Is there any practical way to return direct rail service to Albany?

[OhBeeHave]

Wil any of this actually help?

https://nec.amtrak.com/project/empir...-improvements/

Amtrak entered into a long term lease with CSX Corporation on December 1, 2012, to manage and dispatch the infrastructure along this territory. The lease ensures that passenger trains have scheduling priority and lays the foundation for several rail and station improvement projects totaling $190.7 million on the Empire Corridor with federal funding support.

These projects include signal line improvements south of Albany to significantly improve the reliability of rail service, replacing over 60 miles of obsolete signal wires, and replacing 30-year-old wiring with new underground power cables and electronic track circuits. A second track will be installed between Albany-Rensselaer and Schenectady stations to allow for two-way train traffic in one of the most critical bottlenecks on the Empire Corridor. A new 4,300 square-foot intermodal station in Schenectady will replace the existing Amtrak station. Projects also include design and safety improvements to 13 highway-rail grade crossings in Columbia, Dutchess, and Rensselaer counties in New York, and final design and construction of a fourth station track at the Albany-Rensselaer to improve flexibility and reliability at this station.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by OhBeeHave

Wil any of this actually help?

https://nec.amtrak.com/project/empir...-improvements/

Amtrak entered into a long term lease with CSX Corporation on December 1, 2012, to manage and dispatch the infrastructure along this territory. The lease ensures that passenger trains have scheduling priority and lays the foundation for several rail and station improvement projects totaling $190.7 million on the Empire Corridor with federal funding support.

These projects include signal line improvements south of Albany to significantly improve the reliability of rail service, replacing over 60 miles of obsolete signal wires, and replacing 30-year-old wiring with new underground power cables and electronic track circuits. A second track will be installed between Albany-Rensselaer and Schenectady stations to allow for two-way train traffic in one of the most critical bottlenecks on the Empire Corridor. A new 4,300 square-foot intermodal station in Schenectady will replace the existing Amtrak station. Projects also include design and safety improvements to 13 highway-rail grade crossings in Columbia, Dutchess, and Rensselaer counties in New York, and final design and construction of a fourth station track at the Albany-Rensselaer to improve flexibility and reliability at this station.

Well, this would help with trains going to the west of Albany and the Albany-Rensselaer station, but not sure if this makes direct service to Albany any more feasible. I wonder where that bottleneck between Albany-Rensselaer and Schenectady occurs.

I think it's probable that no direct service will seem reasonable, if ever, until there are tracks going along the new Tappan Zee. It seems like doing that with NYC as an anchor might lead to tracks eventually meandering up to Albany.

[OyCrumbler]

I was recently thinking that here along Broadway would make sense.


It's not downtown, but it is probably the closest bit of straight track to downtown on the west side of the Hudson and it's a less than 15 minute walk to downtown while having a pretty straight bus route to getting there along Broadway or Pearl Street. It's also after the tracks that go along the west side of the Hudson merge so if ever there's passenger service along there again, it can be reusable. It's mostly undeveloped land or surface parking lot save for one building that's not really historic.


I think the argument for this would be that this is an existing and used railroad track that uses an existing crossing of the river which means not having to take a car over the road bridges and there's quite a bit of bus service on both Broadway and Pearl St to serve it. It's such a perfectly sized bit of straight track that it makes me wonder if there maybe used to be a stop there at some point in time.