Infrastructure bill, what's the plan for New Jersey

Yes, read the PDF I linked to in my post

Great news mentioned that is planned! All of the components to the Gateway Project are obviously very important. Hopefully this will not only enable double the peak hour NJT rail capacity into and out of NYP. This will also help NJT seriously think about adding off peak and weekend express trains to NYC from the outlying points in the system and then adding locals on those lines to serve many of the stops that the express trains would skip. Here is a breakdown at what I mean.
A. North Jersey Coast Line
1. Have every train that begins in Bay Head make all local stops to Long Branch and then skip many stops from Long Branch to NWK. Between Long Branch and NWK Penn or even EWR, have the train stop at Monmouth Park(racing season), Red Bank, Aberdeen-Matawan, maybe Perth Amboy, and Woodbridge before running express the rest of the way to one of the NWK Stations. At Long Branch, passengers heading to local stations like Middletown, Hazlet, and Avenel plus the Elizabeth Stations would switch to a local train.
2. A friend of mine suggested this idea and I like it a lot. All of the off peak and weekend trains that start out in Bay Head could run local to Aberdeen-Matawan and then run nonstop from there to either EWR or NWK Penn Station. At Aberdeen-Matawan, people can switch for a local train that would make all stops to EWR.

B. Morris & Essex Line
1. A friend suggested this and I agree with it a lot. For the trains that run between Dover and NYP, run local to Summit and then run express from Summit to NWK Broad St. At Summit, passengers wanting to go to the Oranges can board a local train that makes every stop to NWK Broad from Summit-either going to NYP or HOB(maybe have the trains heading to HOB on weekends operate as Gladstone locals).
2. When NJT runs to Andover, these trains should really operate as a super express on the M&E, maybe stopping at NWK Broad St, Summit, Madison, Morristown, Denville, and Dover and then make the existing stops west of Dover to Andover.

C. Northeast Corridor
1. Run more of those semi-express train that make Metropark as their first and last stop to and from NWK seven days a week. During various times of the day, run daily 3900 series trains that make New Brunswick, Princeton Jct, Hamilton, and Trenton.

D. Raritan Valley Line.
1. All trains on that line should be able to run into Manhattan. Maybe if the weekend service only goes as far west as Raritan, keep the stop patterns the same way that they presently are.

Portal South will have three tracks?.. Together with Portal North that’s five tracks.


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A. North Jersey Coast Line
1. Have every train that begins in Bay Head make all local stops to Long Branch and then skip many stops from Long Branch to NWK. Between Long Branch and NWK Penn or even EWR, have the train stop at Monmouth Park(racing season), Red Bank, Aberdeen-Matawan, maybe Perth Amboy, and Woodbridge before running express the rest of the way to one of the NWK Stations. At Long Branch, passengers heading to local stations like Middletown, Hazlet, and Avenel plus the Elizabeth Stations would switch to a local train.
2. A friend of mine suggested this idea and I like it a lot. All of the off peak and weekend trains that start out in Bay Head could run local to Aberdeen-Matawan and then run nonstop from there to either EWR or NWK Penn Station. At Aberdeen-Matawan, people can switch for a local train that would make all stops to EWR.

I DON'T THINK SO......
1. East bounds stopping at Monmouth Park...WHY? How many passengers actually ride from DOWN the Coast Line to Monmouth Park ?????
2. So you are actually proposing skipping Little Silver, Middletown, Hazlet, South Amboy and Avenel????? Make no sense to me. With the exception of Avenel, all the rest are high passenger count stations on both weekends and weekdays.
I would propose all stops to Rahway then express with only stops at EWR, Newark and NYP and passengers for those intermediate skipped stops could transfer at Rahway to NEC locals.
Eliminating the NEC local stops (Linden, Elizabeth, North Elizabeth) would help speed up the dreadfully slow service and still provide reasonable alternatives for those passengers.

If you don't have eastbounds stopping at Monmouth Park, how are those who went to the park westbound going to get home? Not saying it (frequent service to the park) is a good idea, just that if there are stops in one direction there should be stops in the other, built around the track's schedule.

The NEC stops are the big headache to me. Do NJCL trains really need to stop at N. Elizabeth or Linden? I'm of course ok with a stop at Elizabeth.

As for Avenel, have we had ridership stats since they improved service?

I'm not saying that all stops west(railroad east) of Long Branch should be skipped. They need to be serviced. It's just that when I mentioned the through trains to Bay Head making all stops to Long Branch and then running mainly express to EWR or NWK, I mentioned there would be hourly local service from Long Branch to NYP which would connect from the express trains at Long Branch. The other option that I mentioned which a friend of mine did was have many of the Bay Head to NYP through trains run express between EWR and Aberdeen Matawan and then making all stops the rest of the way to Bay Head. During horse racing season, Monmouth Park would be served both ways. Folks who are heading to Avenel, Woodbridge and the Amboys would board local trains that run from NYP to Aberdeen-Matawan-all of the NEC stations would be served on these Aberdeen-Matawan Locals. By doing this, this would reduce the crowds that would be boarding trains in Rahway, Linden, the stations in Elizabeth that would start out in Aberdeen-Matawan Station, rather than a Trenton Local. You all know how very crowded those Trenton local trains get on weekends.

Biden’s proposed budget includes $100M for Gateway Tunnel

https://www.nj.com/politics/2022/03/bid ... unnel.html

N.J. gets $834.5M from ‘historic’ $20B in federal transit funding

https://www.nj.com/news/2022/04/nj-gets ... nding.html

Specific projects to be funded weren’t mentioned in the press conference. FTA officials said funding for many FTA programs is provided directly to the states. But two likely candidates are the Gateway Hudson River rail tunnel and the Hunter Flyover to carry NJ Transit’s Raritan Valley line over the Northeast Corridor and end delays getting to Newark Penn Station, Malinowski said.

I think long term the Raritan Valley line is set up for the most success with infrastructure spending and the Gateway Tunnel. You have Gateway tunnel project which will allow a one seat ride for NJ Transit to Mid-Town Manhattan, Hunter Flyover will eliminate a bottleneck for both the RVL and NEC, in NJ Transit's Capital Plan they have a plan for adding a 3rd and 4th track to the Lehigh Valley Line between Hunter and Aldene, and then there is Amtrak's plans for service to Allentown which will also utilize the RVL.

Tom V wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:38 pm

N.J. gets $834.5M from ‘historic’ $20B in federal transit funding

https://www.nj.com/news/2022/04/nj-gets ... nding.html

Specific projects to be funded weren’t mentioned in the press conference. FTA officials said funding for many FTA programs is provided directly to the states. But two likely candidates are the Gateway Hudson River rail tunnel and the Hunter Flyover to carry NJ Transit’s Raritan Valley line over the Northeast Corridor and end delays getting to Newark Penn Station, Malinowski said.

I think long term the Raritan Valley line is set up for the most success with infrastructure spending and the Gateway Tunnel. You have Gateway tunnel project which will allow a one seat ride for NJ Transit to Mid-Town Manhattan, Hunter Flyover will eliminate a bottleneck for both the RVL and NEC, in NJ Transit's Capital Plan they have a plan for adding a 3rd and 4th track to the Lehigh Valley Line between Hunter and Aldene, and then there is Amtrak's plans for service to Allentown which will also utilize the RVL.

Gateway tunnel, Hunter flyover, and the 3rd-4th track on a portion of the Lehigh line certainly are beneficial. Far more questionable from a cost-benefit analysis perspective is the service to Allentown. It is highly probable that NS will require hundreds of millions of dollars of upgrades in exchange for Amtrak, and potentially NJ Transit, to utilize the NS tracks/right of way for the Allentown service.

I haven't been paying attention to this one. Is the idea to use the old CNJ from Aldene to Phillipsburg (and rebuilding where it is out of service west of High Bridge)? What about the (missing) bridge over I-78? Or is it to use the NS Lehigh Line the whole way. Probably the latter if we are worried about $100,000,000 or so for NS.... Once in PA, would the CNJ get rebuilt, or again using the LV??
Interesting to note the bridge that the NS Lehigh line uses over the Delaware River is actually the CNJ bridge (the Lehigh Valley bridge had some structural problem so Conrail swung over to use the CNJ bridge - the LV bridge has been sitting unused since ??? (early 1980's??? - who knows the date? Was it indeed in the Conrail era as I am surmising?)
But IMHO the whole thing is a boondoggle (right up there with Amtrak on the DLW cutoff and going to Scranton).

pumpers wrote:I haven't been paying attention to this one. Is the idea to use the old CNJ from Aldene to Phillipsburg (and rebuilding where it is out of service west of High Bridge)? What about the (missing) bridge over I-78? Or is it to use the NS Lehigh Line the whole way. Probably the latter if we are worried about $100,000,000 or so for NS.... Once in PA, would the CNJ get rebuilt, or again using the LV??
Interesting to note the bridge that the NS Lehigh line uses over the Delaware River is actually the CNJ bridge (the Lehigh Valley bridge had some structural problem so Conrail swung over to use the CNJ bridge - the LV bridge has been sitting unused since ??? (early 1980's??? - who knows the date? Was it indeed in the Conrail era as I am surmising?)
But IMHO the whole thing is a boondoggle (right up there with Amtrak on the DLW cutoff and going to Scranton).

There's no missing section near I-78.

Nobody said “missing section near I-78”. Specifically, the former CNJ was severed by I-78, whereas the former LV was bridged over the interstate. Also, the former CNJ between Easton and Bethlehem is completely moribund and will not be rebuilt; a former underpass under the railroad was replaced in the late 2000s with a reroute of the road over the former roadbed, I don’t recall if there are any plans to transform the remaining abandoned section into a greenway or paved bike trail. Any passenger rail service to the ABE area would use the former LV, and would most likely need a brand new station location for Allentown away from the former CNJ and LV stations. (And at this point, service into Pennsylvania would be off topic for the NJT forum.)