October 10, 2024

Effective Monday, November 11, 2024, Empire Corridor Hudson Valley trains will be reduced to 10 round trips daily. Currently 13 round trips are offered!

This reduction in service is being necessitated by the East River Tunnel Rehabilitation Project which is poised to get underway in earnest later this year. The project will restore the two East River tubes that were damaged by Superstorm Sandy. The work will modernize the tunnel infrastructure, improving safety, reliability, and security and bring the tunnels to a state of good repair. The project will involve demolishing the existing tunnel systems down to the concrete liners, followed by reconstructing and modernizing all tunnel systems. One tube will be reconstructed at a time (there are 4 tubes under the river, but not all tubes have access to every platform track at Penn Station). The overall project is anticipated to take 42 months to complete.

Currently all Empire Corridor trains use the East River tunnels to reach the Sunnyside Yard loop track in order to reverse direction. With train movement capacity under the East River being reduced by 25% during the rehabilitation, Amtrak has made the hard decision to reduce the number trains which need to make this time consuming movement. In addition to dropping 3 daily round trips between Albany & New York City, many of the remaining trains will reverse direction at Penn Station utilizing locomotives on both ends. And the Maple Leaf & Adirondack will be combined in each direction between Albany & New York. Reportedly Amtrak will be maintaining the same overall passenger capacity by adding cars to the remaining trains during the project.

Of particular concern to ESPA in the revised schedules is the excessive dwell time at Albany-Rensselaer for the northbound Adirondack (1’ 50”) and for the southbound Maple Leaf (1’ 35”). In addition, a popular early morning southbound trip is eliminated along with a later evening northbound weekday trip. It is unclear how many (if any) other Amtrak Northeast Corridor and Long Island Railroad trains are being effected or suspended. In addition, Amtrak has not released any information as to how long the reduced Empire Corridor service will be in effect.

ESPA has highlighted its concerns with the Governor’s staff and issued a Press Statement in mid-October. While immediate adjustments to the November 11th reductions are unlikely, ESPA is hopeful that Amtrak & NYSDOT will modify the schedules in future months.

Revised Schedule Effective November 11, 2024