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Originally Posted by Busy Bee
^ A project in Paris or London would have come in the form of a New Penn Station and ESA would have come in the form of a run-through connection between GCT and Penn instead of a stub terminal under GCT for a dozen billion dollars.
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Pretty much. It is incredibly costly to have terminal platforms in central locations, hence why cities these days opt for through-running as you not only ease congestion pressures on terminals (and transfers to other lines), but distribute terminating trains to quieter parts of the network to be turned around. Paris has its highly impressive (and still expanding) RER network, and London is getting in on the act with Thameslink, Crossrail 1 + 2.
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Originally Posted by Crawford
Once again, you cannot do that. The Penn tunnels are at capacity. The Penn platforms are at capacity. If you want a JFK to Penn direct link you would have to build a new tunnel. Good luck with that.
There are plans to run direct trains from JFK and LGA, but not until ESA is completed, and to Grand Central, which has capacity.
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A second Hudson tunnel is certainly several decades overdue, but you can introduce digital signalling to the present line to boost frequencies. As for platform capacity at Penn; if you forced LIRR and NJT trains to through-run (not necessarily taking over other lines) then you’d drastically increase capacity because you could turn around the trains outside of Manhattan.
New tunnels were built to connect London Stansted and London Heathrow to the mainline network. There are also proposals for further tunnels at Heathrow to connect to the Great Western Main Line and South West Main Line to improve nationwide access to the airport.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I don't know what this means. Paris and London both have massive rail projects which aren't dissimilar, and both ESA and Penn South are desperately needed projects.
Penn South is, by far, the most important transit infrastructure project in the U.S.
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I can’t think of a project in either Paris or London which involves building vastly expensive multi-platform subterranean terminal stations; unless you’re thinking of Euston’s nine new HSR platforms, but they’re in a trench and 400m intercity trains are different animals.
New York should be building simple two-platform high-capacity stations to facilitate cross-city commuter services. That would solve innumerable capacity issues at a far lower cost. It’s almost like New York’s city officials ignore what’s working elsewhere in the world and opt for incredibly expensive cul-de-sacs.