Additional Raritan Valley Line service
September 28th 2007 02:35 pm
NJ Transit announced today that four round-trips to High Bridge will be added to the Raritan Valley Line service starting October 29. This will result in a total of 9 eastbound and 11 westbound trains beyond Raritan on weekdays. The additional trains are in the peak and off-peak periods. Weekend service will continue to originate/terminate at Raritan.
The additional service is possible due to the construction of a $13 million, 3700 foot passing siding in Readington Township.
Joe Versaggi responded on 24 Oct 2007 at 2:22 pm #
The mid-day High Bridge trains do not require the new siding, so they could have been running beforehand. A couple of years ago, a mid-morning westbound train, #5417, was added to fill a 70 minute gap in the schedule. That train is not needed to run eastbound until late afternoon. That 5th train set is what makes the new mid-day High Bridge service possible. It covers an early afternoon eastbound Raritan departure so that mid-day westbound trains could be extended to High Bridge since they have only 35 minutes to lay-up in Raritan.
Since there are never more than 4 train sets active on weekends, don’t look for any new weekend service any time soon. It would be very expensive to add with likely low patronage. A dedicated feeder bus honoring all rail tickets, running every 2 or 3 hours is what ought to happen, running between High Bridge and Somerville, stopping at Clinton P&R, Annandale, and White House Stations. NJT could lease a Hunterdon County LINK bus, but again, I will not hold my breath.