Traveling along the Coast Line

I will be using the Coast line next late next month to get from Woodbridge to Point Pleasant. My question is what can i expect when i change trains at long branch? Do i get 2 seperate tickets or do i keep my seat check when transfering? Is the diesel powered train there or do I have to wait a while?

I have nevered traveled on NJT outside the NEC so i'm not to sure what to expect.

It's been a while since I used the NJCL...but whenever you transfer from train to train, you never use a seat check—the conductor gives you the same ticket back, and at least back then IIRC it was punched in a certain spot that was marked "Transfer In/Out".

Availability of transfer was never a problem; the connecting train was across the platform in Long Branch (which has an island platform).

The days of the two blue tickets for each part of your trip are long over.....now all the tickets are the pink type, like out of the TVM's but also from the agents, its the same type of ticket.

Any transfer on those tickets, we punch the transfer location, and next to the originating station if a one way ticket and give it back to you so you can transfer on to the other train (either at Long Branch, Newark, Secaucus, Summit, Dover, etc, etc, its all the same).

The Bay Head shuttle train should be directly across the platform, as Irish said, its an island platform. And if by chance it isn't there, you just wait on teh platform for it to come, but you have to get off the electric train (from NYP) so it can go into the yard. It works the same going east, back to Woodbridge or whereever. Teh Shuttle will let you off, and either the NYP bound trian is across the platform, or will be there in a few minutes.

...and not all trains have a connecting service. When I rode to Bay Head, I had to wait an hour for the connection train.

I just took a ride from Hazlet to Red Bank a couple weekends ago. Someone on this forum recently informed me that the Matawan - Long Branch catenary is constant tension, so I looked for the pulleys and weights that I had never noticed before. Sure enough, they're in plain view, every few hundred feet! Also, we got up to 87 mph on the trip back to Hazlet! :D

87 mph...? Has the speed limit been raised?

Irish Chieftain wrote:87 mph...? Has the speed limit been raised?

I think it has but not that much. Not sure though. But I'm pretty sure I've been on trains on the NJCL that reached similar speeds.

I thank you all for the information. Takes some of the guess work out of it.

No, the speed limit hasn't been raised, its still 80mph. The location where the speed was raised is the curve just east of the Middletown station, that used to be 70, but a year ago, they raised it to 80.

87, huh..........i think you meant to say 78, right???? :D

87? I wonder why? The way the schedule is set up, even 80mph is too fast. At those speeds, there is a long wait for time at Middletown.

TR, I had a train last night you would have liked to run.....6 cars, and 2 MU'ed '44's. That thing was like MU's!!! Im sure we weren't speeding at any point, but it didn't take long to get up to speed - We had to be doing an honest 50 or close to 55 by the time my last car cleared the west end of the Middletown platform after our westbound stop.........

14,000 HP for a going home train.....sometimes they do throw us bones!!!

^Cool. That must have been fun.

Jtgshu wrote:87, huh..........i think you meant to say 78, right????

Uh, yeah, that's what I meant! We hit 78 mph.