The primary reason that I started on these to-scale trackmap projects was as an educational experience. Being a railfan who pays attention to the smallest detail, I wanted to have a resource available to me that would show the layout of the lines that I love to ride. Since there was nothing like this available, I took on the challenge to do it myself, and my project was directly inspired by Peter Dougherty's New York City Subway trackmaps. I started this project over 2 years ago, and my original intention was to only do Metro-North, but once I completed that and started realizing that even the Danbury and Waterbury lines connect to far off places, I wanted to keep expanding. About 11 months ago, I completed the second phase with LIRR, and next up was of course New Jersey Transit (and for those nitpickers who complained that my Metro-North map was missing the West of Hudson lines, your wish is finally granted).
Early into the project, I decided to include not just the heavy rail, but also PATH and the Light Rails, since these are such important transfer points for people traveling around New Jersey, and I sometimes got confused, or just curious about just what all of the transfer points are. While PATH, HBLR, Newark Airtrain and RiverLINE are here in their full glory, as well as the New Jersey portion of PATCO, I did not have sufficient time to collect information for the Newark Light Rail/Subway, and rather than delay this project further, I left it out for now. The same goes for about 90% of SEPTA, aside from the portions that directly connect with the Northeast Corridor.
One last thing that I must point out about this project, and something that delayed it more than anything else, is the extreme amount of freight rail in this state. It seems you can't walk anywhere in New Jersey without tripping over an industrial track, siding, or yard. At first, I was naive enough to think that I could include every freight line that directly connected with NJT, but it began to become clear that I was spending more time working on freight lines than the actual commuter lines, which was what this project was supposed to be about. One day, I finally said "screw it", and stopped working on the freight lines any more than I had to in order to show their connection to the various NJT lines. Because of this, some sections (mainly in Hudson county) are more complete than others, and for the most part, the freight lines are a big mess. And I have a feeling that most of them are labeled wrong, if not totally drawn incorrectly. But again, rather than delay the release of this map further, I've decided to leave them as they are.
Once again I must thank the readers of railroad.net and subchat.com who reached out to help this project become the best it can be, since this map really could NOT have been completed with the accuracy and detail that it has without your help. I will ask you again to help out, by enjoying this map, but also informing me if you see something that is not right (and this time, I KNOW that there's plenty of stuff on there that I didn't get 100% accurate). I do not mind creative criticism, so don't be afraid to comment, since I will continue to update this map, in order to get it as accurate as possible.
The usual disclaimer - Although this map was created with the intention of accurately protraying the track layout of New Jersey Transit and surrounding railroads, this is NOT an official NJT/Amtrak track map, and was produced with no official or unofficial endorsement or connection to any railroad, and should not be considered or treated as an official NJT/Amtrak document. Although some people may see releasing a map like this as a security risk, I should remind you that just about all of the data on this map could be collected by either looking out the front or side windows of a train, or with pre-existing aerial imagery and photos (I was going to rrpicturearchives.net CONSTANTLY while working on this project), and that actual security-sensitive locations (fueling pads, power stations, entrances to restricted areas, etc) have not been protrayed on here. I know that some railfan sites have expressed interest in using my finished product - this will be allowed and encouraged, as long as the proper creation credit and disclaimer of it being an unofficial map are included. Like all professional maps, there are small intentional but subtle errors included in the layout, so if somebody tries to rip it off, I will know.
Enjoy!
http://www.richegreen.com/NJTV4.pdf
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