The Raritan Valley Line Thread…

[TDowling]

According to North Jersey.com, Raritan Valley One seat ride service to Penn Station will resume November 4th.

[pumpers]

It must be true - the governor says so!
https://www.nj.com/traffic/2019/10/murp ... nding.html

[lensovet]

It must be true - the governor says so!
https://www.nj.com/traffic/2019/10/murp ... nding.html

um…your point?

[Ryand-Smith]

It happened today. I rode the Raritan train to Penn Station today from Roselle Park

[amtrakowitz]

The Raritan Valley Line's "one-seat ride" into Penn Station New York will be studied by NJ Transit and a report must be issued in July, according to legislation signed by Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday.

Bill No. S3574, which passed both houses of the state Legislature in December, requires the agency to study several items, including:

• Why the Raritan Valley Line's direct service to Penn Station was suspended;
• Historical and expected ridership on the line;
• Actions required to provide full-time, direct service to Penn Station;
• How long those actions would take;
• Estimated cost to provide the service;
• Factors that could delay or increase the cost of adding the service. …

The Raritan Valley Line serves more than 23,000 daily commuters in a corridor where 1 million people live, about the same number of commuters as the North Jersey Coast Line, which has 11 trains in the morning and 13 trains in the afternoon with direct access to Manhattan. The NJCL also services Newark Airport.

To accommodate direct service to and from New York on the line during rush hours, another NJ Transit train line would have to sacrifice its slot, as only 23 trains can travel through the rail tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey per hour. …

Murphy signs law requiring NJ Transit to study Raritan Valley 'one-seat ride' to Penn — NorthJersey.com

[kilroy]

Looks like a million dollar handout to some campaign contributing consulting outfit.

Good idea would be to read some railroad.net message boards.

Why the Raritan Valley Line's direct service to Penn Station was suspended; - PTC equipment shortages
Historical and expected ridership on the line;
Actions required to provide full-time, direct service to Penn Station; - Build two new tunnels under the Hudson to Penn Station
How long those actions would take; - decades
Estimated cost to provide the service; - billions
Factors that could delay or increase the cost of adding the service. - politics

We covered it all here (I'm not sure we covered ridership levels like they mandate but we have members who could get that info). We should put in for the job.

[njtmnrrbuff]

First, we need double the capacity of tracks underneath the Hudson River as well as all the way to NWK Penn Station-these parts of the NEC are a huge bottleneck. While it's great that the midday trains and post pm rush hour trains are directs into the city along the RVL, the real test comes with running direct trains into the city during the am rush hour and then outbound during the pm rush. That would mean having to cut some other NJT trains-this decision is very tough since many of the NJT trains are packed into the city during the am rush as well as outbound during the pm rush. I don't think passengers who use the 3900 series trains to commute to work in the city and out again will be very happy if their trains were cut. Those trains see so many riders. I could maybe see a Midtown Direct or two heading to MSU getting cut and being replaced by a brand new train to and from Hoboken. Passengers coming from NYP and SEC would switch at NWK Broad Street for the MSU train.

[FANWOODGUY]

What prevents direct service on the weekend? One additional train into and out of Penn on the hour seems doable.

[andrewjw]

On single-tracking weekends, Penn service can be *very* cramped. See the Amtrak forums for the math on this, but the answer is that regional + acela + 1.5 flex Amtrak slots (Keystone and long distance) + two NEC + NJCL + 1.5 MidTown DIRECT = 8 trains, 8 trains with 2 minute headways in 2 directions is 32 minutes, and the time from Newark to Secaucus and Secaucus to Penn are both about 9 minutes (either of which might be single-tracked), leaving 10 slack minutes (5 during each hand-off) for late trains. I'm sure if they could reliably run another train in each direction (leaving 3 slack minutes in each direction) they would, but the rest of the network doesn't have high enough reliability to accomplish this.

[FANWOODGUY]

Appreciate the explanation, will search the Amtrak forum for more info. I don't have sufficient knowledge about the 1.5 flex situation with both Amtrak and Midtown Direct. Without impacting Amtrak I was under the assumption midtown direct was one train on the hour (don't go that way so bear with me). if the half a slot allocated to that service is shifted to the RVL what if anything changes?

[andrewjw]

Whoops. You're right, weekend Montclair trains run to Hoboken. I guess that slot I thought was split between LDs and Montclair trains is just controlled by Amtrak. Perhaps it would be possible to run some trains direct to NYC.

[Yankees1]

Over the past few years (but not 2018 or 2019) during the summer, they run 4 trains per day on the weekend in both directions as supplemental NJCL beach expresses (I believe they roll out of Penn on the :01's). So those slots are definitely available.

They also run extra trains on holidays, but I'm not sure if they have both tunnels open on holidays.

[lensovet]

Over the past few years (but not 2018 or 2019) during the summer, they run 4 trains per day on the weekend in both directions as supplemental NJCL beach expresses (I believe they roll out of Penn on the :01's). So those slots are definitely available.

They also run extra trains on holidays, but I'm not sure if they have both tunnels open on holidays.

Guess why they haven't run them in the past two years? Not due to a lack of demand.

[njtmnrrbuff]

Those weekend Summer Shore Express trains did great with ridership. Unfortunately due to crew and equipment shortages, they couldn’t run the past few summers.

[genesis11980]

What looked like an NS GP38 was headed west on the RVL at Aldene around 3:30 pm. Not sure where it was headed. Just wondering if anyone else spotted it or knew where it was going.