West Side Yard

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View of West Side Yard from 33rd Street

The West Side Yard (officially the John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard) is a rail yard owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. Used to store commuter rail trains operated by the Long Island Rail Road, the 26.17-acre (10.59 ha) yard sits between West 30th Street, West 33rd Street, 10th Avenue and 12th Avenue.

The yard includes storage tracks, a six-track indoor shop for light maintenance, a 12-car long platform for car cleaning, and lockers and a break room for employees.

Before the yard opened in 1987, trains arriving at Penn Station during the morning rush hour had to deadhead back to Long Island for midday storage. The West Side Yard also increased the LIRR's peak period capacity at Penn Station.

The Yard sits at the north end of the High Line, a former elevated rail line used for freight service that has been converted into a park, and south of the truck marshalling yard used by the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. It also sits above the new 34th Street - Hudson Yards subway station.

History

Looking east across the West Side Yard toward Penn Station

The 26.17-acre (10.59 ha) site is bounded by between West 30th Street, West 33rd Street, 10th Avenue, and 12th Avenue.[1][2] It was originally used as a depot for the Hudson River Railroad for a line running down Eleventh Avenue, as trains were not permitted to operate south of West 32nd Street because of a fear of explosions. New York Central and later on Penn Central later expanded the rail yards and used them as a freight terminal up until the 1970s.[3]

The yard was built as a result of train capacity issues at Penn Station that forced terminating LIRR trains to make unneeded non-passenger trips to storage yards on Long Island.[4][3] The yard opened in 1987, immediately increasing train capacity through Penn Station.[5] The West Side Yard is named after John D. Caemmerer, a New York State Senator from East Williston who helped obtain $195.7 million for its construction.[3]

During construction, an underground tunnel was built that allows Amtrak trains from Penn Station to travel to Upstate New York via the West Side Line.[3] Amtrak trains began using this tunnel on April 7, 1991; before this, Empire Service trains originated from Grand Central Terminal.[6]

Air rights

The West Side Yard was also designed to accommodate an overbuild in its air rights, and space was left between the tracks for columns to support a platform above the tracks.[3] Madison Square Garden was considering a move to the site in the mid-1980s and the rail yards were also considered as a possible stadium site for the New York Yankees.[7][8] The rail yards were later proposed as the site of a sports complex containing a West Side Stadium for the New York Jets and the New York City bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics.[9][10]

The eastern portion of the West Side Yard (east of 11th Avenue) was rezoned for residential use in January 2005 as part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project. Following the defeat of the proposal to construct the West Side Stadium, the western portion of the rail yard was rezoned to accommodate residential and commercial development in December 2009.[11][12][13]

Tunnel box

The West Side Yard sits between Penn Station and the Hudson River

The Gateway Project is a proposal to build a high-speed rail corridor to alleviate the bottleneck along the Northeast Corridor between Newark, New Jersey, and New York City. According to Schumer, the only place for an Amtrak portal for the corridor in Manhattan is in the West Side Yard. That might conflict with the Hudson Yards project, which broke ground in late 2012.[14] In February 2013, Amtrak officials said that a right-of-way would be preserved through the Hudson Yards project by construction of a tunnel under that project using $120 million to $150 million in federal funds.[15][16][17] in June 2013 it was announced that $183 million had been dedicated to the "tunnel box" as part of Hurricane Sandy recovery funding.[18][19][20] Construction began in September 2013 and was expected to take two years.[21] The underground concrete casing is 800 ft (240 m) long, 50 ft (15 m) wide, and approximately 35 ft (11 m) tall.[22] Amtrak awarded Tutor Perini a $133m contract to build a section of box tunnel.[23]

Amtrak, NJ Transit, and the MTA have applied to the Federal Transit Administration for a $65 million matching grant for another 105 ft (32 m) long structure to preserve the right-of-way at 11th Avenue in Manhattan[24][25] under a viaduct that was rehabilitated in 2009–2011.[26][27]

See also

References

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  21. ↑ [1][dead link]
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  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

  • Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons

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