New Jersey news, NJ-ARP Options

[KevinKorell]

New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers (NJ-ARP), newsletter for July 2012:

In Amtrak's recently published vision for the Northeast Corridor, high speed rail service will not be stopping at Princeton Junction, and now Metropark and New Brunswick will be going too. NJ-ARP feels that not only should at least some of these stops retain service, but Secaucus Junction should be added as well, with its connections to 8 NJT rail lines. While plans are not finalized, NJ-ARP hopes that they and NJ TRANSIT will be involved in the ultimate decisions.

NJ TRANSIT is investigating a reversal of its elimination of off-peak fares. NJ-ARP feels that the reason for the elimination was that passengers tried to use the off-peak tickets during peak times and got involved in confrontations with train crews when asked to pay a surcharge. The only difference NJ-ARP proposes is that the discounted tickets be for one-way passengers instead of the former round trip requirement. Also, with work patterns changing due to the ability to work from home, NJ-ARP feels that the 10-trip ticket should be reinstated to accommodate these customers. NJT fare changes are next expected in 2013.

[jis]

In Amtrak's recently published vision for the Northeast Corridor, high speed rail service will not be stopping at Princeton Junction, and now Metropark and New Brunswick will be going too. NJ-ARP feels that not only should at least some of these stops retain service, but Secaucus Junction should be added as well, with its connections to 8 NJT rail lines. While plans are not finalized, NJ-ARP hopes that they and NJ TRANSIT will be involved in the ultimate decisions.

Actually NJ-ARP's position on the matter of stops is a bit more nuanced and clarifications will come in future articles. Roughly speaking the position is something like

a. The Super Expresses not stopping in NJ is acceptable.

b. The core HSR express service should stop somewhere in a Metropark-like station in central Jersey and they don't need to stop at all NJ station. They could run with different stopping patterns in NJ. We are not quite sure what alignment will be used in NJ for the 220mph line hence the hedging on the actual location of such a stop. These Expresses should provide precisely timed short transfers to the Super Express service at New york and Philadelphia.

c. 2 to 4 Regionals should stop at Secaucus, New Brunswick and Princeton Jct. per day

d. The Keystone Service not stopping at Metropark and/or Princeton jct. is leaving money on the table and people in their cars. A way should be found to remedy this situation.

[KevinKorell]

The way it was worded it is confusing whether they were talking just about the future HSR trains, or Amtrak trains in general including the Regionals. I assume that Regionals will follow the pattern they do today. If Secaucus is added as a stop, IMO it probably should not be done by trains that also stop at Newark Airport. An Amtrak train that would stop at New York Penn, Secaucus, Newark Penn, and Newark Airport would be making 4 stops within 13 miles, which kind of defeats the purpose of passengers paying for premium service over commuter trains.

New Brunswick, NJ has very frequent NJT service; if Amtrak were to be out of the picture at NBK it would not be a problem. But again, trains stopping at Metropark (MET) should not also stop at NBK. I see Metropark as more important because it is primarily a park & ride facility that is near the intersection of most of the state's major highways where they all meet near Woodbridge and Perth Amboy.

Keystones that run through New Jersey essentially provide express service and also serve as a relef valve for the busy PHL-NYP market. They could make more stops, but keeping most of the ridership between those two endpoints makes them more attractive and frees up seats on the Regionals for those travelling further distances outside that 91-mile segment of the corridor.

[jis]

The way it was worded it is confusing whether they were talking just about the future HSR trains, or Amtrak trains in general including the Regionals. I assume that Regionals will follow the pattern they do today. If Secaucus is added as a stop, IMO it probably should not be done by trains that also stop at Newark Airport. An Amtrak train that would stop at New York Penn, Secaucus, Newark Penn, and Newark Airport would be making 4 stops within 13 miles, which kind of defeats the purpose of passengers paying for premium service over commuter trains.

The same train does not have to make all stops. In the UK on the WCML and the ECML for example different trains run with different stop patterns skipping many stops, but on the whole many more stations are served by fast service. It would make sense to have two or three different stopping patterns depending on how many trains are run per hour etc.

BTW, I did point out to the editor the confusing nature of the article.

New Brunswick, NJ has very frequent NJT service; if Amtrak were to be out of the picture at NBK it would not be a problem. But again, trains stopping at Metropark (MET) should not also stop at NBK. I see Metropark as more important because it is primarily a park & ride facility that is near the intersection of most of the state's major highways where they all meet near Woodbridge and Perth Amboy.

I agree.

Also hand in hand with this should go a common ticketing thing where Amtrak is able to issue a ticket from anywhere on its system to a NJT stop on the NEC via a trnafer at Trenton or Newark as a starter. NEC has only 5 fare zones so this should not break the bank for Amtrak. The NJT leg would simply use whatever NJT zone fare is, just like is done for the ACY Line. I have actually talked about this to NJT powers that be and they are recptive to it. next we need to talk to Amtrak, which will be done in the next few months, and then we can see where this may or may not go.

Keystones that run through New Jersey essentially provide express service and also serve as a relef valve for the busy PHL-NYP market. They could make more stops, but keeping most of the ridership between those two endpoints makes them more attractive and frees up seats on the Regionals for those travelling further distances outside that 91-mile segment of the corridor.

The primary attraction of Keystone is its generally lower fare. One or two additional stops will add 5 to 10 mins to the overall run time if that, and should not break the bank either. The primary issue here is not the stops themselves but the conflict with NJT on the outer tracks and the need for more careful path scheduling at the stations where Amtrak trains stop. Higher speed crossovers and more of them at more critical places as envisaged in the NEC plan will make this easier to handle in the future than it is now.