Daniel Convissor's Web Site (is in the midst of reconstruction):
Centralized Electric and Traffic Control on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
There are three Amtrak dispatching centers on the NEC. In a few years, once
all the interlockings are cut in and the towers closed, they will control all
the Amtrak owned trackage in the NEC. Philadelphia was the first center to go
on line, followed by Boston. The New York center has yet to go on line.
This posting is organized as if you are traveling from Boston to Washington,
which the railroad considers from east to west, even though geographically many
of us think of it as north to south.
Boston
Boston center is located on the 5th floor of South Station. This center
controls the line between "Boston" (Boston South station) and "Shoreline Jct."
(Just east of New Haven). It also controls several MBTA branches off the
corridor in the Boston area as well as the "Springfield" line between New
Haven and Springfield. All railroad dispatched from this center is controlled
CETC dispatchers (no "paper" railroad or towers left).
Metro-North
The stretch from New Haven to "Shell" is controlled by the MTA Metro-North
dispatcher at Grand Central Station, not Amtrak. Shell is the interlocking in
New Rochelle where Metro-North peels off the Northeast Corridor (Metro-North's
New Haven Line) toward the Harlem Line in Mount Vernon while Amtrak continues
west toward the Hell Gate Bridge.
New York
The New York City center is located two blocks west of Penn Station. In this
center there will be actually two "centers:" CETC "New Jersey," which will run
on a Tandem computer, and the Penn Station Control Center (PSCC).
Penn Station Control Center
The PSCC will be run on a UNIX machine (Telnet to CETC...just joking). The
Long Island RR which funded the PSCC did not like the CETC setup or the
computer it ran on. Rather than wait for computer development and software
writing to catchup with CETC, the decision was made to go with CETC for New
York "west," the first part of which was supposed to go on line in October
1994, though it will be a year late, and let the PSCC part come on-line in
spring of 1996.
Penn Station will start to be run from a "hard panel" board located in the
basement of the New York CETC/PSCC building in October 1994. The LIRR
required that a huge emergency hard panel board be near by to run Penn station
and "Harold" in the event of massive computer failure.
New Rochelle to Penn Station
The eastern most interlocking that the PSCC will control is "Pelham." This
interlocking controls a moveable bridge and three switches and is controlled
by a "tower" that is a trailer located up in the bridge structure. The next
interlocking heading west, towards NY, is "Gate" which is now controlled by
the PSCC. After that comes "Harold" which is still (I think) controlled by the
tower at that location. This interlocking is/will be controlled by the
PSCC.
Sunnyside Yard
The interlocking controlling the entrance to Sunnyside yard is "F"
interlocking and is now controlled by the PSCC. There is another interlocking
in Sunnyside Yard called "R" which is controlled by the tower of the same
name. This interlocking will remain under the control of this tower which
answers to the Sunnyside Yard master.
Penn Station to the Kearny Connection
As you go west from New York, the first interlocking you hit after leaving the
tunnel is "Bergen." The next is "Portal," which consists of two switches and
a moveable bridge. The two switches will soon be removed but the signals will
remain to guard the moveable bridge. The next interlocking after "Portal" is
"Swift" (aka Kearny Connection). This interlocking will go into service
shortly and will be the westernmost interlocking controlled by the PSCC.
New Jersey
CETC "New Jersey" will have control over trackage from "Hudson" to "Morris."
Hudson is the yard just east of Newark and Morris is in Pennsylvania just west of
Trenton. The cut over from tower control to CETC control will begin in
October/November 1995 with the "Fair" tower in Trenton. The cut over work
will gradually continue its way east from there with Hudson tower being the
last to go.
(FORMER)
TOWER INTERLOCKINGS
Hudson Hudson
Dock Dock (Newark station)
Hunter Hunter, Lane.
Union Elmora, Union.
Lincoln Menlo, Islin, Lincoln, Edison.
Fair County, Midway, Ham, East Fair, West Fair, Morris.
CTEC-7 controls--------morris , west fair , east fair , ham
CTEC-8 controls--------midway , county , edison , lincoln , menlo , iselin
Dock now controls----------east dock , west dock , cliff , hunter , lane
Some quick notes on the above list...
Next towers to close are Pelham Bay and Harold. Pelham Bay will be handled by Section A and Harold will become part of the PSCC.
Hudson will be split into two interlockings by CETC.
Hunter will be moved about half a mile to the east to get it off the curve. In
addition to this, a high speed connection will be constructed (45 MPH) to the
Raritan Valley Line.
Union will be split into two interlockings named Union and Merk (?). Merk will
be a single switch off of track "A" about a mile east of Union.
Philadelphia
Located on the 8th floor of 30th street station, the Philadelphia center
controls all interlockings from "Grundy" (Just west of Trenton) to "Avenue"
(Washington).
This center also controls the Atlantic City branch between "Shore"
(Philadelphia) and "Atlantic" (Atlantic City). This line however will be
transferred to the NJ Transit dispatchers in Hoboken on September 28th [1995]
as part of Amtrak withdrawal from the A.C. line. The Harrisburg line between
"Zoo" (Philadelphia) and "State" (Harrisburg) is still dispatched by a "paper"
dispatcher through operators located in towers. While there are long range
plans to convert this line to CETC, I wouldn't look for it to happen soon.
Future Changes
Right now the New York dispatchers are on the second floor of the new
CETC/PSCC building. Word has it that the LIRR wants the entire center
for themselves and wants CETC out. Because of this we (Philadelphia)
have been told that the New York CETC dispatchers will be moved into our
office sometime in the next two years. This would place the corridor
between Washington ("Avenue") and New York ("Bergen") under the control
of one center.
This information was written/provided by Erich S. Houchens and
Eric G. The material was edited by Daniel Convissor, primarily to allow
the text to flow from Boston to Washington and flush out the information.
This page is hosted by Daniel Convissor
Home Page: http://www.panix.com/~danielc/
Email: danielc@panix.com
This URL: http://www.panix.com/~danielc/region/neccetc.htm
Last updated: 8 April 1999