Penn Station Central Control - American Experience
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Half a million people pass through New York City's Penn Station every day. During rush hour, a train arrives at a platform every 58 seconds. Phil Kaplan has worked for Amtrak for 37 years, and he takes us for an unusual behind the scenes look at the Central Control room.
Created in conjunction with The Rise and Fall of Penn Station, premiering on PBS American Experience February 18, 2014.
Phil was my uncle, and he passed away last fall. I'm glad this is here for us in his family to get to see and hear him again when we want to 💙
I am sorry to hear about Phil's passing. It was an incredible honor to meet him and to produce this film.
@@rossifilms1996 Thank you. He loved his work and I know he was proud to share this with folks!
The thing is that Penn Station doesn't have enough Tracks to share between Amtrak, NJ Transit and the LIRR with the sheer volume of traffic and some of the tracks are not big tracks .... and there are many variables because they use 4 tunnels to get into the stations and not all 4 can go to every track. It is an amazing operation that I am proud to have been a part of.
Came looking for more detail on that control board! But wow, what a world of difference from how they managed trains at Penn Station even 25 years before this video was shot. Used to be one or two guys walking up and down a long row of brass levers and switches, nudging each one into correct position, checking it, checking it again... thousands of times a day by hand.
A, KN, JO, and C! In and out of Penn is NO JOKE!! Signals up high, down low, and in the middle of consists you can't see unless you open the passenger door to check. Sometimes signals that look like are yours are not and if you're not paying attention you will definitely sideswipe another train. It felt like there were tracks everywhere and trains constantly and consistently moving on them, every second of every day! Its poetry in motion! I once had someone from PSCC threaten to take my signal if I didn't proceed. It's that serious in Penn.
Thanks. I would like to hear more from him about how it functions. This is too short a video to appreciate the intensity and details of his job.
Great work, guys. It would be nice to have a “live real-time” video feed like Railfans.”
Bob
Very Stressful job ... have to be very sharp and on top of your game. It's like going into a storm every day ... I remember one night after a bad rush hour that continued to 11PM one of the dispatcher offered me a beer on the ride home ... I told him that I didn't drink ... he asked me how do I deal with all the stress of the job ... I told him that once I left the room, I leave every thing behind and put it out of my mind ... I never took it home. One of few female working among a den of men ... very nice guys most of them.
CherCherico Thank you for your work!
Good info. I'll now feel a little tinge of guilt the next time I'm grumbling because my train is held up just west of NYP platforms OR I'm staring at a 'Stand By' (or 'Delayed') status on the departure board while trying to get home during the evening rush.
pretty sad moment when you see that the control room is more open than the station itself...
Wish they would've kept the original Penn Station like they did with Grand Central. That wouldve been awesome.
Amtrak was scheduled to leave at 7pm
We left at 9am the next morning
We sat for over 40 hours on sidings and in Philadelphia and DC and Virginia, and so many small towns
It was supposed to take 14 hours, but it took 70 to get to our destination
Thank God I paid 1800 dollars for a bedroom
The poor people who bought 200 dollar seats in coach, thise poor people couldn't walk by the time we got there
Wow thats huge compared to the one(s) at Chicago union station! Chicago has like 2 desks per signal box! I think. I only saw it from the outside.
That was excellent! Very complex system and one can imagine that even with all of the safeguards, these rail traffic controllers feel the pressure and are under some stress at times since one mistake can cause a collision or rail traffic jam. Sobering what Mr. Kaplan says that the very end: "You don't get an 'Attaboy" for doing your job". Seems that today many people, especially a number of the millenium generation, expect frequent praise, acknowledgment, and compliments for performing their jobs.
You mean the millennials who are lucky enough to get a job after the spoiled brat boomers and gen xers left them with a broken economy and $100 trillion in public debt and unfunded liabilities?
Remember you can complain about us Millennials all you want...but at the end of the day you're the generation that raised us!
I think that Mr. Kaplan only meant that, working behind the scenes such as they do, they never receive acknowledgement from those that take the way things work for granted. I am sure they congratulate each other on a job well done on occasion. As far as taking things for granted goes, there are such people from all generations who wander through life in a fog totally unaware of all that it takes to run the world they see.
ESPECIALLY POLICE OFFICERS; SINCE THEY DEMAND THAT THE REST OF THE WORLD TREAT THEM LIKE ROYALTY, THEY LITERALLY ACT LIKE BIG BABIES WHENEVER THEY DON'T RECEIVE THE PRAISE THEY THINK THEY DESERVE!!
OMG .... Phil ... I can't believe he look like this now. Guy was thin as a rail a few years ago ... I would pass him on the street and not recognized him. Worked in this tower in the mid 2000's.
phil is dead now R.I.P PHIL
@@aubreymiddleton8700 That's a shame. I remember working with Phil (if it's the same guy I'm thinking of) when I was LIRR Chief and Phil was the Train Director at A Tower. RIP for sure.
Very Interesting.
Very complex system but interesting how things get done in order to bring trains in an out of Penn Station.
I think they meant to write *rare* behind the scenes look. There was nothing unusual about Phil's tour.
I heard old control room moved to New control room for Penn station
New York city.
They do a much better job than the NYC Subways.
Obviously; there's MUCH LESS TRACKAGE at Penn Station than in the NYC subways....
Long Island railroad New Jersey transit and Amtrak train traffic at penn station
As a british rail enthusiast the metro liner train sets look like tin cans on wheels to me
lmao the metroliners have been gone for decades