Empire Corridor

The Empire Corridor is a term used to refer to the approximately 460 mi (740 km) corridor between Niagara Falls and New York City, including the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady and Albany. The Empire Service and Maple Leaf serve the entire length of this corridor, and the Maple Leaf continues to Toronto. The Metro-North Railroad Hudson Line provides commuter rail service from Poughkeepsie, New York to Grand Central Terminal.

The corridor is also one of ten Federally-designated high-speed rail corridors in the United States.

If the proposed high-speed service were built on the corridor, trains traveling between Buffalo and New York City would travel at speeds of up to 125 mph (201 km/h).

Current passenger services

The busiest segment of the Empire Corridor is between New York City and Albany with multiple trains per day.

Amtrak long-distance trains serving Empire Corridor stations:

• Adirondack- to/from Montreal.
• Empire Service- local service to/from Niagara Falls. Most trains terminate at and start from Albany, with two trains continuing to/from Niagara Falls. On the westbound journey to Niagara Falls, there are two trains daily. On the eastbound journey, there is one daily train, and the timing of the second train varies by day of the week.
• Ethan Allen Express- to/from Rutland, Vermont.
• Lake Shore Limited- to/from Chicago along the Northeast Corridor in Boston, and Empire Corridor between Depew, New York and New York City.
• Maple Leaf- to/from Toronto.

Commuter rail

• Metro-North Railroad Hudson Line, from Poughkeepsie, New York to Yonkers, New York

Freight service

Freight service is provided by CSX Transportation, who owns the tracks between Niagara Falls and Poughkeepsie.

Ownership

The Empire Corridor is largely owned by CSX Transportation, which owns the trackage between Niagara Falls and Poughkeepsie.^[1] South of Poughkeepsie, Metro-North owns the trackage to Yonkers, from which Amtrak owns the trackage into Pennsylvania Station.^[1]

On 18 October 2011, Amtrak and CSX announced an agreement for Amtrak to lease the CSX-owned track between Poughkeepsie and Schenectady, beginning in 2012.^[2] Under the terms of the lease, Amtrak would assume responsibility for operating, maintaining and upgrading the track in question.^[2]

Station stops

See also

• New York high-speed rail
• Amtrak
• High-speed rail in the United States

References

External links

• Empire Corridor section of the Federal Railroad Administration website