COULD THEY FURTHER VANDALIZE IT? Interesting Truck and Barter post about Amtrak trying to have it both ways, keeping their current station and getting the use of the concourse area of the post office across Eight Avenue at no extra charge.

While it's true Amtrak doesn't have to pay to rent for Penn Station, it's also true they don't collect rent from another company. The real cost to Amtrak of owning Penn Station is the highest sale price or rent they could receive if they were to put it to its best alternative use.

The Pennsylvania Railroad tried that dodge forty years ago, destroying the original Pennsylvania Station (impressive enough to be the cover photo of
this book; see more here) to create the rabbit warren underneath Madison Square Garden that most people know as the ONLY Penn Station. (That rabbit warren had enough wasted space left over from the original station to provide a new boarding concourse for New Jersey Transit over the low-numbered stub tracks on the south side of the station. I believe that concourse is now open.)

What is funny about the Penn Station rent story is that Amtrak mortgaged it a couple of years ago to keep the trains running. This story reports that the mortgage was to tide the carrier over until the Acela Express revenues picked up. K. J. Lopez took occasion to advocate winding up Amtrak, or privatizing it. Some rail advocates were unimpressed with the mortgage, noting inter alia,

We’re tired of documented stories from vendors, some holding Amtrak accounts receivables that are over six months old. How many small businesses, thinking they were dealing with the United States Government, instead found themselves the victims of poor Amtrak financial management, and are financing this billion dollar corporation through nonpayment of receivables?

We’re tired of amateur railroading, such as not being able to handle the annual PREDICTABLE snowfall in December in Chicago, and annulling trains because somebody forgot to plug in the heaters.