Paul writes: > > On the east end, it's even trickier. What lines do you > connect to? Former NH "Maybrook Line?" Metro-North or the > friendly folks in those neighborhoods may not like the idea > of having freight trains rolling through their backyards. > Plus, what major terminal city are you going for? New Haven? > Boston? Not a practical idea when CSX already has good lines > into both... Such speculation bedevils the promoters of the freight tunnel across NY Harbor: An unrealistic view of the nature of New England freight nowadays. The traffic lanes are vastly different now than they were at the end of E-L days or any time before. Freight coming to the new York city area has a good piece of the market already on the NJ side. Land is too expensive in Manhattan to do rail freight there anymore. The amount of land required to do a container port on the Brooklyn side is out of the question, and as for container freight -- it mostly comes from various West Coast ports that can just as well enter New England on the B&A -- or ** could** come the other way from Halifax or Boston anyway. Little traffic comes north from Norfolk/Charleston/Savannah which are the only ports that might make sense to ship rail to new England, even if the L&HR were still extant. And even if CAFTA and a South American Trade Zone emerges, I wouldn't bet the farm on the southern ports, either. The NS I-81 corridor, in connection with the D&H route will capture any significant traffic from the south to New England anyway. As for commuter service, I'd hold out for rail on the new Tappan Zee crossing, though I'd look for the west-of-Hudson end to follow the Thruway and not the Piermont Branch to Suffern, and ditto on I287 to Harrison and a connection to the Harlem Line to get to GCT. In short, the restoration of the Poughkeepsie Bridge is a romantic notion at best, and certainly fun to imagine -- but I'd put it somewhere below the revival of Anthracite Coal as a major fuel source as to its likelihood. Cheers, Jim Guthrie The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org ------------------------------
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