Pennsylvania Station, also known as New York Penn Station or simply Penn Station, is the main

intercity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...

railroad station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and the busiest transportation facility in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...

, serving more than 600,000 passengers per weekday . It is located in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

, beneath

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...

in the block bounded by

Seventh Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven. Seventh may refer to: * Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution * A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts Film and television *"The Seventh", a second-season epi ...

and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets, and in the

James A. Farley Building The James A. Farley Building is a mixed-use structure in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, which formerly served as the city's main United States Postal Service (USPS) branch. Designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Beaux-Arts style, the structur ...

, with additional exits to nearby streets. It is close to Herald Square, the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...

, Koreatown, and

Macy's Herald Square Macy's Herald Square (originally named the R. H. Macy and Company Store) is the Flagship#Retailing, flagship of Macy's department store, as well as the Macy's, Inc. corporate headquarters, on Herald Square in Manhattan, New York City. The buildi ...

. Penn Station has 21 tracks fed by seven tunnels (the two North River Tunnels, the four East River Tunnels, and the single Empire Connection tunnel). It is at the center of the

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, a ...

, a passenger rail line that connects New York City to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, and intermediate points. Intercity trains are operated by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, which owns the station, while

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

services are operated by the

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...

(LIRR) and NJ Transit (NJT). Connections are available within the complex to the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

and buses. Penn Station is named for the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

(PRR), its builder and original owner, and shares its name with several stations in other cities. The current facility is the remodeled underground remnant of the original Pennsylvania Station, a more ornate

station building A station building, also known as a head house, is the main building of a passenger railway station. It is typically used principally to provide services to passengers. A station building is a component of a station, which can include tracks, p ...

designed by McKim, Mead, and White and considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style. Completed in 1910, it enabled direct rail access to New York City from the south for the first time. Its

head house A head house or headhouse may be an enclosed building attached to an open-sided shed, or the aboveground part of a subway station. Markets In the 18th and early 19th centuries, head houses were often civic buildings such as town halls or courth ...

was torn down in 1963, galvanizing the modern

historic preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK), is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...

movement. The rest of the station was rebuilt in the following six years, while retaining most of the rail infrastructure from the original station. A new direct entrance from 33rd Street to the LIRR concourse opened in December 2020. Moynihan Train Hall, an expansion of Penn Station into a mixed-use redevelopment of the adjacent Farley Post Office building, opened in January 2021.

Plans A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. ...

call for further expanding the LIRR concourse, adding

railway platform A railway platform is an area alongside a railway track providing convenient access to trains. Almost all stations have some form of platform, with larger stations having multiple platforms. The world's longest station platform is at Hubbali ...

s in a new southern annex to accommodate two proposed

Gateway Program The Gateway Program is a C$3.0 billion regional transportation project for Metro Vancouver that is being managed by the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation. The ministry introduced the Gateway Program on January 31, 2006, as a means to ...

tunnels under the Hudson River, adding underground connections to the Herald Square station and with the PATH to the 33rd Street station, and renovating the core Penn Station under Madison Square Garden.

History

Planning and construction

Brooklyn Museum - Pennsylvania Station Excavation - George Wesley Bellows - overall

Until the early 20th century, the PRR's rail network terminated on the western side of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

(once known locally as the North River) at Exchange Place in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.ferries to cross the Hudson River for the final stretch of their journey. The rival

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

's line ran down Manhattan from the north under

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...

and terminated at Grand Central Depot (later replaced by

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

) at 42nd Street. Many proposals for a cross-Hudson connection were advanced in the late 19th century, but financial panics in the 1870s and 1890s scared off potential investors. In any event, none of the proposals advanced during this time were considered feasible. An early proposal for a bridge was considered but rejected. The alternative was to tunnel under the river, but this was infeasible for

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

use. The development of the

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas ...

at the turn of the 20th century made a tunnel feasible. In 1901, PRR president Alexander Cassatt announced the railroad's plan to enter New York City by tunneling under the Hudson and building a grand station on the West Side of Manhattan south of 34th Street. The station would sit in Manhattan's Tenderloin district, a historical

red-light district A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are particu ...

known for its corruption and prostitution. Beginning in June 1903, the two single-track North River Tunnels were bored from the west under the Hudson River. A second set of four single-track tunnels, the East River Tunnels, were bored from the east under the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

, linking the new station to

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, the PRR-owned Long Island Rail Road, and

Sunnyside Yard Sunnyside Yard is a large coach yard, a railroad yard for passenger cars, in Sunnyside, Queens in New York City. Description The yard is owned by Amtrak and is also used by New Jersey Transit. The shared tracks of the Long Island Rail Road (LIR ...

in Queens, where trains would be maintained and assembled. Construction was completed on the Hudson River tunnels on October 9, 1906, and on the East River tunnels on March 18, 1908.

Original structure

Penn Station, Interior, Manhattan (NYPL b13668355-482562)

A small portion of Penn Station opened on September 8, 1910, in conjunction with the opening of the East River Tunnels, and LIRR riders gained direct railroad service to Manhattan. On November 27, 1910, Penn Station was fully opened to the public. With the station's full opening, the PRR became the only railroad to enter New York City from the south. During half a century of operation by the Pennsylvania Railroad (1910–1963), scores of intercity passenger trains arrived and departed daily to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and St. Louis on "Pennsy" rails and beyond on connecting railroads to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

and the west. Along with Long Island Rail Road trains, Penn Station saw trains of the

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

and the Lehigh Valley railroads. A side effect of the tunneling project was to open the city up to the suburbs, and within 10 years of opening, two-thirds of the daily passengers coming through Penn Station were commuters. The station put the Pennsylvania Railroad at comparative advantage to its competitors offering direct service from Manhattan to the west and south. Other railroads began their routes at terminals in

Weehawken Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located largely on the Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 17,197.

, Hoboken, Pavonia and Communipaw which required passengers from New York City to take the interstate Hudson Tubes (now

PATH A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desire p ...

) or ferries across the Hudson River before boarding their trains. By 1945, at its peak, more than 100 million passengers a year traveled through Penn Station. By the late 1950s, intercity rail passenger volumes had declined dramatically with the coming of the Jet Age and the

Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...

. The station's exterior had become somewhat grimy, and due to its vast scale, the station was expensive to maintain. A renovation covered some of the grand columns with plastic and blocked off the spacious central hallway with a new ticket office. The Pennsylvania Railroad optioned the air rights, which called for the demolition of the

and train shed, to be replaced by an office complex and a new sports complex, while the tracks of the station would remain untouched. Plans for the new

Penn Plaza Pennsylvania Plaza (Penn Plaza) is the office, entertainment, and hotel complex occupying and near the site of Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded by 31st Street to the south, Eighth Avenue to the west, 34th ...

and Madison Square Garden were announced in 1962. In exchange for the air rights to Penn Station, the PRR would receive a smaller underground station at no cost and a 25 percent stake in the new Madison Square Garden Complex. Modern architects rushed to save the ornate building, but to no avail; demolition of the above-ground

began in October 1963. A giant steel deck was placed over the tracks and platforms to allow rail service to continue during construction. Photographs of the day showed passengers waiting for trains even as the head house was demolished around them. This was possible because most of the rail infrastructure (including the waiting room, concourses, and boarding platforms) was below street level."New York – Penn Station, NY (NYP)"
''Great American Stations Project''. 2013 Amtrak. Retrieved October 5, 2013 The demolition of the Penn Station head house was controversial and caused outrage internationally. "One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat," the architectural historian

Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (August 21, 1920 – November 30, 2017) was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Phil ...

famously wrote of the original station. The controversy over the demolition of such a well-known landmark, and its deplored replacement, is often cited as a catalyst for the architectural preservation movement in the United States. New laws were passed to restrict such demolition. Within the decade, Grand Central Terminal was protected under the city's new landmarks preservation act, a protection upheld by the courts in 1978 after a challenge by Grand Central's owner,

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...

Under Madison Square Garden

Post-1968, the core Penn Station has been underground, sitting below Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street, and Two Penn Plaza. The core has three levels: concourses on the upper two levels and

train platform A railway platform is an area alongside a railway track providing convenient access to trains. Almost all stations have some form of platform, with larger stations having multiple platforms. The world's longest station platform is at Hubbali ...

s on the lowest. The two levels of concourses, while renovated and expanded during the construction of Madison Square Garden, are original to the 1910 station, as are the tracks and platforms. Over the following decades, renovation attempted to add service and some concourse space. The West End Concourse under Eighth Avenue opened in 1986. In 1987, a rail connection to the

West Side Rail Yard The West Side Yard (officially the John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard) is a rail yard of 30 tracks owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. Used to store commuter rail trains operated by the ...

opened, and in 1991, the opening of the Empire Connection allowed Amtrak to consolidate all of its New York City trains at Penn Station. Previously, all trains running along the

Empire Corridor The Empire Corridor is a passenger rail corridor in New York State running between Penn Station in New York City and . Major cities on the route include Poughkeepsie, Albany, Schenectady, Amsterdam, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo ...

terminated at nearby

. This was a legacy of the two stations' roots in separate railroads–the PRR and New York Central, respectively. The consolidation saved Amtrak the expense of having to maintain two stations in New York City, including having to pay the MTA $600,000 in fees a year. In 1994, the station was renovated to add the 34th Street LIRR entrance and central corridor, along with artwork and improved waiting and concession areas. The new entrance consisted of a structure with a glass and brick facade, a clock salvaged from the original station, and air-conditioning units for the terminal. In 2002, the NJ Transit concourse was created in space previously occupied by retail and Amtrak office space, although the concourse could only be accessed from the Amtrak entrance on 32nd Street. Plans for a new entrance from 31st Street to the NJ Transit concourse were announced in 2006, and the entrance opened in 2009. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, security was increased and passenger flow curtailed. In 2002, $100 million of work added security features such as lighting, cameras, and barricades. The taxiway under Madison Square Garden, which ran from 31st Street to 33rd Street at mid-block, was permanently closed off with concrete Jersey barriers. Escalators providing direct access to the lobby of Madison Square Garden were closed and later removed. The underground

Gimbels Passageway Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the compa ...

connecting pedestrians to 34th Street–Herald Square has been sealed off since 1986, after decades of safety concerns and sexual assaults. Despite the modest renovations, the underground Penn Station continued to be criticized as "reviled," "dysfunctional," and a low-ceilinged "

catacomb Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire. Etymology and history The first place to be referred ...

" lacking charm, especially when compared to the much larger and more ornate Grand Central Terminal. The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', in a November 2007 editorial supporting development of an enlarged terminal, said that "Amtrak's beleaguered customers...scurry through underground rooms bereft of light or character," and ''Times'' transit reporter Michael M. Grynbaum called Penn Station "the ugly stepchild of the city’s two great rail terminals." After its nadir in the 1960s, ridership exploded in subsequent decades, a situation never contemplated by the structure's designers. By the 2010s, the station operated at almost three times its intended capacity; over 600,000 passengers used the station daily in 2019.

Expansion

In the early 1990s, U.S. Senator

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an ...

proposed building a new station in the

, the city's former main post office across the street. Moynihan had shined shoes in the original station as a boy. Many redevelopment or expansion concepts were unveiled over the 1990s and 2000s, but none reached fruition until funding from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enabled the expansion of the West End Concourse of the LIRR under the Farley Building in 2016. Building on it, New York Governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

in 2016 announced plans for renovation of Penn Station and mixed-use redevelopment of the Farley Building, including development of a new train hall, which he called the Empire Station Complex. The new expansion, Moynihan Train Hall, opened in January 2021, named for the man who had conceived it. The $1.6 billion, renovation retained the original, landmarked Beaux Arts Farley Building, added a central atrium with a glass roof, and provided access to Amtrak and LIRR trains. A new 33rd Street entrance to the LIRR concourse opened at the same time. The station received a place in the world selection for the 2021 Prix Versailles in the passenger stations category.

Services

The station is served by 1,300 arrivals and departures per day, twice the number during the 1970s. There are more than 600,000 subway, commuter rail and Amtrak passengers who use the station on an average weekday, or up to 1,000 every ninety seconds. It is the busiest passenger transportation facility in the United States and in North America.

Intercity rail

Amtrak

Amtrak owns the station and uses it for the following services: * ''

Acela The ''Acela'' ( ; originally the ''Acela Express'' until September 2019) is Amtrak's flagship service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 13 intermediate stops, includin ...

'' to Boston (northern terminus) and Washington D.C. (southern terminus) * '' Adirondack'' to

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

* ''

Berkshire Flyer The ''Berkshire Flyer'' is a seasonal Amtrak passenger train service between New York City and the Berkshire Mountains in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, via the Hudson Valley. The weekly train departs Penn Station on Friday afternoons during the s ...

'' to Pittsfield * ''

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...

'' to Chicago * '' Carolinian'' to

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

* '' Crescent'' to New Orleans * ''

Empire Service The ''Empire Service'' is an Inter-city rail service operated by Amtrak within the state of New York in the United States. The brand name originated with the New York Central Railroad in 1967. Trains on the line provide frequent daily service ...

'' to Albany and Niagara Falls, NY * ''

Ethan Allen Express The ''Ethan Allen Express'' is a daily passenger train operated by Amtrak in the United States between New York City and Burlington, Vermont, via Albany, New York. One daily round trip is operated on a north-south route with a 7 hour 35 min ...

'' to Burlington * ''

Keystone Service Amtrak's ''Keystone Service'' provides frequent regional rail, regional passenger train service between the Harrisburg Transportation Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, running along the Philadelphia to ...

'' to Harrisburg * '' Lake Shore Limited'' to Chicago * '' Maple Leaf'' to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

* ''

Pennsylvanian Pennsylvanian may refer to: * A person or thing from Pennsylvania * Pennsylvanian (geology) The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesca ...

'' to Pittsburgh * ''

Northeast Regional The ''Northeast Regional'' is an intercity rail service operated by Amtrak in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States. In the past it has been known as the ''NortheastDirect'', ''Acela Regional'', or ''Regional''. It is Amtrak's busies ...

'' to Boston or Springfield (northern termini) and Roanoke, Newport News, or Norfolk (southern termini) * '' Palmetto'' to Savannah * ''

Silver Meteor The ''Silver Meteor'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak between New York City and Miami, Florida. Introduced in 1939 as the first diesel-powered streamliner between New York and Florida, it was the flagship train of the Seaboard Air Line ...

'' to Miami * ''

Silver Star The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the United States Armed Forces' third-highest military decoration for valor in combat. The Silver Star Medal is awarded primarily to members of the United States Armed Forces for gallantry in action against an e ...

'' to Miami * ''

Vermonter Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the n ...

'' to Washington D.C. (southern terminus) and St. Albans (northern terminus) All except the ''Acela Express,'' ''Northeast Regional'' and ''Vermonter'' originate and terminate at Penn Station. Despite its status as Amtrak's busiest station, Amtrak's Superliner railcars cannot use Penn Station due to incompatible platform heights and inadequate clearances in the North River and East River Tunnels. Amtrak normally uses tracks 5–12 alongside New Jersey Transit and shares tracks 13–16 with the LIRR and NJ Transit.

Commuter rail

Long Island Rail Road

The following Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) services originate and terminate at Penn Station: *

Babylon Branch The Babylon Branch is a rail service operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The term refers to the trains serving Montauk Branch stations from Valley Stream east to Babylon; in other words, the Babylon Branch is ...

Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...

* Belmont Park Branch seasonal service to

Belmont Park Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse racing facility in the northeastern United States, located in Elmont, New York, just east of the New York City limits. It was opened on May 4, 1905. It is operated by the non-profit New York Racin ...

Far Rockaway Branch The Far Rockaway Branch is an electrified rail line and service owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch begins at Valley Interlocking, just east of Valley Stream station. From Valley Stream, th ...

to Far Rockaway, Queens in New York City * Hempstead Branch to Hempstead * Long Beach Branch to

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

* Montauk Branch to

and Montauk *

Oyster Bay Branch The Oyster Bay Branch is a rail line and service owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch splits from the Main Line just east of Mineola station, and runs north and east to Oyster Bay. The bran ...

to Oyster Bay * Port Jefferson Branch to Huntington and Port Jefferson * Port Washington Branch to Port Washington *

Ronkonkoma Branch The Ronkonkoma Branch is a rail service operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in the U.S. state of New York. On LIRR maps and printed schedules, the "Ronkonkoma Branch" includes trains running along the railroad's Main Line from Hicksvill ...

to Ronkonkoma with connecting service to Greenport *

West Hempstead Branch The West Hempstead Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in the U.S. state of New York. It runs between Valley Stream, New York, and West Hempstead, New York. Route description The branch sepa ...

to Hempstead All branches connect at Jamaica station except the Port Washington Branch. Jamaica station also connects to Airtrain JFK for service to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Normally, the LIRR uses tracks 17 to 21 exclusively and shares tracks 13 to 16 with Amtrak and NJT. The LIRR uses tracks 11 and 12 on rare occasions.

NJ Transit

The following NJ Transit Rail Operations (NJT) branches originate and terminate at Penn Station: * Montclair-Boonton Line to Montclair State University station, with connecting service west to Hackettstown. *

Morris and Essex Lines The Morris & Essex Lines are a group of former Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad (DL&W) railroad lines in New Jersey now owned and operated by NJ Transit. The lines include service offered on the Morristown Line and the Gladstone Branch. P ...

, consisting of the Morristown Line to

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

via Morristown and the

Gladstone Branch The Gladstone Branch (also known as the Gladstone Line) is a commuter rail line operated by NJ Transit from Gladstone station, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, to either Hoboken Terminal or New York Penn Station. It is one of two branches of th ...

Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...

. *

Northeast Corridor Line The Northeast Corridor Line is a commuter rail service operated by NJ Transit between the Trenton Transit Center and New York Penn Station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor in the United States. The service is the successor to Pennsylvania Railroad ...

to Trenton * North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch and

Bay Head Bay Head is a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 968,Raritan Valley Line to Raritan and High Bridge NJT normally uses tracks 1 to 4 exclusively, as these four tracks end at bumper blocks to their east. NJT shares tracks 5 through 12 with Amtrak, and occasionally uses tracks 13 to 16, which are shared with Amtrak and the LIRR.

Rapid transit

New York City Subway

Connections are available to the following New York City Subway stations: * From Penn Station: ** at 34th Street–Penn Station, under Eighth Avenue ** at 34th Street–Penn Station, under Seventh Avenue * From Herald Square, one block east at

Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

: ** at

34th Street–Herald Square station The 34th Street–Herald Square station (also signed as 34th Street) is an underground station complex on the BMT Broadway Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan wher ...

, under Broadway & Sixth Avenue

PATH

Connections are also available to the

system at 33rd Street station, under Sixth Avenue on Herald Square. The JSQ-33 and HOB-33 services terminate at 33rd Street on weekdays, and are combined into the JSQ-33 (via HOB) service on late nights, weekends and holidays.

Bus and coach

NYC Airporter provides bus transportation to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, and is authorized by the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...

and the New York City Department of Transportation.

New York City Bus

The following

MTA Regional Bus Operations MTA Regional Bus Operations (RBO) is the surface transit division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). It was created in 2008 to consolidate all bus operations in New York City operated by the MTA. , MTA Regional Bus Operations ru ...

buses stop near Penn Station: * M7 (Lenox, Columbus, Amsterdam, Sixth and Seventh Avenues): southbound to

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, via Seventh Avenue; or northbound to

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

via Sixth, Amsterdam, and Lenox Avenues * M20 (Seventh and Eighth Avenues/Varick and Hudson Streets): northbound to

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

via Eighth Avenue; or southbound to South Ferry via Seventh Avenue * M34 Select Bus Service (34th Street Crosstown): westbound to Javits Center; or eastbound to

FDR Drive The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, commonly called the FDR Drive for short, is a limited-access parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It starts near South and Broad Streets, just north of the Battery Park ...

* M34A Select Bus Service (34th Street Crosstown): westbound to

Port Authority Bus Terminal The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is a bus station, bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal in the world by volume of traffic, serving abo ...

; or eastbound to

Waterside Plaza Waterside Plaza is a residential and business complex located on the East River in the Kips Bay section of Manhattan, New York City. It was formerly a Mitchell-Lama Housing Program-funded rental project. History Waterside Plaza was built on l ...

and Kips Bay * Q32 (Fifth and Madison Avenues): northbound only, to

Jackson Heights, Queens Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria ( Ditmars-Steinw ...

Intercity coaches

Intercity bus service An intercity bus service (North American English) or intercity coach service (British English and Commonwealth English), also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public tr ...

to and from Penn Station is provided by

Vamoose Bus Vamoose Bus is a privately owned intercity bus line located in New York City. It provides daily transportation between New York City and three suburban cities in the Washington, DC metro area. Route and stop locations The New York City picku ...

, Tripper Bus, and

Go Buses Academy Bus Lines is a bus company in New Jersey providing local bus services in northern New Jersey, line-run services to/from New York City from points in southern and central New Jersey, and contract and charter service in the eastern United S ...

runs buses from a stop near Penn Station to Bethesda, Maryland; Arlington, Virginia; and Lorton, Virginia. Tripper Bus runs buses from a stop near Penn Station to Bethesda, Maryland and Arlington, Virginia.

runs buses from a stop near Penn Station to Newton, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most intercity and commuter bus services to and from midtown Manhattan use the

, located approximately 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) to the north of Penn Station.

Airline ticketing

Penn Station includes a

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

ticketing office, located at the ticket lobby. This was previously a

Continental Airlines Continental Airlines, simply known as Continental, was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continental started o ...

ticketing office.

Proposed Metro-North service

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to bring

Metro-North Railroad Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a New York State public benefit corporations, public authority of the U.S. state of New Yor ...

commuter trains to Penn Station as part of its Penn Station Access project. The

East Side Access East Side Access (ESA) is a public works project in New York City that extended the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) from its Main Line in Queens into a new station under Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan's East Side. A project of the Metropol ...

project, expected to open in 2022, will free up track and platform space at Penn Station by redirecting some LIRR trains from Penn Station to

. This new capacity, as well as track connections resulting from the East Side Access project, would allow Metro-North trains on the New Haven Line to run to Penn Station via Amtrak's Hell Gate Bridge. Four new local Metro-North stations in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

are planned as part of this project, at Co-op City, Morris Park, Parkchester/ VanNest, and Hunts Point. The MTA also proposes a second connection from the Metro-North's Hudson Line to Penn Station using Amtrak's

West Side Line The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is used by Amtrak passenger service heading north via ...

in Manhattan. The Penn Station Access project would provide direct rides from

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Westchester County Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population o ...

, the

Lower Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The region stretches from the Capital District, New York, Capital Di ...

, and the Bronx to West Midtown; ease reverse-commuting from Manhattan and the Bronx to Westchester County, the Lower Hudson Valley, and Connecticut; and provide transportation service to areas of the Bronx without direct subway service.

Station layout

Penn Station does not have a unified design or floor plan but rather is divided into separate Amtrak, LIRR and NJ Transit concourses with each concourse maintained and styled differently by its respective operator. The Amtrak and NJ Transit concourses are located on the first level below the street level while the Long Island Rail Road concourse is two levels below street level. The main concourse, which was principally used by Amtrak until the opening of the Moynihan Train Hall, is at the west end of the station directly beneath Madison Square Garden. It was created out of the original station's waiting rooms and main concourse, though few remnants of the original still exist in the space. It was renovated in the early 2000s in anticipation of ''

'' service and includes an enclosed waiting area for ticketed passengers with seats, outlets and WiFi. The LIRR's connecting concourse runs below West 33rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, as it has since the original station opened in 1910. Significant renovations were made to the LIRR areas over a three-year period ending in 1994, including the opening of the Central Corridor passageway and the addition of a new entry pavilion on 34th Street. The West End Concourse, west of Eighth Avenue, opened in 1986, and was widened and lengthened to cover tracks 5 through 21 in 2017. The NJ Transit concourse near Seventh Avenue opened in 2002 out of existing retail and Amtrak office space. A new street-level entrance to this concourse at the corner of 31st Street and Seventh Avenue opened in September 2009. Previously, NJ Transit used space in the Amtrak concourse. The station is so complex that in December 2017, Amtrak and Zyter released a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

called FindYourWay to help commuters navigate around Penn Station, though Zyter also plans to roll out the app at other large Amtrak stations. The station's three providers use different official addresses for the station. * Amtrak: 351 West 31st Street * LIRR: 34th Street at 7th and 8th Avenues * NJ Transit: 390 7th Avenue

Tracks and surrounding infrastructure

In normal operations, Amtrak and NJ Transit share tracks 5–12, while the LIRR has the exclusive use of tracks 17–21 on the north side of the station. All three railroads share tracks 13–16. Tracks 1–4 end at bumper blocks at the eastern end of the platform and have no access to the East River Tunnels and are used exclusively by NJ Transit since there's no access to Amtrak's Sunnyside Yard in Queens, NY. From the east, the East River Tunnels' lines 1 and 2 (the more southerly tubes) can only access tracks 5–17 and are used by most Amtrak and NJ Transit trains, while the East River Tunnels' lines 3 and 4 (the more northerly tubes) can only access tracks 14–21 and are mostly used by LIRR. From the west, the North River Tunnels can access tracks 1–19, while the Empire Connection can only access tracks 1–9 and the LIRR's

West Side Yard The West Side Yard (officially the John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard) is a rail yard of 30 tracks owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. Used to store commuter rail trains operated by the ...

can only access tracks 10–21. All station tracks are powered by 12 kV

overhead wire An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipmen ...

. Tracks 5–21 also have 750 V DC

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway t ...

. Due to the lack of proper ventilation in the tunnels and station, only electric locomotives and

dual-mode locomotive An electro-diesel locomotive (also referred to as a dual-mode or bi-mode locomotive) is a type of locomotive that can be powered either from an electricity supply (like an electric locomotive) or by using the onboard diesel engine (like a diese ...

s are scheduled to enter Penn Station. Diesel-only NJT trains terminate at Hoboken Terminal or Newark Penn Station, and diesel-only LIRR trains terminate at or prior to

Long Island City Long Island City (LIC) is a residential and commercial neighborhood on the extreme western tip of Queens, a borough in New York City. It is bordered by Astoria to the north; the East River to the west; New Calvary Cemetery in Sunnyside to the ...

. Trains on track 18 open their doors only on the north side (platform 10).

2017–2018 service disruptions and track improvements

Since the early 2010s, Amtrak had planned to fix the deteriorating rails and infrastructure around Penn Station, but due to the prioritization of other projects, applied only minimal fixes. In early 2017, this culminated in numerous power outages, derailments, and delays due to track maintenance delays. There were frequent service disruptions to train schedules caused by the deterioration of its tracks and their supporting infrastructure, as well as in those of the East River and North River tunnels that respectively connect the station to Long Island and New Jersey. A string of early 2017 service disruptions started on March 23, 2017, when an ''Acela'' train derailed, causing delays for the day. On April 3, a NJ Transit train derailed at a known problem site, where repairs had been deferred. This caused four days of reduced service along the Northeast Corridor for both Amtrak and NJ Transit, because the incident damaged the switch that connects Tracks 1–8 to the North River tunnels. This closure caused a cascading failure, delaying Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road trains on the unaffected tracks. On April 14, a New Jersey Transit train became stuck in the North River tunnels, causing the station to grow crowded with waiting passengers. After an Amtrak police officer used a

Taser A taser is an electroshock weapon used to incapacitate people, allowing them to be approached and handled in an unresisting and thus safe manner. It is sold by Axon, formerly TASER International. It fires two small barbed darts intended to ...

on a man who was acting disruptively, rumors of gunshots sparked a stampede that injured 16 people. Following the stampede, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer called on Amtrak to centralize law enforcement response. As a result of these incidents, the Long Island Rail Road had proposed taking over Penn Station from Amtrak to improve maintenance, and New Jersey has suggested withholding state payments to Amtrak. Amtrak has discussed accelerating major maintenance work, even at the cost of further disruptions, to more quickly stabilize infrastructure and decrease more future incidents that could potentially cause even greater disruption. On April 28, 2017, Amtrak announced that it would perform some track maintenance during the summer over a period of one and a half months. Five tracks were closed for repairs as part of the reconstruction work, severely reducing track capacity in a situation media outlets deemed "the summer of hell". Many affected NJ Transit passengers were diverted to take the PATH instead. Some Amtrak trains from the Empire Corridor were routed to Grand Central instead of Penn Station. Regular service resumed on September 5, 2017. Amtrak made further improvements to Penn Station's trackage in summer 2018. As a result, some Empire Corridor trains were rerouted again to Grand Central. The '' Lake Shore Limited'' and ''

'' to Chicago were truncated or rerouted because of this work.

Planning and redevelopment

Resurgence of train ridership in the 21st century has pushed the current Pennsylvania Station structure to capacity, leading to several proposals to renovate or rebuild the station. In 2013, the

Regional Plan Association The Regional Plan Association is an independent, not-for-profit regional planning organization, founded in 1922, that focuses on recommendations to improve the quality of life and economic competitiveness of a 31-county New York–New Jersey– ...

and the

Municipal Art Society The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) is a non-profit membership organization for preservation in New York City, which aims to encourage thoughtful planning and urban design and inclusive neighborhoods across the city. The organization was ...

formed the Alliance for a New Penn Station. Citing overcrowding and the limited capacity of the current station under Madison Square Garden, the Alliance began to advocate for limiting the extension of Madison Square Garden's operating permit to ten years. On July 24, 2013, the New York City Council voted 47–1 to give the Garden a ten-year operating permit, after which the owners will have to move or seek permission anew. In May 2013, four architecture firms— SHoP Architects, SOM,

H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture Hugh Hardy (July 26, 1932 – March 17, 2017) was an American architect, known for designing and revitalizing theaters, performing arts venues, public spaces, and cultural facilities across the United States. ''The New Yorker'' writer Brendan ...

, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro—submitted proposals for a new Penn Station. Proposals included moving Madison Square Garden to the Morgan Postal Facility a few blocks southwest and an extension of the High Line to Penn Station, moving Madison Square Garden to the area south of the James Farley Post Office, and moving the arena to a new pier west of

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, commonly known as the Javits Center, is a large convention center on Eleventh Avenue between 34th Street and 38th Street in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City. It was designed by architect James ...

, all with the intention of redeveloping Penn Station as a

mixed-use development Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to some ...

. Madison Square Garden officials rejected the idea of moving the facility, calling the plans "pie-in-the-sky." In January 2016, New York governor

announced that requests for proposals would be solicited for the redevelopment of the station, which would be a public-private partnership called the Empire Station Complex. Investors would be granted commercial rights to the station in exchange for paying building costs.

Empire Station Complex

In January 2020, Governor Cuomo unveiled a proposed southern annex to Penn Station, part of his vision for the Empire Station Complex. The annex would include eight additional tracks with four platforms and would involve demolishing the entire block bounded by 30th and 31st streets between Seventh and Eighth avenues, directly south of the existing station. In another component of the Empire Station plan, the LIRR concourse in Penn Station is being doubled in width, from , and the ceilings raised to a minimum height of . the stores in the LIRR's East End Concourse closed in 2019 in preparation for an expansion of the concourse. The first piece of this expansion, a new direct entrance from 33rd Street to the LIRR concourse, opened on December 31, 2020. 33rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues will be permanently closed to vehicular traffic and converted into a pedestrian plaza. As part of the project, workers removed seven "head knockers", which were part of the old Penn Station and were only above the concourse's floor. Governor Kathy Hochul and MTA officials dedicated the rebuilt concourse on September 6, 2022, even though the project was still incomplete at the time. In April 2021, MTA officials proposed two options to reconstruct the Penn Station building under Madison Square Garden, following a year of consultations with NJ Transit, Amtrak,

FXCollaborative FXCollaborative is an American architecture, planning, and interior design firm founded in 1978 by Robert F. Fox Jr. and Bruce S. Fowle as Fox & Fowle Architects. The firm merged with Jambhekar Strauss in 2000 and was renamed to FXFOWLE Architec ...

architects, and

WSP USA WSP USA, formerly WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Parsons Brinckerhoff, is a multinational engineering and design firm with approximately 14,000 employees. WSP stands for Williams Sale Partnership. The firm operates in the fields of strategic con ...

engineers. One alternative would retain the existing two-level passenger concourse, but remove a portion of the upper concourse to create more open space and a balcony; the other alternative envisions a taller single-level concourse with a multi-story glass atrium in the former taxiway, connecting two new entrances on 31st and 33rd streets. Both plans would improve passenger circulation and access to the platform level, and could demolish the Hulu Theater for a new Eighth Avenue entrance. In November 2021, after Cuomo resigned, governor Kathy Hochul announced plans to hasten the reconstruction element to take place before construction of the southern annex, and to slightly reduce the size of the development above Penn Station. Hochul's plan selected the one-level concourse alternative and a direct passageway to the Herald Square Station and with the PATH to the 33rd Station. In June 2022, Hochul and New Jersey governor Phil Murphy requested that architects and engineers submit preliminary designs for the station's renovation by the end of the following month. Some of the project's opponents alleged that the plans would disproportionately benefit real-estate firm Vornado Realty Trust, which would redevelop several buildings in the surrounding neighborhood without paying property taxes. John McAslan was hired to design the renovated station that September.

Gateway Program

The Gateway Program is a proposed expansion and renovation of the

between

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.bottleneck Bottleneck literally refers to the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids ...

under the Hudson River and allow for refurbishment of the existing North River Tunnels. If constructed, two new tunnels would add 25 cross-Hudson train slots during

rush hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: on ...

s and connect to a 7-track, 4-platform

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...

annex to Penn Station to its south. Some previously planned improvements already underway have also been incorporated into the Gateway plan. The Gateway Program was unveiled in 2011, one year after the cancellation of the somewhat-similar Access to the Region's Core (ARC) project, and was originally projected to cost $14.5 billion and take 14 years to build. Construction of a "tunnel box" that would preserve the right-of-way on Manhattan's West Side began in September 2013, using $185 million in recovery and resilience funding awarded after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In 2015, Amtrak said that damage done to the existing trans-Hudson tunnels by Hurricane Sandy had made their replacement urgent. That year, Amtrak reported that environmental and design work was underway, estimated the project's total cost at $20 billion, and said construction would last four to five years. A draft environmental impact statement was released in July 2017, but the

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...

delayed consideration of it. Unblocking the project was a stated priority of the Biden administration which took office in January 2021, and the project was approved in May 2021. Federal funding is anticipated to be provided by the Biden administration's Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which was passed into law in November 2021, and the states of New York and New Jersey announced a deal in July 2022 to split the other half of costs, with construction on the tunnels to begin sometime in 2023.

Gallery

File:NYC Penn Station 7th Avenue Entrance 2013.jpg, 7th Avenue entrance File:Penn Station entrance.jpg, 8th Avenue entrance File:LIRR East End Gateway 20210204 224316486.jpg, East End Gateway 7th Ave entrance File:Blizzard of 2015- Empty Penn Station (16192638879).jpg, LIRR concourse File:New LIRR PO entrance 2017-06 jeh.jpg, LIRR track entrance in Farley Post Office Building File:NEW CAR DISPLAY AND AMTRAK PASSENGER TRAIN TICKET COUNTERS IN THE BACKGROUND AT NEW YORK CITY'S PENNSYLVANIA STATION... - NARA - 556703.jpg, Amtrak concourse in 1974 File:Penn Station departure board.jpg, Amtrak departure board, removed in 2017 File:PennsylvaniaStationNYStairs 02.JPG, One of the last remnants of the original Penn Station, a staircase between tracks 3 and 4 File:NY Penn Station platform.jpg, LIRR/Amtrak platform level File:LIRR at NY Penn station.jpg, Dual-mode LIRR train arriving File:NJ Transit Ticket Counter Penn Station NY.jpg, NJ Transit ticket counter File:ALP-45DP 4509 In New York Penn Station.jpg, New Jersey Transit ALP-45DP locomotive at the platform File:Two trains at NY Penn Station.jpg, Two New Jersey Transit trains on tracks 3 and 4

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * Includes track diagram.

External links

Penn Station – LIRR

Penn Station – NJ Transit
{{NJT stations navbox 1968 establishments in New York City

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City Eighth Avenue (Manhattan) Former Pennsylvania Railroad stations Hudson Yards, Manhattan Long Island Rail Road stations in New York City McKim, Mead & White buildings New York Tunnel Extension

Station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

Railroad terminals in New York City Railway stations in Manhattan Railway stations in the United States opened in 1910 Railway stations in the United States opened in 1968 Railway stations located underground in New York (state) Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings

Transit centers in New York City Transit hubs serving New Jersey Union stations in the United States