(The Kingston Daily Freeman posted the following story by Patricia Doxsey on its website on April 27.)
KINGSTON, N.Y.– More than a year after they were expected to get on track, the first of what officials hope will be seven high-speed passenger trains between Albany and New York City has hit the rails, though not yet at speeds faster than conventional trains.
But even though the promise of a quicker trip has yet to materialize, the new train is being welcomed by riders.
“So far, we’ve had a fairly positive response,” said Dan Stessel, an spokesman for Amtrak, which runs the passenger service. “People like the new, big windows, which is great. They get great Hudson River views. They’re sort of caught up in the novelty of them.”
Through a collaboration between Amtrak and the state and federal governments, seven locomotives originally built in the 1970s by a French company are being retooled for $74.4 million to meet American standards and travel on American tracks.
The first Turboliner debuted last week, said Peter Graves, a state Department of Transportation spokesman. It makes weekday runs as the 250 morning train southbound, which leaves Rensselaer at 9 a.m. It returns as the 247 train out of Penn Station in Manhattan.
While the trains originally were billed as high-speed, which could shave as much as 20 minutes off the nearly 2{-hour trip between Albany and New York City, the one currently in service isn’t running any faster than the conventional trains that Amtrak runs along the line, known as the Empire Corridor.
And it remains uncertain when those faster speeds and the goal of reducing travel time for daily commuters and pleasure riders will materialize.
The Turboliners are said to have a maximum speed of 125 mph. But the average speed along the Albany-New York City corridor is 70-90 mph, and there’s only one 14-mile stretch of track, just south of the Rensselaer station, where trains can safely reach 110 mph, Graves said.
South of Poughkeepsie, where the tracks are shared with the Metro-North commuter line, trains are not permitted to travel faster than 100 mph.
Track upgrades would enable trains to travel at higher speeds for longer periods of time, but funding problems are preventing plans for those improvements from moving forward.
And Amtrak is not likely to fork over money anytime in the near future to help cover the cost of the New York state high-speed rail project, Stessel said.
“Amtrak is not designed to, nor can it seek to, be a source of federal funding for state projects,” he said.
Still, Stessel said discussions are ongoing between Amtrak and the state and the federal governments about track upgrades along the Empire Corridor and about the role Amtrak will play in bringing them to fruition.