Amtrak Seeks Private Partners to Spruce Up Decrepit Penn Station

(Bloomberg) -- Amtrak announced plans to improve passenger concourses in New York’s Pennsylvania Station, after repeated equipment failures in recent weeks have led to delays, cancellations and angry crowds at the nation’s busiest rail depot.

The national railroad said it will create an entity that will seek nongovernment partners to handle concourse operations and maintenance and make improvements. It also is asking the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit, which lease their own passenger ticketing and waiting areas at the station, to consider joint control.

“The fundamental challenge at Penn Station standing in the way of transformative change is the bifurcated control and disjointed nature of the three railroad’s respective passenger concourses,” Wick Moorman, Amtrak’s president and chief executive officer, said in remarks prepared for a New York State Assembly panel hearing Thursday. “To be truly successful, everyone involved in Penn Station should be part of this venture.”

Penn Station is crumbling while operating at twice its design capacity after decades of underinvestment in infrastructure. In March and April, two derailments there upended commuter service for days. Amtrak has since announced accelerated maintenance that is resulting in regular delays. Starting in July, Amtrak has proposed a project schedule that would cause 44 days of major disruptions over two months, according to a preliminary plan obtained by Bloomberg.

On Friday, downpours flooded the main entrance and access to two tracks. On Wednesday, trains in and out of Penn Station operated delays as long as an hour because of an Amtrak switch problem affecting trains leaving the yard.

“None of us can tolerate a future where service disruptions or ‘crush load’ conditions in the station become the norm,” Moorman said in his remarks. “We’ve now reached the point where we must change our approach and work together with a common goal.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Stacie Sherman in Trenton at sbabula@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Shepard at mshepard7@bloomberg.net, Stephen Merelman, William Selway