Fares

sean3f wrote:

lots of midday trains on the NEC

In some place's, yes. In other places on the NEC s, such as North Elizabeth, not so much. But, North Elizabeth has a small population with no interest in going to New York City other than rush hour. Oh wait, it's one of the most populated area's of the country , you must have enough rider's. But I guess you can just walk a mile or two to the next station. That must be it , low ridership and other convenient locations to service the public.

Here is the video of trains passing by a perfectly good train station, at a good clip too ! ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtCRfsZJP90

Oh brother, not this stuff again. Why don't you have an equally as obsessive relationship with the Avanel or Garwood stations?

In 1950, Middletown to downtown NY was 2.34 roundtrip plus the 15% federal tax; pretty sure it still cost the extra (10 cents? each way) to go to NY Penn. At the start of the Aldene in 1967, 3.78 peak roundtrip to NY Penn, no tax. So compared to driving, no worse then than now?

That $3.78 in 1967 is about $24.00 now adjusted for inflation. The NJT Middletown peak OW fare is $23.00, so relatively speaking, no, not much has changed.

The NJT Middletown peak OW fare is $23.00

The OW fare is $11.50. The peak round trip is $23.00.

How much did that Honda cost new in 1967?

It was specially equipped with the "living out of your car" package.

wpdj61 wrote:It was specially equipped with the "living out of your car" package.

And from what I hear, the "heavy duty" hauling package

I can sympathize if the fare was a financial hardship for them, but it is 50 miles each way and there may not be any cheaper alternatives. Academy is $12/person each way, a series of 3 NJT buses (according to the itinerary planner on njtransit.com) is $12.65 each way, driving 100 miles + $8 tunnel + maybe $30 parking is probably going be more than $60. Maybe the cheapest way is to take a bus or two to Staten Island and take an MTA bus to Manhattan for $2.25.

Grump! Nice work! But I made one slight change to add to the realism.

Awesome.

Here's what I don't get - I just moved back here from a 3 year stay in Chicgao & I took Metra to work everyday - in all that time, my train was late twice - once b/c we hit someone. My ride was about an hour - 50 Miles & the fare for my monthly was 164.00 Now I take NJT from Red Bank & work in the city - the fare is 331! I have been taking the train to Hoboken & taking the PATH to save 50 bucks a month. Why is the fare so damn high? And why does it jump almost one hundred dollars for a monthly from NWK/HOB to NY??

Conrail8124 wrote:Here's what I don't get - I just moved back here from a 3 year stay in Chicgao & I took Metra to work everyday - in all that time, my train was late twice - once b/c we hit someone. My ride was about an hour - 50 Miles & the fare for my monthly was 164.00 Now I take NJT from Red Bank & work in the city - the fare is 331! I have been taking the train to Hoboken & taking the PATH to save 50 bucks a month. Why is the fare so damn high? And why does it jump almost one hundred dollars for a monthly from NWK/HOB to NY??

It's NJT's way of charging people who take the train out of their jurisdiction to an out-of-state job that does not contribute any income tax money to NJ. That and NYP salaries are high enough/road congestion bad enough so that they can get away with it. Due to backup at the few Hudson River crossings, even during off-peak hours the train can be faster than driving. It certainly is for the NEC and the inner Morristown Line, which happen to be the two highest-ridership segments on NJT's system.

If the fares were any less, quite honestly, the windows would be bursting out of the passenger cars.

There is a whole supply/demand kinda thing that actually comes into play.......rediculous amounts of people want to go to/from NY - the trains can only handle so many people. NJT is not hurting for riders to NY. So might as well charge a little bit more because 1) they can get the cash out of the people, and 2) becuase the price isn't that rediculous.

How much would it cost to drive from Red Bank NJ to NYP and park there every day? Much more than 331 dollars a month I bet if you had to do it for say 20 days a month.

Look at NJT's operation into Hoboken terminal for the Main, Bergen Pascack Valley and MandE trains. The on time percentages there are VERY good, and the trains work well.

NJT has total control (no Amtrak and NEC) and there aren't a hundred thousand people on hundreds of trains trying to squeeze into one very tiny place! Chicago is spread out a litlte more than NY, and Metra has lots of differnet lines with a few different major stations in downtown Chicago IIRC. So its not like everyone is trying to squeeze into one very tiny place!