johndoe780]

Anyone see higher tollway speed limits yet? As of last Friday I-94 is still 55 at least up to IL-137. I'm also pretty sure I-90 between Elgin and Rockford hasn't been raised to 70 yet.

I just assumed the Lake Co. portion of I94 would not change to 70, but remain 55 south of 132 and 65 north of 132.  I drive that route every day so I will post if it gets changed.

Does the speed limit really matter on that part of I-94?  Even though it's signed at 55, a person driving 70 would be the slowest guy on the road.

You may be right on the weekends and during non-peak times, but at the times that I'm driving on it I'm lucky to be averaging 40mph, and hardly anyone goes faster than 70 because they know they'll be forced to slow down (maybe stop) shortly anyway.

Here's my experience with Chicago (driving from Indiana to Milwaukee). Usually everyone is doing 80 and then you have to slam on your brakes because every car in front of you starts moving at 20 mph. I typically take 94 through Chicago because the toll road is usually congested too and 94 is free. Why pay for the same traffic problems? Whenever 94 and 41 split off I typically take 41 to Wisconsin, again to avoid tolls. I don't think US 41 is that bad. Of course it takes longer that way then on 94, but the tolls are kind of expensive. I remember something like $1.50 at each toll booth and that was several years ago.

Having just visited the east coast, I can't even complain about tolls in Illinois. Tolls in the east coast are outrageous and there are very little alternatives compared to a huge toll road called I-95.

The closest thing we have here that's comparable to the $10 george washington bridge is the $4.50 chicago skyway, which can be completely avoided by taking I-94. There is absolutely no alternative to entering NYC without paying toll!!!!

From what I hear around, freight trains have to unload their cargo and haul it into NYC via trucks and pay the insanely expensive toll. Freight trains can't enter the city. Completely absurd backward rules....

[SSOWorld]

Oh yes they can, it's just that they only have one point to enter - and it's owned by the PANYNJ <but that's another topic as are the tolls>

[mrsman]

I think he is referring to pure geography.  The only way for freight trains to get to the bouroughs of New York City and Long Island from the Midwest and South is to go way up to a rail bridge near Albany.  There simply is no freight rail crossing in the area.

there is a rail from Staten Island to New Jersey.  But no rail from Staten Island to the rest of NYC.

Ignoring the toll for a moment, you're basically forcing all the freight to switch from train to truck and then face crossing at very busy bridges and tunnels.

[kkt]

Back in the day, rail barges carried a lot of freight cars around the NYC area.  I don't suppose they could do that again.

[johndoe780]

Back in the day, rail barges carried a lot of freight cars around the NYC area.  I don't suppose they could do that again.

No, that would make too much sense.

[NE2]

"The New York New Jersey Rail, LLC is part of the national transportation rail system and moves rail freight by rail barge across NYC Harbor."

This connects to the Hell Gate Bridge via the Bay Ridge Branch.

[froggie]

kkt/johndoe:  there is still a rail ferry (what you called a "rail barge") going across...the one that NE2 mentioned, from the Greenville Yard south of Jersey City to the 51st St and 65th St yards in Brooklyn.

FWIW, the Port Authority is studying what to do with freight traffic across the Hudson...they released a Draft EIS late last year.  Amongst the options are an expanded rail ferry or a rail tunnel.  Such a tunnel would run from the Greenville Yard to the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch (near 65th St in Brooklyn).  Such a tunnel would run in the $7.4-10.2 billion range, however...

[Pete from Boston]

"Float bridge" is the term I am familiar with.

The harbor tunnel idea generated a lot of chatter (including severe opposition) about ten years ago, before Christie or Sandy.  With the amount of money needed for Northeast Corridor tunnels, New Port Authority, etc. already, I can't see movement for a generation.

If they built it, there would surely be pressure to include passenger service, and there would need to be assurances a second didn't need to be built just to handle maintenance shutdowns.

[Duke87]

The thing about rail in general in New York City, not just freight rail, is that the city is crisscrossed by multiple waterways which were and still are also heavily trafficked shipping lanes. For most of the 19th century the idea of building a fixed crossing of any of these waterways was beyond current construction capability and so ferries were used to span the gaps. The intra-NY waterways were spanned repeatedly during the 20th century but the interstate ones not so much since multiple states had to be involved rather than just one city.

As far as freight is concerned, this historically wasn't a problem because ships would dock directly in Manhattan and cargo didn't need to cross the river. But with the advent of container ships, the docks in Manhattan were no longer suitable for modern shipping and could not be made suitable for modern shipping due to lack of space. So, all of that happens at Port Newark/Elizabeth over in New Jersey, and any cargo bound for the east side of the Hudson then needs to cross it by truck.

That said, there is still plenty of freight rail activity serving NYC in spite of this gap in infrastructure. A lot of food arrives in bulk to places like Hunts Point by train where it is then distributed locally by truck. Meanwhile ever since Fresh Kills Landfill closed a lot of freight rail has also been used to ship garbage out of NYC to be disposed of elsewhere.

The challenge is that with commuter rail service heavily active on all the tracks leading north out of the city, freight rail shipments are limited to arriving and departing during the overnight hours. Anything bound for points west crosses the Hudson at Castleton and heads west via the ex-NY central mainline. The line in and out of Staten Island doesn't have this limitation, but it does have the limitation that it only leads to Staten Island. It sees use for garbage hauling, and for cargo from Howland Hook marine terminal.


As for the cross harbor railroad, the problem is that freight trains are long and barges are short. Having to take long trains apart, barge them across the river, and then reassemble them is a hassle that's generally not worth it. For serious expansion of capacity a fixed crossing would be needed. No number of barges will solve this basic problem.

It's a shame, in a sense, that the Poughkeepsie rail bridge was rebuilt into a walkway rather than reactivated as rail. It wouldn't necessarily benefit NYC directly, but it would have created huge new opportunities to ship things by rail to Connecticut, something which currently doesn't happen much due to the lack of a rail crossing of the Hudson anywhere south of Castleton.

Indeed, even if there were any major new trans-Hudson freight capacity built in NYC, Connecticut would benefit from it considerably.

[froggie]

That said, there is still plenty of freight rail activity serving NYC in spite of this gap in infrastructure. A lot of food arrives in bulk to places like Hunts Point by train where it is then distributed locally by truck.

Indeed.  It's almost a tourist attraction to watch the daily "Tropicana Train" bound for NYC head through DC on the CSX tracks.

It's a shame, in a sense, that the Poughkeepsie rail bridge was rebuilt into a walkway rather than reactivated as rail. It wouldn't necessarily benefit NYC directly, but it would have created huge new opportunities to ship things by rail to Connecticut, something which currently doesn't happen much due to the lack of a rail crossing of the Hudson anywhere south of Castleton.

I've traced the Conrail lines leading to/from the Poughkeepsie bridge.  The benefit of retaining rail along that corridor is very small for NYC...all it would've done for NYC is kept some through trucks off the highways.  The problem with the Poughkeepsie bridge from a network perspective is there were no direct rail connections between the bridge and rail lines radiating from the city, especially on the western side of the Hudson.  To get to the core area (defined here as NYC and adjacent areas of NJ), you'd have to go east to Brewster, NY or southwest all the way to Trenton, NJ to have found a direct rail connection.

It would've worked great for a freight rail bypass of the NYC area, but it was abandoned before such a plan could've been realized.

[Pete from Boston]

That said, there is still plenty of freight rail activity serving NYC in spite of this gap in infrastructure. A lot of food arrives in bulk to places like Hunts Point by train where it is then distributed locally by truck.

Indeed.  It's almost a tourist attraction to watch the daily "Tropicana Train" bound for Jersey City head through DC on the CSX tracks.

FTFY, in a way particularly apropos of this discussion.

[froggie]

Freudian slip...

[Duke87]

I've traced the Conrail lines leading to/from the Poughkeepsie bridge.  The benefit of retaining rail along that corridor is very small for NYC...all it would've done for NYC is kept some through trucks off the highways.  The problem with the Poughkeepsie bridge from a network perspective is there were no direct rail connections between the bridge and rail lines radiating from the city, especially on the western side of the Hudson.  To get to the core area (defined here as NYC and adjacent areas of NJ), you'd have to go east to Brewster, NY or southwest all the way to Trenton, NJ to have found a direct rail connection.

It would've worked great for a freight rail bypass of the NYC area, but it was abandoned before such a plan could've been realized.

That's more what I was thinking - freight bypass. The route directly leading east off the bridge formerly led into what is now the Beacon line at Hopewell Junction, which would have pointed it straight at Danbury and, via the Housatonic Railroad, New Haven and points north and east.

Still, the bridge and its abandoned approaches aren't the only obstacle here. The Beacon line is not technically abandoned but the track is basically not maintained and under normal circumstances sees absolutely zero usage. The only reason Metro-North has not officially abandoned it is because they use it as a utility right of way. Almost none of the grade crossings on it have any sort of gates, bells, or lights, which would also need to be addressed if the line were to see heavy usage. Meanwhile getting to New Haven would require a stint on the Metro-North Waterbury branch, which currently operates on absolute block and cannot support any more daytime usage than it already does unless signals were to be installed. And of course, the Connecticut River Bridge cannot handle more trains than it already does unless the Coast Guard relaxes their rules about how much time it can spend closed, or unless it is replaced with a high level crossing. All told, the Poughkeepsie Bridge is but one link in a whole chain of things that would need to have massive investment poured into them.

That said, you would need to go all the way to Brewster. If the old tracks still existed, you could head west from Hopewell Junction and access the Hudson Line that way, although this movement would require reversing direction twice since neither Hopewell Junction nor Dutchess Junction is or ever was a wye, and the switch points the wrong way in both cases.

There also was a shorter access from the bridge to the Hudson Line in Poughkeepsie via a pair of switchbacks, but the tail tracks on these were only about half a mile long each and therefore too short for most modern freight trains.

[froggie]

In my analysis, I did notice a number of other indirect connections, but I deliberately ignored those switchbacks and other reverse-direction connections as they are extremely inefficient for freight rail operations.

[lordsutch]

I tend to think the logical thing is to do something I saw proposed a few years ago: create a bypass highway and rail link as part of a storm surge barrier system for the Lower New York Bay; since they're going to need the barrier within the next century anyway, we might as well throw in the transportation links that are needed too.

[cpzilliacus]

In my analysis, I did notice a number of other indirect connections, but I deliberately ignored those switchbacks and other reverse-direction connections as they are extremely inefficient for freight rail all railroad operations.

FTFY.