Written by David Peter Alan, Contributing Editor
Amtrak’s long-term closure of one of the tunnel tubes (Amtrak calls them “lines”) under the East River between Penn Station and Queens remains controversial. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, other elected officials in the Empire State, and rider-advocates in New York and New Jersey have called instead for the work to be done on nights and weekends, similar to the way the L-train tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn on the subway system’s Canarsie Line was repaired in 2020-21: in only one year and without having to resort to a 15-month complete shutdown, which area residents feared.
We reported on the situation as a political story on June 11, although there has not been much news about it since that time. As part of our reporting, we mentioned certain new schedules that are less convenient for the riders than would have been the case if all tunnel “lines” could remain open during the times of day when the railroad is busy. Some of the impacts are long waits at Rensselaer (the station that serves Albany) and fewer trains on the schedule. There is another inconvenience that now affects passengers on the westbound Lake Shore Limited, Train 49. It is not as severe as a service cut or a significant increase in travel time, but it is a negative impact that Amtrak does not mention publicly. It affected my ride on Saturday, June 14.
There was something unusual about our departure from Penn Station in New York City that day. Instead of moving forward with the Hudson River off to our left, we all traveled facing backwards, with the river to our right. After arriving in Rensselaer and before joining up with Train 449 from Boston, Train 49 made a detour onto a yard track in the Albany-Rensselaer area to change direction and allow us to face forward during the rest of the trip to Chicago. The entire operation took about 20 minutes. If it’s on time, the train is scheduled to stand at Rensselaer for almost 60 minutes (the “official” standing time is less because the schedule is padded), so there is enough time for the operation, unless the train is running behind schedule. Interestingly, there was no such “rare-mileage excursion” on the yard trackage on my trip back to New York on Train 48 almost two weeks later…