New York’s Penn Station is the busiest rail hub in North America, yet it remains an outdated relic of fragmented railroads and operational inefficiencies. While cities around the world have embraced through-running to maximize capacity, improve service, and reduce delays, Penn Station continues to operate as a dead-end terminal where nearly all trains terminate rather than move seamlessly through.
The Railroad Partners—Amtrak, NJ Transit, and the MTA—insist that New York’s only option is to expand Penn Station by adding more stub-end tracks at an enormous cost. This approach does nothing to fix the station’s core inefficiency. Why should New Yorkers accept a system that actively restricts capacity, slows service, and forces unnecessary delays? The burden of proof should be on those defending a broken model, not on those calling for proven, modern solutions.
Penn Station is not constrained by physical space; it is constrained by outdated operations. The station already has 21 tracks, four East River tunnels, and two North River tunnels, yet the majority of platform time is wasted on trains sitting idle, waiting to reverse direction. Through-running would unlock Penn Station’s full capacity, enabling more trains per hour while reducing crowding and delays. Rather than acknowledging this reality, the Railroad Partners argue that New York should spend over $10 billion to build Penn South—a stub-end annex that reinforces the very inefficiencies that have caused decades of congestion.
The global precedent is clear: through-running works. Paris, London, Tokyo, Berlin, and even Philadelphia have all faced similar rail constraints and solved them by reconfiguring operations, improving coordination, and making targeted infrastructure investments. These cities faced governance challenges, mixed electrification systems, and legacy track layouts, yet they transformed their rail networks into seamless, high-capacity systems. If they succeeded, why should New Yorkers accept failure?
The Flaws of a Terminal-Based Model
Every major city with a high-capacity rail network recognizes the inefficiency of terminating trains at central hubs. A station that serves over half a million daily riders should function as a seamless conduit for train movement, not as a bottleneck where trains pile up waiting for an open platform. In Penn Station today, when an NJ Transit or LIRR train arrives, it must stop, unload, sit idle while crews change, and then reverse back out, forcing long platform dwell times and wasting critical track capacity.
This is not a physical limitation; it is a structural failure of how Penn Station is operated. Other cities have faced similar challenges and taken decisive action:
- Paris converted stub-end terminals into the RER system, allowing through-running service that now moves over a million daily commuters across the city.
- London faced the same separate terminal issue as New York, but the Thameslink program reconfigured operations to run trains through instead of turning them back, dramatically increasing capacity.
- Berlin Hauptbahnhof transformed legacy rail divisions into an integrated through-station, improving efficiency without a major footprint expansion.
- Philadelphia’s Center City Tunnel successfully linked two disconnected rail networks, despite different operators, labor contracts, and electrification systems.
The obstacles to through-running in New York are not fundamentally different from those these cities have faced. What is different is that those cities chose to solve the problem, while New York continues to make excuses.
The Real Costs of Inaction
The Railroad Partners argue that through-running is too complex and costly. But their alternative—a $10+ billion Penn South expansion—solves nothing. It adds more stub-end tracks, meaning more reversing trains, longer turnaround times, and continued congestion. Meanwhile, through-running could be achieved with targeted infrastructure investments at a fraction of the cost.
The cost of through-running is not in building new tracks but in making smarter use of the infrastructure that already exists. This means reconfiguring Penn Station’s track assignments, modifying platform operations, and improving scheduling coordination. These are not theoretical changes; they are proven strategies used by the world’s most efficient rail systems.
A phased approach could start by introducing pilot through-services, such as extending select NJ Transit trains beyond Penn to Jamaica or running LIRR trains to Secaucus. This would immediately reduce platform congestion without major capital investment. From there, infrastructure modifications—such as optimizing Harold Interlocking and upgrading dual-power rolling stock—would further enable full through-running. The investments required for this plan range between $3 and $5 billion, significantly less than the Penn South proposal, while delivering a long-term increase in train capacity.
Addressing the Common Arguments Against Through-Running
The Railroad Partners claim that through-running is infeasible because of operational complexity, power supply differences, and station design. These arguments fail under scrutiny.
- Electrification incompatibility is a solved problem. NJ Transit already operates dual-mode locomotives, and cities like Paris and London run mixed-power trains through their central stations. Technology is not the barrier—bureaucratic inertia is.
- Harold Interlocking is already handling complex rail traffic. Metro-North’s Penn Station Access program will introduce new trains through Harold, proving that capacity exists. The bottleneck is caused by train turnaround dwell times, not through-trains.
- Service disruptions can be minimized. A phased transition allows for incremental improvements without shutting down Penn Station. Through-running can start with limited routes before expanding.
- Through-running is more cost-effective than Penn South. Penn South expands capacity only in the most expensive way possible—by adding more stub-end tracks. Through-running increases capacity using existing infrastructure.
A Smarter, More Cost-Effective Path Forward
Instead of wasting billions on expanding an inefficient system, the Railroad Partners should be held accountable for implementing a modern rail solution that has worked around the world. There is a clear path forward:
- Reject the $10+ billion Penn South expansion, which locks in inefficiency instead of solving it.
- Launch a through-running pilot program within the next three years, with NJ Transit and LIRR sharing select through-routes.
- Fund targeted infrastructure improvements, including interlocking upgrades and dual-power train investments, to scale through-running without unnecessary construction.
The question New York faces is not whether through-running is possible—it is whether decision-makers are willing to make the necessary choices to modernize the region’s rail system. The evidence is clear, the solutions are known, and the cost of inaction is unacceptable. It is time for Penn Station to function like a world-class transportation hub, not a relic of the past.