AndyPatterson

take another look at the photo -- there's a matching outdoor patio on the other side of the building! But, my guess is that it, too, is reserved for Facebook workers...

rittenhousesq

Haha, it's pretty easy to do - just look at the direction the traffic is flowing on the street. Of course you have to know that 8th Ave. is one way going north. :-)

I've been in the Metropolitan Lounge three times now and I see no evidence at all that they will add outside terrace access on their side of the building.

Tweed Jet Set

I'm usually starting or ending my trip at Penn Station, but this time I'm just passing through. I wanted to see the new Moynihan Hall, is the dwell time at NYP on an Acela long enough for me to pop out and take a quick look around Moynihan Hall and get back on, or am I playing with fire?

stimpy

It is possible, but you would have to run and run in the right direction. If you take the wrong path you will end up in old Penn station. I wouldn't recommend it. It's not going away and you can see it some other time.

bennos

IIRC, the typical dwell time for the Acela at NYP is only about 11-12 minutes, which while technically enough time is a bit tight. (It is by definition enough time to get up and back down, since NYP bound passengers need to get off the train before boarding of WAS or BOS bound passengers officially begins.) Take the westernmost escalator (WAS end of the train) then take it back down when boarding starts.

While Moynihan itself is not that large (tbh for $1.6B I was kind of underwhelmed), I'd probably just wait until you have more time.

hotelfanatic

You need to factor in checkin time. If there are ppl in front of you you will not have enough time to get back so would not risk it. The checkin process now take longer because they are under man and they need to you fill out a form and take temp check. The few times I went only once they had 2 ppl checking ppl in.

I asked before about lockers and no one responded. So here is the skinny - lockers are opposite the bathrooms. They do not have locks but they say is safe. I would not store anything valuable in them (ie., laptops, etc).

AndyPatterson

A "locker" without locks?!!!! That's absurd. Maybe it would work in Switzerland, but not here. And the lockers do not appear to be numbered, so you would have to remember "second from the right" or whatever...

rittenhousesq

Did you ask or was there any notice about when the bar will open? We had heard about late June/early July.

M60_to_LGA

I agree. To be honest, I thought it was quite lovely as a post office, although I'd only been in there once or maybe twice. I mean, the train hall is bright and spacious, which is nice, but it really feels like it could be the lobby to an office building in Houston's Galleria District. And there's nowhere to sit!

On another note, when I took Amtrak back from Philly last month (my first time in a year and a half), I came back up in the old Penn Station waiting area near the former Solari board (RIP). It looked much cleaner and brighter than I remember it being - did they renovate that area recently? It seemed like there was new signage up, brighter lighting, cleaner floors... it looked quite nice!

hotelfanatic

Lockers have numbers and the bar will be opening over the summer.

The folks behind the counter are amazing! All extremely friendly and accommodating. The Latte is very good.

Long Train Runnin

In the old Club Acela it was simply a room near the entrance where you could leave your bags.

I did so countless times without any issues. These lockers actually seem like an upgrade to be honest.

Also, I have used similar "lockers" at various airports inside of lounges (IST and NRT spring to mind first.) Again, without incident.

rittenhousesq

I'm currently in the Metropolitan Lounge and the bar still hasn't opened. I was told that the license is still in process and they have no idea when the approval will come through. .

bennos

I realize this was posted in January, but I just stumbled across it now, and, you know, rail geekiness.

For reference, here's a track map of Penn Station as published by Amtrak. On the right hand side, you can see "Line 1" through "Line 4" -- these are the four river tubes to Queens. Lines 2 and 3 cross each other so on the Queens side Eastbound and Westbound traffic can roughly sort itself by LIRR vs NEC. Put another way, an Eastbound LIRR train departing track 20 via Line 3 will end up south of Line 2 in Queens, and can easily merge onto the Eastbound tracks. Lines 3 and 4 are usually more or less exclusively used by the LIRR.

A Southbound Amtrak train should ordinarily end up in Line 2, though if arriving via Line 4 for some reason (eg: trackwork) it can still reach Tracks 14-18. In order to arrive on Track 21, it had to arrive via Line 4, which already suggests something unusual. At that point, even Track 19 can make it to the Hudson River tunnel, so it must have been an unexpected situation to end up on 21. 20 and 21 are usually inbound LIRR platforms, with trains heading to the West Side Yard before eventually returning for outbound service on a lower numbered track, so it could have been the only open platform for the wayward Acela.

The physical act of moving the Acela to a more suitable platform is actually pretty easy once the platform has been identified and the train appropriately crewed. Most likely they reversed into the tunnel, cleared the switch, then proceeded to the new platform. It's also possible to proceed west towards the yard and then back into the platform, though I'm not sure how far west the overhead wire continues, though. It definitely doesn't continue into the yard proper.

AndyPatterson

Interesting map -- and makes clear the tight coordination needed in scheduling/moving trains, given that the # of platforms is far greater than the # of tracks outside the station. What happens if a train needs to be sidelined due to disruptions in operations? For example, the Vermonter northbound had to stop in NYP for a few days during the recent hurricane. Was the Vermonter tying up one of the platforms for a half-day or longer (since it cannot be readily swapped into to a NER route), or was it somehow shuttled to a train yard?

Long Train Runnin

It would undoubtedly be sent over to Sunnyside yard. That's where the cleaning crews/service folks are to turn the train.