If NS did spend money on this tunnel project, the Southern Tier would be the only reason why. I'm not saying whether or not they did spend money, but it doesn't really help them anywhere else on their system.
I understand everyone's skepticism, but when several people have heard the exact same thing from NS, it makes it hard to not believe. From what I've heard, talks about using the Southern Tier Line have been going on between NS and PANYNJ for years and are now finally coming to reality. Again, they'd have no reason to lie about this.
We'll see what happens....
I think it may be possible that NJ Transit might not be the perfect, infallible organization that most people assume it is.