Penn Station Tackles High-Speed Service
<B> Penn Station Tackles High-Speed Service</B>
By Frank Rosci
With the advent of high-speed trains in Amtrak's bustling Northeast Corridor about a year away, a $37.5-million renovation project is underway at New York's Pennsylvania Station. Major enhancements in services and amenities, related directly to the startup of the 155-m.p.h. trains, are part of the master plan.
"In conjunction with the high-speed train service debuting in October 1999, business travelers will reap benefits at all levels, including physical upgrades at Amtrak stations, a faster and more convenient reservations system and new onboard services," said Rick Remington, chief spokesman at Amtrak's Northeast Corridor office in Philadelphia.
Dispersed throughout each train, business travelers will find 32 tables for informal meetings or use as work desks. Each train also will air either video entertainment or live news programming over monitors. Each passenger seat will have a 120-volt outlet for a laptop computer and power pack, supported by extra-large tray tables.
Initially, two trains will operate beginning next October, with two trains a month being put into service thereafter until a total of 20 trains is reached by mid- to late 2000, Remington said.
The New York City-based architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, which has been working on the Penn Station commission since 1991, will implement new designs in a phased renovation of public and back-of-the-house areas at the station, said Kenneth Drucker, American Institute of Architects, design director, HOK/NY.
"The image of the renovated facility, which is the busiest in the Amtrak system, is designed to be in keeping with the high technology and streamlined operations of the new train sets and make Amtrak even more competitive with airline shuttles," Drucker said.
Major renovations--designed to make the interior of the station safer, more efficient and aesthetically pleasing, Drucker said--include two new waiting areas with expanded lounges featuring comfortable seating, telephones, fax machines and space for more than 600 passengers. A system of softer overhead lighting and full-height glass walls also will be installed in the waiting areas.
In other parts of the station, stairs to three train platforms will be replaced with escalators; new, larger train arrival/departure boards will be placed in strategic locations; and new graphics for directional signage will be installed. To speed travel further, more automatic ticketing machines will be added, Remington said.
The station's existing floor, which dates to the 1960s, will be replaced with a new terrazzo floor featuring a colorful design relating to the Amtrak corporate color palette for high-speed rail.
Outside the station's doors, the taxi passenger drop-off location between 31st and 33rd Streets, the first visual point of reference for many passengers, will be upgraded and made more visible with a storefront look to include glass panels that will match the glass walls of the new waiting areas. A ceiling also will be installed over the taxi drop-off, located in a tunnel-like area that links the station and buildings on the Madison Square Garden side of the drop-off. "Amtrak is trying to encourage more people to use the taxi drop-off, by making the area more welcoming," Drucker said.
Work, which began in September, will be accomplished through several sequenced phases structured to impose a minimum of disruption on normal daily station operations, Drucker said. (Some 500,000 passengers pass through Penn Station on an average weekday).
All work is expected to be completed by next fall. Upon completion of the project, financed principally under the Federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, Amtrak has plans to expand into the General Post Office, the Farley Building, across Eighth Avenue--a $315-million project that will bring a new skylit concourse and ticketing hall, Remington said. That project should be completed by 2002.
Each train of the 20-train fleet will seat 304 people, and have Penn Station locomotives at the front and rear, four coaches, a first class car and a pub-like food car. The trains--styled after the super-sleek T.G.V. trains operated by the French national railroad--are being built at plants in Barre, Vt., and Plattsburg, N.Y., by Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. and Alstom, the Paris-based T.G.V. manufacturer.
High-speed rail will reduce the trip between New York and Washington by 15 minutes, to two hours and 45 minutes, while the New York-Boston journey will take three hours.