NJT Plan during Amtrak Summer 2017 Repair Work

[NortheastTrainMan]

This is a really shameful message that NJT has sent to their customers.

"NJ TRANSIT rail customers have been forced to deal with delays, derailments and unreliable service because Amtrak, which owns the tracks our service relies upon, has neglected the maintenance of its critical infrastructure for years. For three-quarters of NJ TRANSIT rail customers travel patterns will not be modified, including the Trenton to New York Northeast Corridor Line. However, delays on all rail lines, except for the Atlantic City Rail line, are inevitable."

That is some low down garbage. As if either agency is sitting on piles of money. I complained to customer service and I suggest you do the same.

I felt the same way. That was super unprofessional. To blame Amtrak as the source of their problems is a bit immature, sounded childish "it's Amtrak's fault not ours!" smh.

[blockline4180]

Some of these articles are really blown out of proportion like its the end of the world. Imho, they just have to suck it up for 2 months!!
http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/c ... 404431001/

[SecaucusJunction]

When you're already spending 3+ hours on your commute, what's another 10 minutes? I think that guy's real problem is commuting to the city from way the heck out to where his house is.

[Defiant]

Some of these articles are really blown out of proportion like its the end of the world. Imho, they just have to suck it up for 2 months!!
http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/c ... 404431001/

Are you sure that the work will actually be done in two months? I am pretty sure there will be at least some delays as in any other project I have known about.

[blockline4180]

What I meant was Midtown Direct trains from Dover will be diverted to Hoboken for 2 months during the week. Detours last from from July 10th to September 1st.
I wasn't really commenting on other lines.

[time]

Once again, Newark Broad Street passengers get screwed. Service to the station will be reduced as a result of MidTown Direct trains bypassing the station. Unlike New York Penn and Hoboken passengers, there will be no compensation for Newark Broad Street passengers due to the inconvenience and reduction of service levels.

Shame on New Jersey Transit for, once again, screwing Broad Street passengers. I understand why the station needs to be skipped, but the fact that a monthly to Newark Broad Street is now higher than the discounted monthly to Hoboken is ridiculous. Hopefully those holding monthlies at Broad Street do the smart thing and buy the Hoboken pass. I wrote NJT on the issue, and a response to buy the Hoboken pass as compensation for reduced service would have been perfectly acceptable. Unfortunately, as expected, I received a stock response that did not even address the situation at Newark Broad street, and referred me to the website that I referred NJT to in my inquiry. Me: "On The Update you said..." NJT: "Please go The Update for info..."

Dismal. Just dismal. I hope our next governor cleans house. Learn how to run a <bleep> railroad.

[time]

While I feel for the commuting pain of everyone who will have to go through Hoboken, most of the commuters on the M&E are quite well off and do not really need the fare cut. The cheaper fare to Hoboken compared to NYP plus the free transfer to PATH/ferry should have been enough and would have resulted in much smaller loss of revenue. And that revenue is unfortunately money that matters a lot to NJT.

It's not really about the money. It's about being compensated for the loss in quality of life. Missed meetings. Missed professional opportunities. Cold dinners. Missed kid sports games. Meeting your wife at the hospital to have your first child ... and the train is indefinitely delayed. It's a significant extra burden to commuters, and they should be compensated. In the end, the state and federal government (and taxpayers, by proxy) will need to pony up the funds to bring all railroads to a state of good repair. It's as much as a public service as laying new asphalt on roads, laying new water or sewer pipes, or stringing new power lines and gas mains. They're all partially subsidized by taxpayers at some level or another, or are public-private monopolies.

[Passaic River Rat]

... I still think NJT hasn't thought this whole thing through.. Why did they have to eliminate ALL the Dover Midtown direct trains?? If need be, they should have eliminated 75%, not all, but I guess that directive came from the "esteemed" governors office!!

Do you still suspect they didn't think think this through?

[time]

The "plan" is starting to fall apart. Last night's commute was the hell they promised. Trains started becoming delayed and there were reports that the State Police had to control crowding conditions on trains. Train 645 has been especially problematic - it's a three car Hoboken train (always has been). NJT, as if to prove that they don't know how to run a railroad, has kept it as a three car train even though it's now serving prime-time commuting hour for all MidTown Direct and Hoboken passengers. The delays last night were minor, but the ripple effect and associated crowding was significant. Throw in a broken switch or power down anywhere on the Morris & Essex, and Hoboken is going to become unsafe, fast.

[blockline4180]

Yeah train 645 needs to change to at least a 7 car MU or a 6 car push pull. Also when did 643 disappear??

I also noticed the 4:27 PM eastbound from Denville(forgot train #) had a 5 car diesel PP, but was almost standing only east of South Orange.

I would like to see some changes, but what do I know as Im only an arm chair railfan and "management" knows best!!!

[mohawkrailfan]

The three-Arrow trains between Hoboken and Gladstone at rush hour are scarily overcrowded too.

[pumpers]

No news today is good news, I suppose. JS

[JamesRR]

No news today is good news, I suppose. JS

My NEC train was over 10 minutes late this morning. It hadn't been late all summer - but it returned to doing its usual 'crawl' from Secaucus to Penn. Ultimately the delays were blamed on "delayed trains ahead."

[EuroStar]

My NEC train was over 10 minutes late this morning. It hadn't been late all summer - but it returned to doing its usual 'crawl' from Secaucus to Penn. Ultimately the delays were blamed on "delayed trains ahead."

The reason why your train was on time all summer is simple -- there were fewer trains on the rails between Newark and NYP. With fewer trains there was some 'idle' time for the train traffic to recover from random delays and such. Now that we are back to the usual number of trains, we are back to the usual state of delays.

Amtrak will tell you that they have a high capacity signal system installed between Newark and NYP. Don't believe them. No, wait, I am wrong, maybe, kind of, for your purposes as a commuter I am correct ... What they have is a signal system that can support more trains per hour on two tracks than is installed anywhere in the US. It is a better system, true, but it is taxed to the limits. The schedule, especially the morning commute schedule is so filled up with trains to the physical limits of what is possible with the two tracks and the signal system. The problem being at the limit is that any one delay propagates and causes cascading delays because there is no 'idle' time allowing for recovery.

A pure two track railroad can easily support more trains per hour than what we have now going into NYP, easily another 10-12. The problem is that we do not have a pure two track railroad: Kearny Junction and Secaucus Junction Station mess up the pure unidirectional flow on each track. A pure two track railroad between Newark and NYP will for the most part be limited only by the ability of NYP to platform trains (generally the approach to NYP is the slowest part of the segment). Secaucus throws one wrench in this by -- primarily because of expresses that do not stop there overtaking locals that stop there. Imagine a sequence of express-local-express coming from west of Secaucus. The first express passes, the local stops, the second express overtakes it. What do you get at NYP? Express-express-local. It is not that simple though. What you get is express-nothing-express-local. The time slot between the two expresses for coming into NYP is 'lost'. Kearny Junction throws a similar wrench in where you need to have a gap between two trains coming from Newark in order to merge a train from Newark Broad in between them. These create a very complex dance when many trains are trying to get to NYP early in the morning. If one train merging from the Lackawanna lines is late or if due to heavy travel or delayed Erie trains a certain Secaucus Upper Level train takes an extra minute to board you easily get the other trains behind delayed. And it propagates from there with little chance of recovery because the schedule is set to the maximum train density possible with the existing hardware. It can only get worse from there with equipment breakdowns or with Portal Bridge openings.

There are only two ways for the on time performance to become better. One is to cut the number of trains -- you already experienced this. The other is to provide more tracks on at least a portion of the segment between Newark and NYP. If you want the on time performance to improve you better hope that Congress and Trump provide the money for the new tubes under the Hudson -- and even then, the improvement is about a decade away. After the old tubes are rehabbed, there will be four tracks between Secaucus and NYP. For even better results, you should hope for quad-tracking between Secaucus and at least Kearny Junction (better to Newark, but the effect on on time performance of the segment between Kearny Junction and Newark is likely minimal). Till then there is not much more to do than to enjoy the delays -- bring a book or watch a movie on your iPhone.

[andrewjw]

Before Gateway tunnels are complete, Portal North might be completed in order to provide an additional 2 tracks from Kearny to Secaucus, which would eliminate some of the inefficiency you point out below since Midtown Direct merges could be done after Secaucus.

Just to be pedantic - the merge that causes delays is Swift not Kearny, no?