Train from Binghamton to NY ?

[TERMINOLOGY]

Originally Posted by CHIP72

With train tracks, the quality needs for passenger service are often different than they are for freight service. Also, if there is a decent amount of freight service on the line, any passenger service would need to be coordinated with that. It is very likely the line is owned by a freight railroad, which would be another hurdle for service. Finally, an agreement would need to be reached between the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania to operate the service. (I'm guessing NJ Transit would operate the service, and they'd need to be reimbursed in some way by Pennsylvania.)

Believe me, what appears fairly simple in terms of creating passenger rail service isn't so simple. I'm unsure about what specific hurdles the Scranton-New York rail service idea is currently facing.

Wouldn't all the lines be owned by freight?

[CHIP72]

Originally Posted by dansdrive

I guess I would say, for what? Would a train ride bring economic growth to the southern tier of NY and the Scranton area? If so how? Will companies relocate to the up state NY region or NE PA because train service is now available. IMO the answer is NO. It will cost millions or billions of dollars for littel to no economic or social benefit. Look how successful AMTRAK has been. The plans always sound good but never seem to amount to anything. There is economic benefits for the companies that perform the studies paid for by tax payers. That money can be better spent filling pot holes in roads from up state NY to NYC!

As far as trains propagating drugs, maybe but personal automobiles, tractor trailers, buses, and delivery services seem to have that market pretty well covered.

This seems like another grand plan to promote trains to go somewhere from places currently going no where.

Just to defend Amtrak, there isn't ANY intercity passenger rail service in the world today that makes a profit. Like highways and aviation, passenger train travel is something that needs some public subsidy to sustain itself. Of course, the benefit it provides is to provide a transportation alternative for users. Pennsylvania partially funds Amtrak's Keystone Service, which has experienced something like 40% passenger growth in the last 4-5 years, and still would never be able to be self-sustaining cost-wise.

The above isn't to say Scranton-New York passenger rail service is necessarily feasible. It may be, it may not be. I do know Martz Trailways runs a number of buses every weekday into NYC from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area because there's a significant market there.

[CHIP72]

TERMINOLOGY - yes, the rail lines in PA would probably be owned by freight railroads (though I'm not sure who owns the Steamtown line or if that would be the line used).

Most railroads today are owned by freight railroads, but there are exceptions. NJ Transit owns most of the lines it operates on in northern NJ, SEPTA owns most of its lines in the Philadelphia area, and Amtrak owns most of the Northeast Corridor Line (Boston-Washington) and the Philadelphia-Harrisburg segment of the Keystone Corridor.

[BLUEDIAMOND64]

A smart drug dealer takes the train. No chance of getting pulled over in a car and very hard to assume probable cause for a search on a person. I am retired and the drug dealers would transport drugs on Metro North and the cops at 125th would profile them and pick who had the drugs. That is an illegal search, but hard to prove. So trains are a way to transport drugs - but it doesn't mean that a rail system would be bad for the rest of the law abiding citizens.

[danwxman]

Originally Posted by dansdrive

I guess I would say, for what? Would a train ride bring economic growth to the southern tier of NY and the Scranton area? If so how? Will companies relocate to the up state NY region or NE PA because train service is now available. IMO the answer is NO. It will cost millions or billions of dollars for littel to no economic or social benefit. Look how successful AMTRAX has been. The plans always sound good but never seem to amount to anything. There is economic benefits for the companies that perform the studies paid for by tax payers. That money can be better spent filling pot holes in roads from up state NY to NYC!

As far as trains propagating drugs, maybe but personal automobiles, tractor trailers, buses, and delivery services seem to have that market pretty well covered.

This seems like another grand plan to promote trains to go somewhere from places currently going no where.

Amtrak is very successful in the Northeast corridor.

[dansdrive]

Interesting article about Amtrak's history. Successful is not really part of its heritage.

Amtrak Problems - Business Travel Column - Joe Brancatelli - Seat 2B - Portfolio.com

[WasPA]

Originally Posted by danwxman

Amtrak is very successful in the Northeast corridor.

I thought that I'd read that Amtrack ridership is up significantly in connection with sustained higher fuel prices......

[CHIP72]

Amtrak's ridership has gone up every year for a number of years in a row now (not sure how many, but I know it's at least 5 years). The problem Amtrak has as I see it is it is mandated to be the national passenger railroad provider, but there are few areas of the United States where having intercity rail service makes a lot of sense. These areas, not surprisingly, are the corridors where you have large and medium-sized population centers in close proximity to each other. Obviously the Northeast Corridor (Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington) is the best example of this in the U.S., and some of the corridors connecting the edges of Megalopolis to the core cities (like the Harrisburg-Lancaster-Philadelphia-New York Keystone Service, the Albany-New York Empire Service, and the Portland, ME-Boston Downeaster Service) have solid ridership too. Outside the densely populated NEC, services like Pacific Surfliner (Santa Barbara-Los Angeles-San Diego), Capitol Corridor (San Jose-Oakland-Sacramento), Hiawatha (Chicago-Milwaukee), and to a lesser degree Cascades (Portland, OR-Seattle) and Lincoln (St. Louis-Chicago) are fairly well patronized. Besides these higher population corridors and perhaps a couple others however, most of Amtrak's routes run too infrequently (often once per day) to really be a useful transportation option and either the size of the population centers or the distance between the population centers doesn't merit having relatively frequent service with a high capacity mode like passenger rail.

There are a number of corridors in the U.S. that could benefit from shorter distance intercity rail service (or longer distance commuter rail service) that don't currently have service; the Scranton-New York corridor IMO is one of them (though I think an Allentown-New York corridor would be even most cost effective in terms of ridership). The big issue from a planning standpoint with a Scranton-New York route is the portion between Scranton and Stroudsburg (and to a degree between Scranton and north-central New Jersey) is not that highly populated, or at least not concentrated in larger towns.

[mustangtiff21]

Originally Posted by TERMINOLOGY

But isn't the track already there? This would have been the original Leggetts Gap RR, that the Scranton Brothers originally connected to get their rails to market, and to get the ore in from the Great Lakes. I'm sure it's not the original track, but I believe there is already a connection to Buffalo, via Binghamton. There is also an old shop of sorts in Great Bend along the way. I think they are currently running freight over this line.

Great Bend!! My home town!! I hardly ever see it on the forms mentioned! I now live in south carolina and would possibly use the train to travel to NYC to visit. I'd love to be able to show my husband what its like there. Although I must admit, I think he'd get us killed! He'd be trying to talk to everyone and making eye contact with every person on the street! LOL You should see him, he refuses to drive back home when we visit because the pace is much busier than here in SC. He's a born and raised southerner and laid back. I must admit, I miss being around those back home that actually USE their turn signals and do atleast the speed limit and do NOT rubberneck at every single car that is pulled off the road changing its tire! I kid you not, there are times that I am stuck in traffic on my way to work in the moring because people here are rubbernecking at some person changing their tire! Its crazy and comical!