PA: Public gives input on proposal for passenger trains between Scranton, NYC

The state Department of Transportation gave an overview Thursday of the long-sought restoration of passenger rail service between Scranton and New York City and fielded questions from the public during an online webinar session on the project.

The proposal calls for Amtrak passenger trains to run between Scranton and Manhattan’s Penn Station with stops in Mount Pocono and East Stroudsburg in Pennsylvania, and Blairstown, Dover, Morristown, Montclair and Newark in New Jersey. It would mark the return of passenger rail service between Scranton and NYC for the first time since 1970 and generate $84 million in new economic activity annually, per an Amtrak study released in March 2023.

PennDOT’s virtual public meeting webinar on the project was part of the agency’s service development plan. The webinar gave an overview of the Scranton to New York Rail initiative, a summary of the route options, and locations for potential stations. PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll gave an introduction, calling the passenger rail proposal an “historic opportunity,” and this latest step in the process a significant milestone.

The first half of the hour-long, online session featured a slideshow and explanation of various aspects of the plan. During the second half of the webinar, officials read and answered about 30 questions from the public.

Some questions asked: how long it could take for the service to actually exist; locations of stations and whether they would have related parking and shuttle services; the costs of a round trip; and whether there would be late-night passenger service. Officials could not provide specific answers to those because aspects of the proposal involving those questions remain in planning stages and have not been finalized.

Some of the other questions and answers included:

• Would there be only one operator – Amtrak – or others, too? An official said Amtrak would be the sole operator, adding, “The plan here is to look at what we call a one-seat ride between Scranton and New York’s Penn Station.”
• Would passengers be able to bring bicycles along, as other Amtrak routes allow? Officials said yes, they believe so, as the Scranton-NYC route would operate like other Amtrak routes.
• Would the Slateford and Paulinskill viaducts be replaced or kept intact? Officials said those large, old structures appear to still be in good condition and the goal would be to upgrade them for the future rail service. “I think everybody wants to preserve those structures,” an official said.
• Would future funding exist to bring the passenger route to fruition, or could this route possibly lose out to competing projects elsewhere? An official expressed confidence in the availability of future funding, saying, “There has been no indication the funds are going away.” And as the project continues to advance, the opportunity for funding increases.
• Are there any plans to have the route use as a stop the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel in Scranton? This historic 1908 building previously had been a Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad station. An official said no, as the plan calls for using the downtown Lackawanna Transit Center next to Steamtown National Historic Site as the stop in Scranton.
• How would passenger and freight services be prioritized? An official said the goal is to have a harmonious marriage of the two services on the route, to benefit all operators.
• Has the number of passenger trains daily been defined? An official said the plan envisions three round trips a day, but that could change in planning as markets and ridership are evaluated and refined. “We’re figuring out what we can operate. Like any other business, you figure out how to serve the market that is there.”

Participants had to register in advance and get an invite for a webinar link. The session filled to an unspecified capacity, according to the Advancing PA Rail website. Comments and questions also can be submitted to [email protected], the website said.

A recording of the hourlong session will be publicly available on that site Friday and will be available for viewing for at least 60 days following the meeting, officials said. They also will post the slideshow presentation and the Q&A portion of the webinar.

PennDOT also expects to hold several more meetings on the proposal in the future, with the next one being an in-person meeting, though a date and location have not been set.

According to prior PennDOT information about the proposal and archives of The Times-Tribune:

• The Scranton-to-NYC proposal is one of just five in the nation to have advanced to the second-step milestone of the three-step federal Corridor Identification and Development Program to identify new, viable passenger train routes. The second step involving completion of the “Service Development Plan” is a precursor to the third step.
• If attained, the third step would include additional project development work — engineering, environmental reviews and the preparation of bid documents, budgets and timelines, among other examples — to prepare the proposed passenger rail corridor for construction and eventual service. As a prerequisite to accessing funding, the third stage could potentially deliver hundreds of millions of dollars for rail construction and related work.
• So, while the corridor proposal progresses incrementally, it likely won’t be ready to run passenger trains for at least several years.
• PennDOT’s Service Development Plan includes: stakeholder engagement with railroads, agencies, and the public; service options analysis and transportation planning; capital project identification, conceptualization and cost estimates; environmental analysis; and financial and implementation planning.
• The proposed Amtrak corridor would provide a new passenger service option — three daily round trips — for underserved Northeast Pennsylvania and Northwest New Jersey. Prior studies, including the 2021 Amtrak Connects US Corridor Vision Plan and long-range transportation plans, show growing demand for intercity passenger rail service along a corridor that has heavy auto traffic and unpredictable travel times for commuters and other travelers.
• The proposal calls for using mostly active rail lines and rebuilding an abandoned section. With PennDOT as the lead agency and Amtrak as the proposed operator, the owners of the route — Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Rail Authority (PNRRA), New Jersey Department of Transportation, New Jersey Transit (NJT) and Amtrak — are all project partners in working to restore passenger service to this corridor.

The route from Scranton to New York City last served passenger trains in 1970 as part of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad. The entire right of way remains intact, and various public rail operators use parts of it. Here’s a look at the various segments:

In Pennsylvania:

• Starting in Scranton, the 60-mile segment of the route in Pennsylvania and across the Delaware River is owned by PNRRA and currently used for freight rail service and Steamtown excursion trains between Scranton and Slateford. One mile of track south of Slateford Junction was previously removed and will need to be reconstructed for passenger rail restoration between Scranton and New York City.

In New Jersey:

• The Lackawanna Cutoff, a segment of the route between Slateford and Port Morris, carried its last freight train in 1979 as part of the Conrail network and later had its tracks removed. This segment is owned by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, which is actively reconstructing about 7 miles of track at the east end to extend its commuter service from Port Morris to Andover. The other 20 miles from Andover to the Delaware River also will need to be restored.
• From Port Morris, the route would run over existing NJT commuter lines to Kearny.
• At Kearny, the route connects to Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor for the last 8 miles into New York Penn Station.

After PennDOT’s Service Development Plan is completed and federally approved, the projects would advance to preliminary engineering and environmental review. For information, see PennDOT’s website on passenger rails in Pennsylvania at pa.gov/agencies/penndot/traveling-in-pa/passenger-rail.

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