MTA Looks for More Electric Capacity on Commuter Lines

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has extra rail it want to electrify. 

The transit company put out a request for proposals on a design-build contract alongside the Metro-North Railroad Hudson line that, amongst different duties, could have contractors electrify about 11.5 miles of observe.

The stretch, which lies south of the Croton-Harmon cease, is the one one in every of 4 tracks alongside the route that doesn’t have a 3rd rail, in keeping with the solicitation doc. A single, diesel-only observe the place all of the others are electrical is an uncommon association, stated Blair Lorenzo, the chief director of the Effective Transit Alliance, a corporation that advocates for improved transit within the New York area.

The development web site lies inside what the MTA calls its “third-rail territory,” or 102 miles of Metro-North which have electrical capability and prolong up the Hudson, New Haven and Harlem strains. In September final yr, the division announced that new Siemens Mobility Charger locomotives had been beginning to function alongside the Husdon line particularly. Whereas older fashions on the tracks only run electric within the tunnels of Grand Central Terminal, the Charger locomotives are constructed for long-distance, high-speed electrical journey, Lorenzo stated. Finishing this ultimate little bit of electrification on the Hudson line would let the brand new fashions function diesel-free all the best way to Croton-Harmon.

“At ETA, we consider that electrification of higher New York’s commuter rail community must be a excessive precedence, particularly on high-ridership strains just like the Hudson Line,” Lorenzo stated.

The group advocates for catenary as a substitute of third-rail conversions, nevertheless, as a result of the previous is cheaper, safer to restore, and permits increased high speeds.

The MTA declined to touch upon this explicit request for proposals or what it means for electrical commuter prepare deployment. The company 2025-2029 capital plan notes that the MTA plans to maintain shopping for new electric-diesel locomotives for the Metro-North and exchange third-rail that’s in poor situation all through the prepare strains. 

Apart from finishing the electrical prepare capabilities within the space, the contractor will even exchange 4 undergrade bridges and full 4 rock slope stabilization tasks alongside the Hudson line.