Secaucus Transfer as an Amtrak stop

I can tell you why from experience..
My hometown is Glen Rock,NJ..It has a stations
on both the Bergen County lines of the the old
Erie Lackawanna(Erie) Main Line,now NJ Transit..
I currently live on Cape Cod and I enjoy the train ride
down from Boston..I go back to Glen Rock often..Still love it
etc,etc &..but to go by train to/from Boston is that much more
of an ordeal..You either get off at Newark Penn ,which I prefer,
or at NYC Penn..Why would you not drive or fly to Logan
than take the train ,go to Newark for window seats or drive,taxi or limo
to EWR If railroads aren't your immediate interest..??
Answer..You wouldn't..

[quote=MickD post_id=1583788 time=1635614431 user_id=53]
I can tell you why from experience..
My hometown is Glen Rock,NJ..It has a stations
on both the Bergen County lines of the the old
Erie Lackawanna,now NJ Transit..
I currently live on Cape Cod and I enjoy the train ride
down from Boston..I go back to Glen Rock often..Still love it
etc,etc &..but to go by train to/from Boston is that much more
of an ordeal..You either get off at Newark Penn ,which I prefer,
or at NYC Penn..Why would you not,if your a casual or sometime patron, drive up 95 , fly to Logan
than take the train ,go to Newark for window seats or from NYC Penn at peak hours
to just get a seat to New Rochelle than drive,taxi or limo to EWR If railroads aren't your immediate interest..??
Answer..You wouldn't..
[/quote]

Pre-Covid that Edison Parking Lot was packed to overflow or sold out on a regular basis.

NY Penn Station is like 10 minutes from Secaucus so it just seems like an unnecessary slow-down to add yet another stop. Plus there's literally nothing there. I don't know who would want to get on or off. And forget connecting w/NJT trains. That'll never happen, Amtrak is way off schedule too much to make that work.

Really, wasn't Sen. Lautenberg's idea simply to give ERIE and DL&W Boonton Line passengers a quicker means to access Midtown on the PRR?

Oh, and get the facility named for him while he wss still alive.

Predecessor roads used for clarity.

Exactly that. I can't recall any mention at the time of connections between EL points and Amtrak. The additional leg from Secaucus to Newark Penn would have been (and is today) a minor inconvenience compared to what existed then.

Amtrak does not need any more stops that close. Does not need extra 5 minutes to any schedule.

Yes, for every stop, time builds into the schedule. Secaucus Jct is not a top priority for Amtrak stopping there. If Bergen County residents want to access Amtrak at SEC, then they will have to deal with a two seat NJT train ride to get to their Amtrak and most days of the week, you have ample NJT rail connections at SEC to get you to either NWK Penn or NYP. If traveling from SEC to NWK Penn, you may have to wait a little longer than you would if you were traveling to NYP.

By the way, next weekend, NJT will increase service on the Main & Bergen County Line-hourly Main Line service. Many stations on the Bergen County Line will receive hourly service. The service increase on those lines combined will add to making the connection from eastbound trains on the lower level to westbound NJT trains on the upper level at SEC easier. That's great for a person who lives in Ridgewood or Glen Rock who has to travel to DC by way of NJT to SEC and then taking another one to NWK Penn. If that person doesn't want to take two NJT trains to NWK to get their Amtrak train, then get a car ride of some sort. I don't think there are any buses that connect many of the communities in Bergen County along the Main & Bergen Line to NWK Penn Station.

Secaucus Junction isn't like New Carrollton where there is tons of development around the station and there has been for a very long time.

I wouldn't advocate that every Amtrak through SEC stops there, but I would think a few rush hour Regionals would be worthwhile. Wouldn't that help dispatching too on the segment between NWk and NYP? Then more trains are flowing with each other rather than having the faster Amtraks overtaking NJT.

The only way Amtrak would even consider making Secaucus Transfer an Amtrak stop is if it saves enough time elsewhere to get away with stopping there. Which means any low-speed bottleneck has to be dealt with.

Biggest one? The B&P tunnels. Go from 30 mph to 100 mph with their replacement? How much are you saving there?

That is true-all of the bottlenecks must be mitigated along the NEC before Amtrak decides to let any Amtrak trains stop at SEC, if they ever do. Yes, the brand new B&P tunnel must be finished. All parts of the Gateway project must be finished as well before Amtrak even decides to let a few of its trains stop there. Remember that NJT wants to add more trains once Gateway is completed and that could hinder Amtrak from wanting to stop at Secaucus Jct period. Amtrak will have to make the toughest choices-do we want Regionals and Acelas making stops at SEC throughout the day or would we be better off maybe having a few of their own trains or none stop at SEC.

As the Main&Bergen and Pascack Valley Lines get closer to SEC from the west, they serve towns that have bus access to Newark Penn Station. The NJT 76 bus runs between Hackensack and Newark Penn Station plus in Hackensack, there are plenty of buses that run into NYC's Port Authority Bus Terminal. The 76 bus serves Rutherford as well and as Lyndhurst. Along the Main Line, there is the 72 bus that runs from Paterson to NWK but this bus takes too long from Paterson.

In fact, along the PVL, there is good parallel bus service linking many of those towns with NYC. The only thing with NYC when connecting from a bus at the Port to a train at NY Penn Station is you still have to travel a couple of blocks to NYP-could walk, subway, or take a NYCMTA bus. People living in many parts of Bergen County who are catching Amtrak to head to Providence and Boston probably would want to pick up their Amtrak train in Manhattan so in that case, they might decide to either take the bus all the way into the city or do the Secaucus Jct shuffle by taking two NJT trains into Manhattan.

The 'couple' of blocks PA to NYP is about 11 blocks worth of crowded sidewalks, and streets that can be hard to cross at rush hour. The PABT is perhaps my least favorite place in NYC, and if the PANYNJ ever does start replacing the dump, there will be 10 to 20 years of even worse bus commuting along the way. And these days, with people mainly commuting by car instead of subway or train, the Lincoln Tunnel is not exactly a raceway.

... and if they do build a new PABT, won't it be even farther from NYP?

With PABT being the mess that it is, and the buses basically recreating an elephant parade through the Lincoln Tunnel... wouldn't it make more sense to, hear me out... build a rail line between PABT and some place where all these buses can actually spread out?

Like Secaucus Transfer?