FRA Railroad Status
While the PATH resembles a typical intraurban heavy rail rapid transit service, it is in fact a railroad under the jurisdiction of the Federal Railroad Administration. PATH continues to be subject to FRA regulations because it used to share trackage with Pennsylvania Railroad in the section between Hudson interlocking near Harrison and Journal Square. In more recent past the line continued to have a connection to the Amtrak mainline near Harrison station and also near Hudson tower, but these connections have since been severed as the track layout at Hudson interlocking has been modified considerably. While the PATH does operate under a number of grandfather waivers, it is required to do things not typically seen on American transit systems. Some of these include the proper fitting of grab irons to all PATH rolling stock, the use of federally certified locomotive engineers, and compliance with the federal railroad hours of service regulations.
While the PATH did once share trackage with the Pennsylvania Railroad, this joint running and all interlocking connections to the former rail lines have been cut, except for one diamond crossing on a siding near the Hudson tower. Due to its isolation from the national rail network, PATH could potentially end its status as a railroad. However, this railroad status might prove valuable if PATH were to extend service along existing rail routes as normally transit lines are required to either run on separate rights of way or time share with FRA railroads.
The PATH shares a similar status with the Staten Island Railway, which is also an FRA railroad running on a somewhat different waiver.
Read more about this topic: Port Authority Trans-Hudson
Famous quotes containing the words railroad and/or status:
“... no other railroad station in the world manages so mysteriously to cloak with compassion the anguish of departure and the dubious ecstasies of return and arrival. Any waiting room in the world is filled with all this, and I have sat in many of them and accepted it, and I know from deliberate acquaintance that the whole human experience is more bearable at the Gare de Lyon in Paris than anywhere else.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“Knowing how beleaguered working mothers truly are—knowing because I am one of them—I am still amazed at how one need only say “I work” to be forgiven all expectation, to be assigned almost a handicapped status that no decent human being would burden further with demands. “I work” has become the universally accepted excuse, invoked as an all-purpose explanation for bowing out, not participating, letting others down, or otherwise behaving inexcusably.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)