The service is subsidized by the casinos but like most pax railroad services, it is hardly publicized. If this economy continues downtown, look for the service to terminate within a year.

You miss the point. Not all trains run in the same direction — it is actually possible to get to New Jersey or Long Island from Manhattan in the AM. In fact, it happens nearly every *ten minutes*. There are a *lot* of reverse-peak trains scheduled — not a small number, a huge number.

With through-running, alll *reverse-peak* services would be provided by trains from the “other side”. This eliminates a huge number of trains. Rather than having an LIRR train emptying out and going to the West Side Yards *while* an NJT train moves from Sunnyside Yard to Penn Station to load up, they would be the *same train*.

Massive, massive savings.

Chatelet-Les Halles has 500,000 daily passengers on the RER. This compares with 300,000 at Penn Station on the LIRR and NJT combined; the other 300,000 come from the subway, which is eight-tracked.

The RER is a hybrid of transit and commuter rail, like BART or maybe the SEPTA. It began as a few disjointed commuter lines, which the RATP joined together with new subway connections through Paris. This was important because Paris has six different train stations, one for each direction. New York, too, can have its own RER if it through-runs the NJT and LIRR, and in the longer run connects Penn Station and Grand Central.

I should have been clearer. You can get do that today… on Amtrak.

like the RER, can handle the same capacity with 6 tracks.

I rummaged around using Google to find things. The RER map looks much more like a subway map than either an LIRR map or a NJ Transit Map.

600,000 passengers use Penn. Station everyday. Which RER station has a similar amount of passenger volumes? On the platforms, not someplace where 90 percent of the people on the system pass through without getting off the train.

From the looks of the map even at the busy stations a small fraction of the people on the train get off while a small fraction of a trainload get on at any individual station. Unlike what happens on NJ Transit or the LIRR.

Wave a magic wand and redesign the system so that there’s a two track tunnel at 65th Street for both NJ Transit from the west and the LIRR from the east, Half of the NJ Transit trains go down 8th Ave stopping at 59th, 42nd, 34th, Houston and the World Trade Center, Half the LIRR trains go down Second stopping at the same places, the other half of the trains cross Central Park with the NJ Transit trains going down Second and the LIRR going down 8th. At the World Trade Center, where there is an 8 track station like West 4th Street on the IND the LIRR trains go to Brooklyn and the NJ Transit trains go to Jersey City.. four platforms at each station might work.

Unfortunately everybody who wants to go to Manhattan gets off at Penn. Station…..

Penn Station has plenty of room, given through-routing. It has 21 tracks; systems that through-route, like the RER, can handle the same capacity with 6 tracks. Terminating every train at the station increases dwell times so that far more tracks are needed to serve the same number of trains. Run the LIRR and NJT together like the RER and all capacity problems at Penn Station itself will disappear.

Is there any reason Alternative “G” cannot be done in the future? As a relatively short tunnel, with no new stations, it doesn’t seem like ARC or ESA preclude connecting the existing tracks. It seems like that could potentially be done concurrently.

Also, as a hypothetical question, if the ARC tracks aren’t connected to Penn Station, couldn’t it have been put anywhere? Perhaps the new station could have been located at 57th and 5th, or Times Square or Bryant Park? They could have also built a spur to connect to the Hudson Line and still ran trains to the existing Penn Station if they wanted…

Lets just say they do the maximum amount of through running. Instead of turning trains they run them through. So the Ronkonkama branch becomes the Ronkonkama-Trenton line and the Morristown Branch becomes the Morristown Port Jefferson line. The Hudson becomes becomes the Hudson Long Beach line. Marginal savings on operation and rarely if ever saves passengers a change in trains. If I’m in Morristown and I want to get to Jamaica it’s great. If I’m in Summit and I want to get to Floral Park I have to change trains. Instead of being limited to changing at Penn Station I can change at Jamaica or Penn Station but I still change trains. If I’m in Rahway and I want to get to Bethpage it’s great. If I’m in Elizabeth and I want to get to Island Park, I have to change trains. . . I don’t see a whole lot of value in through running. not the way commuting in metro NY is organized. If I’m at station on a line that doesn’t run through, I have to change trains.

The capacity problems aren’t between New Jersey and Long Island or Long Island and Westchester or Westchester and NJ. They are between NJ, LI, Westchester and Manhattan. East Side Access and ARC relieve those problems.

East Side Access solves getting LIRR passengers to the East Side problem. ARC solves the tunnel capacity problems. Getting NJ Transit and LIRR traffic out of Penn. Station frees up space so Metro North can run to Penn. Station. The only problem not solved is getting NJ passengers to the East SIde. Maybe someday when we have a few billion to spend on it.

…and pick the right Metro North station and the right NJ Transit station you can get a one seat ride today….

Anything which doesn’t provide through-running between the at least two of Metro-North service territory, LIRR service territory, and NJT service territory is simply wasteful. But then, NJT and LIRR can’t seem to realize the savings from through-running from Long Island to New Jersey, and that could be done without digging any tunnels. (Even the necessary dual-mode AC/DC trains are pretty much off-the-shelf techology, used throughout Europe.)