The great Cap’n Transit wrote a blog post on the virtues of lowering the floor of the Haverstraw Rail Tunnel, which is seen by State officials (and the CSX freight rail company) as the biggest impediment to restoring passenger rail service on the West Shore Line. Before 1959, New York Central ran passenger service from Hoboken/Jersey City to Albany, New York on the line, stopping in the Village of Haverstraw, West Haverstraw and Stony Point. By lowering the floor, a cheap alternative to blasting a larger tunnel cavity, vertical clearance is increased allowing for double-tracking through the tunnel. It seems suspicious that the tunnel is the biggest deterrent to restoring passenger service. It is more likely that CSX doesn’t want to share its tracks with passenger services, as this would limit the number of freight trains that can use the line per day. Since 1990, New Jersey Transit has been studying passenger service restoration to West Nyack with the option of building a terminal in Haverstraw or West Haverstraw.
HaverstrawLife.com 