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NEC New York Penn - AM Rush

This map covers New York Penn Station and its eastern approach. Penn Station is the busiest rail station in North America with traffic volume of over 100 million riders annually. This simulation is strictly based on the Fall 2019 Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and Long Island RR timetables with very small changes made to adapt it to Rail Route.

Map Layout Notes
Due to the number of platforms and the way some of the longer platforms are utilized, the 21 tracks at Penn Station have been broken up into 3 different stations in Rail Route. Tracks 1 to 10 are NYP South. Tracks 11 to 21 are NYP North (tracks 1-11). The six center tracks are long enough to hold two trains at a time so the right hand side platforms are NYP East tracks 8-13 (8-10 and 1-3).

Amtrak
Train symbols are prefixed with an "A" and should generally be considered the highest priority. However, Penn Station is very busy and it is common for Amtrak trains to wait for a minute or two for NJT trains to get out of the way. Most of the trains will use platforms 10-13 but at the rush hour peak, you will see some abnormal track assignments. A handful of Empire Service trains enter and exit via the Empire Connection and can only use platforms 5-8. Most trains will originate or terminate in Sunnyside Yard, but a few New England trains will take the Hell Gate Line at HAROLD interlocking.

New Jersey Transit
Train symbols are prefixed with an "N" and will all enter or exit via the Hudson River Tunnels. They will strictly use tracks 1-10. Like Amtrak, they also utilize Sunnyside Yard but mostly in the post morning rush hour period to store trains until the evening rush hour. At first, most trains will relay back west but eventually the majority will terminate at Sunnyside Yard. At times, trains entering and exiting the Hudson River Tunnels are only 2 minutes apart, but the vigilant dispatcher will not have issues keeping them moving with minimal stops and no late penalties.

Long Island Railroad
The Long Island Railroad trains make up the majority on this map and will carry their normal 2 to 4 digit numbers. Inbound trains will all come from the LIRR Main, where tracks 1-4 are from Jamaica and 5-6 are from the Port Washington branch. Thankfully, a flyover prevents inbound and outbound train conflicts at HAROLD so the main dispatching challenge is to sort the trains to their various destinations and handling the trains coming in and out of Sunnyside Yard. A handful of trains will not go to Penn station but stop at Hunterspoint Ave where they will either turn back east or go off map towards Long Island City.

For the most part, LIRR uses tracks 14-21 in Penn Station but some will stray down to track 13 at the peak. The northern two East River Tunnel tracks can access tracks 14-21 but the southern two can only access up to track 17, so be very careful how trains are routed at HAROLD. The majority of inbound trains trains go to West Side Yard but some relay back east. A few trains that eventually turn back east will use the C-Yard to relay so other inbound trains can use those tracks.

Tips
The entire simulation will take around 1.5 hours to complete with an achievable 100% score. I found myself bouncing between 1x and 5x speeds (rarely higher) without the need to pause.

For the most part, the real schedules have been designed with some padding so only a major dispatching screw-up will cause late trains and loss of points. Whenever there is a small lull, you should take the time to review the trains stopped at the station and reverse any that will turn back. The most difficult part of this map is handling the western interlocking at Penn Station and properly prioritizing the flow of traffic in and out of the Hudson River Tunnels. It will seem like the NJT trains move very slowly, especially from tracks 1-4, but it is important to get those trains heading west ASAP.

On the east end, the sorting of traffic at HAROLD is very important (as mentioned in the LIRR section above) in order to get the LIRR trains to their correct platforms. Do not hesitate to use all 4 East River Tunnel tracks for LIRR traffic.

Good luck and have fun!


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