@bigkid posted:If they are going to do the Lackawanna cutoff and Amtrak uses it, it will be some combination of federal financing, NJ and PA DOT as well, there is no doubt. For example, who owns the old lackwanna cutoff line, that currently is a rail trail? If that was owned by the DLW, then technically I assume it was owned by Conrail when that line was absorbed in, so is that owned by the remnant of Conrail, or is it owned by CSX? If it was owned by conrail I assume that they could shift ownership to Amtrak, so they would own the rails (and folks, this is pure speculation and guess work). It is possible NJ transit already owns the trackage in NJ, they may have gotten that when they started looking at this.
Personally I think the contributing factor will be how much traffic post covid they anticipate commuting into NYC, right now that is really up in the air, dreams of totally virtual offices are as unlikely as NYC commuting pre Covid will return, what the balance will be, who knows? As a result I suspect this project won't even begin to happen until next year or 2023, so they can see if it is cost justified.
I am hopefully for an even split of costs but, NJ tends to play hardball and doesn't like to pay for anything.
Your speculation and guess work is somewhat accurate. Conrail operated the line until 1979. They sold the line to for $2M to Jerry Turco, a NJ developer in the 1980s. He setup several corporations for (liability reasons) in each town that the cut-off ran through. In 2001, the NJDOT purchased the entire cut-off via eminent domain. Starting in 2011, the state started buying properties/land adjacent to the future track and planning restoration service. Example: Land around the Blairstown station was owned by a private entity. The state wants to a large commuter parking lot, so the private entity sold it to the state for a pretty penny, many locals were NOT happy about that. Around 2015, the state erected barriers on both sides of the Paulinskill viaduct to prevent people from going up there and they started fencing sections of the cut-off where major work needs to be done.
As stated above, Phase I (Port Morris to Andover) has track laid own in several sections. Work started on the line in 2011. There were a few environmental issues that took up a lot of time and money (all resolved now) and the Roseville Tunnel restoration is set to start this October. NJT predicts that Phase I can be in operation by 2023.
On the other side of the river, the state of PA also acquired the sections of the cut-off that weren't being used by the Delaware-Lackawanna around 2002.
If I know the state of NJ, they won't hand anything over to anyone for free. They will probably charge Amtrak to operate on their track. Or, it will be some agreement like the NEC: Amtrak owns the track and NJT owns the stations. Ownership and trackage rights will be the hot topic for Phase II since it includes both viaducts.
Good point. I don't know how big of an impact post-COVID commuters to NYC will be, it could be enormous or very small. Many large companies in Manhattan are planning to go back full-time to work and the city is opening up. Only time will tell.
Bryce
