A Closer Look at East Side Access

In the coming weeks I'll be taking a close look at the MTA's grand East Side Access Project and what the LIRR can do to get the most out of this massive undertaking.  The project has been slow coming, but eventually it will finally arrive.  When it does, the LIRR will have fantastic opportunities to increase it's ridership and usability.  The LIRR has long had their hands tied at the very western end of their operations with the limited capacity at Amtrak's Penn Station.  Over the years, the LIRR, NJT and Amtrak have been able to squeak a couple of extra trains in, but for all intents and purposes, the station is maxed out now.  East Side Access will relieve this pressure tremendously as the LIRR could be able to send up to 24 more trains per hour to New York's East Side.   Over the last few months, I've spent quite some time essentially developing a brand new set of timetables for the Long Island Rail Road.  Beginning next week, I'll finalize what I've been working on and start releasing them out for readers to see, explaining my methodology as I go along.

Today, I'll begin with a closer look at the project itself, and what exactly they are trying to construct deep below Manhattan.  The project is extremely extensive, and no words can really describe it's extent, but I'll give it a try.

Many of the diagrams below were sourced from the ESA 2013 Fourth Quarter report.  The diagram immediately below gives a general overview of the Manhattan tunnel structures:

After leaving the LIRR Mainline in Queens, the train tunnels to Manhattan will converge down to two tracks at the proposed PLAZA interlocking.  After narrowing down to two tracks, the rail line will travel under the East River on the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnels.

The Roosevelt Island Ventilation Building for the
63rd Street Tunnels.  Eventually, LIRR trains will pass
underneath here.

Construction on the 63rd Street Tunnels, which pass under Roosevelt Island and enter Manhattan around 63rd Street, started in November of 1969.  Originally, the purpose of the tunnels were to connect the 6th Avenue Line (the route of today's (F) train) to Queens via a new route.  The forward-thinking people of that day decided that they would construct the level with two levels--the top two tracks would carry the two tracked 63rd Street Subway route (today's (F) train) and the lower two tracks would be reserved for a future LIRR route to Grand Central. 

The lower two tracks sat dormant for quite a time.  They weren't connected to anything, just left there just in case they would be needed later on.  Well, later on the LIRR did decide they needed them, and thankfully, they were still there.  They devised their master plans around the existence of these underwater tunnels, since using them would save them the trouble of digging their own someplace else (which would add a ton of time to the construction timeline).

The relative locations of the Queens Tunnels.

The plans involved soft-ground tunnels that would connect the LIRR's Mainline at HAROLD interlocking to the lower levels of the 63rd Street Tunnel.  There would be three tracks that left from different places in HAROLD interlocking, plus one more Yard Lead tunnel, and they would all converge in the "Q-tip" which will eventually become PLAZA interlocking.

At this point, the tracks would be condensed down into two lines which would have a straight shot at the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnels.

Inside the Q-Tip.

Google Earth satellite image of the Q-tip, which its at the
north corner of Sunnyside Yard.

The route from the Q-tip to the Lower Level of the
63rd Street tunnels is pretty straight-it's almost a straight
shot right under 41st Avenue.

When the 63rd Street Tunnels were being designed in the 1960's, the M1 railcars were the newest pieces of equipment that the LIRR had at the time.  Since constructing big, spacious tunnels isn't cheap, the tunnel planners designed the tunnel to fit the exact dimensions of an M1 railcar.   Because of this, the later M1 and M7 fleet were designed to match the M1 profile, since they would not be able to send anything larger through the 63rd Street tunnels if they ever got the ESA project going.  At this time, the C3 bi-level cars and dual-mode service from diesel territory to New York were still decades away so their larger profiles would ultimately be unable to fit through the 63rd Street Tunnels.  For that reason, the LIRR will be unable to run dual-mode trains (at least the current fleet of dual-modes) from diesel territory into Grand Central.


After the tunnels get narrowed down to two, they will then dive down, cross under Roosevelt Island (and underneath the Subway's deepest station), and enter Manhattan around 63rd Street.  The tunnels will be at a considerable depth after they enter Manhattan, an issue which will come up later.

After entering Manhattan, the tunnels begin to climb upwards towards the street level.  Passenger trains can only handle certain grades, grades that are typically much less than subways, so the slopes have to be pretty gradual.  Once the trains enter Manhattan, the first structure they will encounter is the 59th Street Transition:

At the 59th Street Transition, each of the two lines that come out of the 63rd Street Tunnels will each split into two separate lines.  One of these lines will then duck below the other and they will run pretty much one on top of the other.  Included below is a photo of what the 59th Street Transition looks like:

From 2/12/2013 (Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)

The four tunnel lines then continue under the streets of Manhattan, curving to the south until they come inline with the station.  The next structure trains reach is located a few blocks to the south, the 53rd Street Transition:

Here, the two upper level and two lower level lines will brush up next to each other  and there is an open space that will allow for a crossover.  In this structure (which I have reffered to as the "Crossover Cavern" in the past) is a pair of crossovers that would allow an inbound to switch over to platform at the tracks in either of the station caverns on the upper level (tracks 201-202-203-204) and trains on the lower level to reach any of the lower level tracks (trakcs 301-302-303-304).  Trains leaving platforms from the either level could then switch back to the outbound track for the trip to Queens.  Pretty much every single train that comes into or out of Grand Central will have to change tracks here either their way in or way out.

After the two tunnels meet up for the crossover, each of the two tracks will split into two, giving four tracks across for the top level and four tracks across for the bottom.  Two of the tracks from each level (201/202 and 301/302) will go to the east cavern, while the remaining tracks  while the other two (tracks 203/204 and 303/304) will head into the eastern cavern.

Below are some photos of the 53rd Street Transition area.  Just like the above photo,  these photos are older ones that I dug up on the MTA's Flicker page.  Their "rough" appearance has certainly improved over the last several months, so don't be too alarmed:

From 6/5/2013 (Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)

From 6/5/2013.  (Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)

The previous diagram only showed the upper level of the tracks to reduce confusion.  There are actually two very similar 53rd Street Transitions right on top of each other at this location.  The following diagram, showing the 53rd Street Crossover, shows both the upper and lower levels and how they are laid out.  The original report included some odd way of shading the two levels that only added to the confusion, in my opinion, so I removed the colored shading and have presented the diagram in it's raw state...I think it's much clearer this way:

As you can see, there doesn't appear to be any connection between the two levels at this point.  The upper and lower level trains parted ways for good back at the 59th Street Transition.

Now that all the tunnels are split into the 8 different station tracks, the trains will roll into the massive station caverns.  When finished, the caverns will look much like this:

Note that the cavern on the left-hand side may not be exactly what appears when the construction was done.  When this was presented to the MTA Board, it was likely done as a PowerPoint with animations that placed photos over the diagrams.  When they created the .pdf to publish online, not everything formatted correctly, so I had to improvise.

Nonetheless, both caverns will look much like the one above does.  Each platform has two island platforms that will serve two tracks each.  One pair of tracks will sit at the very top of the cavern and another pair at the very bottom.  A passenger concourse will be slid in in the middle of the two platform caverns.  When passengers descend down the massive escalator banks to the deep caverns, they will first land here in this middle concourse level.  From there, they can either go up or down to the platform they need.

The caverns are the grandest part of the project.  It's tough to visualize a 12-car long 60 foot high cavern hollowed out of Manhattan bedrock underneath some of the most expensive real-estate in the world, but here are some photos.  Note the full-sized crane that looks like a toy in comparison to the massive cavern:

(Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Rehema Trimiew)

(Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Rehema Trimiew)

(Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Rehema Trimiew)

(Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Rehema Trimiew)

(Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Rehema Trimiew)

When all is said and done, there will be three different levels inserted into this one cavern, so you will not be able to really get a feel for it's massive size once passengers are actually in the station, so enjoy it while you can.

The following diagram gives an angle view of the caverns in respect to each other:

Many know that these caverns will be very deep below Grand Central, approximately 140 feet below Park Avenue and 91 feet below Metro-North's Lower Level.  When everything is assembled, it will look much like the following diagram:

 I find this diagram to be particularly helpful in visualizing just how the station will be laid out.  The main LIRR concourse will be on roughly the same level as Metro-North's current Lower Level.  Much of the Madison Avenue Yard, which sat to the west of the lower-level platforms, was torn up in order to make room for the new LIRR concourse.   LIRR passengers will be able to access the main concourse by either going through the main hall (the very iconic main hall) and down to the lower level where they can make their way into the new LIRR concourse, or they can use some of the new off-street entrances that will lead directly to the LIRR concourse (with backwards access into the lower level for Metro-North riders to use as well).  During the late night hours, when Metro-North stops running trains and they close Grand Central, these off-street entrances will remain open to give LIRR riders access down to the LIRR concourse, as the LIRR still operates 24-hours a day.

(Aside: I think it's pretty funny how the fullness of the platform slots are depicted in this diagram.  In Metro-North's upper and lower levels, the diagram creator only shows four trains loading at the platforms, meanwhile, all eight tracks on the LIRR platforms have trains sitting by them as if their capacity is constrained already! Not all that important, but I got a chuckle out of it.)

Below are some photos from June 5th of the location of the new LIRR concourse, which sits on the former Madison Avenue Yard site:

Taken on 6/5/2013 (Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)

Taken on 6/5/2013 (Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)

Taken on 6/5/2013 (Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)

The Main LIRR Concourse will be the main waiting area for LIRR passengers.  There will be a lot of space here and the main ticket offices, TVM banks, etc. will be located here.  After your train is announced, you will be able to descend the huge banks of escalators down to the LIRR Mezzanine, which will be sandwiched in between the two platform levels in each cavern.  From there, you can then go up to the 200-series tracks or down to the 300-series tracks, as mentioned above. 

The photo below shows one of the escalator wells which will eventually connect the LIRR Concourse to the Mezzanine down below:

Photo from 2/12 (Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)

After the trains arrive in the station caverns, they will have the ability to pull south down onto the tail tracks.  They enter the last main segment of the Manhattan tunnels, the 43rd Street Transition, where tracks from each cavern merge into two tracks.  Unlike the east end of the station where tracks are separated by level, here they are separated by side:

The trains will then be able to run down these tail tracks a train length to the south where they will be able to turn around and pull back into the station to head east.  Note that these are only tail tracks and there is no significant yard storage space here, so most of the trains will have to come from points east and enter into the station from the east.

(Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/MTA Capital Construction)

In doing all of this construction, the MTA is producing a huge amount of muck.  And everything they excavate out of the tunnel cavers has to hauled all the way out through the tunnels to Queens, where they are able to truck it off to someplace else.

So far, MTA Capital Construction has removed 40.5 million cubic feet of muck!  That's about 75,000 truckloads of much, which, if lined from end to end would stretch for over 700 miles (roughly the distance from New York to Indianapolis).  If all the muck was piled on a football field, it would pile up to a height of 700 feet tall.

East Side Access is truly a monumental project, and it is probably one of the most complex Capital Construction projects currently happening in North America.  Thus far, the project has been plagued by delays, and hopefully they can figure out a way to keep the project on some sort of schedule, but the highlight of this all will come when the station finally opens and the  LIRR can start to significantly expand its operations.  It will truly be a sight to marvel at when it does open.  The huge increase in capacity will be well worth the wait, and when it finally opens, it can bet it's going to be well used!