W Trenton project

So why did NJT pull off the line and how many passengers can they get with this service? Will it be as successful as MOM or not?

Cutoff will bring no where near the numbers as MOM but what about W Trenton?

With cutoff according to an article in the Record NJT wants to run 10 trains a day 5 each way Mon-Fri and 6 or 8 trains a day 3 or 4 trains each way. Hopefully there wil lbe 5 or 6 car trains rather then 2 or 3 cars.

So what's the frequency of service NJT will give the W Trenton line? hopefully it'll match Septa's so that like the NEC or better passengers using Septa can change trains. Again, hopefully it'll be 5 or 6 car trains rather then 2 or 3. How many cars does Septa have on their train when the run to W Trenton from Phili?

A Princeton Packet article back in 2000 said that NJT estimated 1,350 riders per day by 2020. 400 were expected to board at Hillsborough and 300 at Montgomery (Belle Mead).

Given the population explosion in both of those towns I wouldn't be surprised if they could surpass those numbers.

Hillsborough will certainly attract great ridership. If this project ever does get going, I think it will do quite well.

It could also attract some passengers from the overcrowded NEC (and the full parking lots). Better balance the system.

If they wanted to balance the system out and relieve overcrowding on the NEC, they would improve the service on the NJCL as well, but they dont care particularlly about that, and instead just run more and more trains down to Trenton.

I live only a few miles from a station on the Coast line, and now, I am working out of NYP so Im a commuter just like everyone else......., but anyway, I am currently driving to Metropark, like thousands of other people from the Monmouth/Ocean County areas........

To bad its been so hard so far to start up this line. Could really get great ridership, with this population explsion with new developments all over the place in the area, and also, it would always be a good route if need be to divert trains off of the NEC, and as said, it porbably could create some more seats on the NEC by atracting some of those current riders over onto this line.

What is holding NJT Transit back?
Is it a fear of little ridership or is it a lack of $$$$$??

The line was double tracked at one point but is now single tracked with long passing sidings. The freights demand that the ROW be redouble tracked and have a fly over at someplace on the line.

If this were to happen NJT can start service. I was hoping NJT would start this line 1st as this would take congestion off NEC and have a 2nd line where Septa passengers can transfer to NJT to get to Newark and New York similar to that of passengers on the M&E from Denville, Dover and west can take the M&E or Boonton Line trains to Newark or NYP.

As stated, the frieght railroads want the line to be re-double tracked, and have a flyover at Port Reading Jct. Also, there is then the problem of how the line would connect to the RVL. There is a connection at Bound Brook, though that is a very low speed (I belive it was about 15 mph). Also, I think NJT wanted to have trains terminate at Bound Brook, because of capacity issues. All of this, could be solved with more money though, which NJT currently does not have.

TAMR213 wrote:As stated, the frieght railroads want the line to be re-double tracked, and have a flyover at Port Reading Jct. Also, there is then the problem of how the line would connect to the RVL. There is a connection at Bound Brook, though that is a very low speed (I belive it was about 15 mph). Also, I think NJT wanted to have trains terminate at Bound Brook, because of capacity issues. All of this, could be solved with more money though, which NJT currently does not have.

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Perhaps if NJT wasn't forced to waste money on stuff like the River Line light rail, they could have spent money on this much more worthwhile endeavour.

West Trenton service was canceled in the 1980s due to low ridership.

I think it is far too premature to predict what restored lines would be "successful", also, insofar as one versus another—consider the current continued "success story" of the PVL and the slow effort on NJT's part improving the service on that line. IMHO, the "build it and they will come" principle applies.

I do think the West trenton Line would probably be very beneficial because it was terminated back in 1982 due to lack of ridership as mentioned earlier in this thread, but things have really changed alot in the last 22 years so it is my opinion that the ridership would probably be strong.
NJT should do some sort of survey with the people of Hillsborough and the other towns that could benefit from this major project.

NJT had some town meetings with people in West Trenton Line towns 3 or 4 years ago to discuss plans to reactivate the line. It resulted in NJT changing the proposed location of the Hillsborough stop as a result of complaints from neighbors.

One problem with the West Trenton Line is that the NIMBY-ism is going to be very, very fierce, especially since many new developments are near the tracks. I grew up in Montgomery and know firsthand that the threshold for people go out and hire a lawyer there is pretty low, so I can imagine some big fights with the locals before the line gets reactivated. On the flipside, a large number of people in those towns work in Newark/NYC, so perhaps their wishes will offset the NIMBYs.

Since many of the stations and parking lots are more-or-less intact, I wonder if they couldn't do a "bare-bones" reopening of the line, maybe one train in the morning and one at night and see if there's interest. No platform construction, no TVMs, no station restoration--nice and simple. Do you still have to jump through the Environmental Impact Study and ADA hoops for such a limited operation?

Here's the Princeton Packet article discussing the Hillsborough town meeting:

West Trenton Line Town Meeting in Hillsborough

One-train peak operation does not garner interest in a line, but rather guarantees "failure". Not to mention that startup costs of same are so high that the argument of "why not do one bus per day instead, it's cheaper" drowns out any notion of doing such a thing.

The only thing that would make West Trenton service a starter would be "Midtown Direct" service, sorry to say. Even extending trains to Hoboken would not be a help...

When NJT wants to terminate service in Bound Brook does this mean they want to elimiante stops further west? That would be a bad thing esp with the traffic on 78. I was hoping they would extend the RVL as far as Bloomsbury. At worse if ridership was that low they'd cut back to Raritian considering the big yard is there. After all CNJ did have a 4 track ROW leadign that far then further up towards High Brige and remaiend double tracked out to P burg.

I guess I should've recognized thsi as a bad sign when NJT took the RVL extension off their "to do" list. I find it appalling that the River Line goes through and that the Cape May Line(even though it's on the very bottom of the priority list) wil lbe eventually cosntucted is disgusting considierng that Cape May year round will produce no where near the passengers as RVL would if extended to Bloomsbury.

The Cape May line will bring in even less passengers then ACL. Atleast ACL you've got Phili on one end and AC on the other and both cities aren't ghost towns from October-May.