Travel Tuesday - Train Stories

I will put up two posts today about trains.  This first one is focussed on the new train hall at New York Penn Station.  A huge improvement over the old one.  

The second post is about trains, tragedy, trauma and people's weird reactions.  Caution, if the second post, one talking about trains and suicide, might upset you, please skip it.  I understand, it may not be easy to read, it was hard to write.  

The building above the old Penn Station in New York.

New Ticketed passenger waiting area

New Home of the Moynahan Train Hall

The New Train Hall Concourse Level 

Sometime during the late 1950's, early 1960's, Penn Station in New York was torn down, Madison Square Gardens was built, and the passenger train station was buried deep in the basements below the arena.  There is no nice way to describe it, dark, dated, dirty, poorly designed, crowded, and it was the station for passenger trains on the Amtrak lines in New York.  There is also a connected subway station.  The destruction of the old station, was a catalyst for preservation, probably the reason that Grand Central Station exists today.  

Across the street from Madison Square Gardens was a massive central post office building. Built in grand Greek Revival temple architecture, many visitors assumed it had been the original train station before the train station was moved underground.  It was the natural solution to replacing the dungeons below the gardens, the tracks extended under the post office building, when it was built most mail traveled on passenger trains.  With fundamental changes in the postal system, moving the post office became desirable.  The building was gutted and rebuilt, and process that is still ongoing, the passenger platforms were extended and renovated, and the new passenger station was created.  

It is grand, it is light, and bright.  It is a massive improvement.  

The food court is still under construction, if you want more than coffee and a pastry you need to leave the building.  The restrooms (toilets) are modern, and clean (in the old station they were and still are dreadful.) The ticketed passenger waiting area is nice, but perhaps too small.  There is no seating in the concourse and no trash bins. Signage is greatly improved with multiple digital displays.  The clearly marked, and well separated up and down escalators, a joy, there are elevators to every platform on the east side of the concourse. 

I was looking forward to the Moynihan station on my recent trip.  When we arrived, the nearest escalator took us into the old Penn Station under Madison Square Gardens.  It has been updated, and cleaned, and now serves some of the regional lines.  It still feels like you are buried under the arena, as of course you are.  If we had walked to the other end of the platform, the escalators or elevators would have brought us up into the new station.  

It is a much more dignified point of arrival for travelers to New York City.