Amtrak snubs the Princeton area
November 4th 2007 01:51 pm
On October 29, Amtrak abolished most service at Princeton Junction, including most Keystone service and The Pennsylvanian. On weekdays, only 3 early morning southbound and 3 evening northbound trains will stop, 2 being Regionals and 1 being a Keystone. Weekend service will consist of only a Keystone frequency in either direction in the morning each way despite only hourly NJT service much of the day.
This is the same weekday level of service that is provided to North Philadelphia with just 605 Amtrak boardings and alightings for all of FY 2006. Princeton Junction had 65,679. That is comparable to Bridgeport’s and double Downingtown’s.*
Amtrak’s attitude is evidently “let ‘em eat cake” or “let ‘em take NJT”. That also means you get to pay another $3.75 each way between Princeton Junction and Trenton, plus connection times, including fumbling with NJT’s ticket machines, on top of Amtrak’s already exorbitant fares for less service. If you are going to Chicago, not only do you get to spend 4 hours in Pittsburgh since the foolish Three Rivers train-off, you get to spend up to an hour in Trenton, which is a mess while it is under construction. That is also not a great place to leave your car overnight, and difficult to drive to.
Despite plentiful Metro North New Haven line service, New Rochelle, Stamford, and Bridgeport have not been similarly screwed. The new 403b trains in Illinois are so successful because of the many universities served on the Chicago-based corridors. Yet, Amtrak sees no purpose in properly serving Princeton University. While they offer thru-ticketing on NJT to Atlantic City, none is offered to Princeton Junction and Princeton.
It is particularly disgraceful to treat the Princeton area in this manner with all the capital that New Jersey annually contributes to its portion of the Northeast Corridor. I urge everyone to complain about this inconvenience and injustice to both Amtrak and Congressman Rush Holt.
* Amtrak ridership data is available from the following fact sheets:
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/PENNSYLVANIA06.pdf
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/NEWJERSEY06.pdf
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/CONNECTICUT06.pdf
E-44 responded on 04 Nov 2007 at 7:18 pm #
If trains have fewer stops at certain stations — New Brunswick, for example, won’t that automatically limit the numbers of on and off-boardings at New Brunswick?
Stop there less frequently and the numbers go down, thus self-justifying the elimination of those station stops.
At what point does a few less thousands of revenue per stop annually balance out a schedule gain of 3-5 minutes or so in the minds of the operations people and the bean counters?
Joe Versaggi responded on 05 Nov 2007 at 7:36 am #
It seems to me New Jersey in getting punished for investing in the NEC to make it a 130 MPH railroad. Most Regional trains stop at Bridgeport, which is a slow piece of MN railroad. Perhaps if New Jersey cut off capital subsidies to Amtrak, and the trackage deteriorated back to the 80 MPH junk railroad the Penn Central left us, Amtrak would then stop more trains at Princeton Jct since it would not take much time out of the schedule.
The Pennsylvanian doesn’t get to Paoli and west any quicker because of it with that stop removed. Keystone trains should make more stops and feed traffic to Regionals at Philadelphia. Most are hardly bursting at the seams north of Philadelphia.
This is about as dumb as Amtrak killing a frequency out to Pittsburgh, and giving PennDOT 1 day notice before their budget year ran out to scrape up $3.5 million to come up with 403b money to retain it, all the while they were cajoling PennDOT to come up with 50% funding to rebuild the Keystone Corridor.
Then there was the part about selling Boise, Pendleton, and The Dalles stations to local communities to convert to intermodal facilities as they were about to post 180 day discontinuance notices for the Pioneer.
This is not the way to foster state partnerships.
Eine Kleine Multi-level responded on 10 Nov 2007 at 3:00 pm #
Now how much is NJ really investing into the 130-mph aspect of things? Especially in light of NJT’s own trains falling well short of 100 mph themselves. Certainly, NJ’s contributions towards the High Line have resulted in a far slower railroad.
On Metro-North, Amtrak certainly has to play by Metro-North’s rules. Is it a comparable situation?
We should show some sympathy towards one Mr. Kummant, perhaps? After all, he’s the one who is committed to improving Acela on-time performance while not investing (or being able to invest?) in the NEC infrastructure. Remember, the “state partnership” aspect is being rammed down the public’s collective throats. What’s the actual demand at West Windsor station for Amtrak stopping there? not to mention, perhaps NJT likes it that way?
Joe Versaggi responded on 12 Nov 2007 at 8:21 am #
New Jersey contributes about $160 million per year in capital to Amtrak, which is the equivalent of upkeep of the local tracks, and yes, to a 130 MPH standard, far in excess of NJT’s needs. That is a subsidy for Amtrak.
Metro North’s “rules”, whatever that means, do not mandate that Amtrak stop most of their trains at the 3 intermediate stations.
This has nothing to do with Acela. I said Keystone - those are the trains that have been removed. As stated above, Amtrak’s annual usage at PJC was 65,679.
It does not matter that NJT likes it that way. Amtrak does not answer to NJT and owns the railroad. How about showing some sympathy to the paying customer, not Mr. Kummant. I suspect he had personally little to do with this decision.
Eine Kleine Multi-level responded on 13 Nov 2007 at 4:04 pm #
What I meant by mentioning Acela is that Kummant seems to have a greater focus on that service than on Regionals or other Amtrak service that is incidental on the NEC (e.g. long-distance). Keystone service eschewing Princeton Junction seems to fit into such a view, insofar as diverting resources towards the Acela service, that service being cited as the major revenue source at Amtrak presently.
I do not see that it does not matter if it may be the case that “NJT likes it that way”, as I said; as already noted, the $160 million contribution that NJT makes towards the NEC may indeed influence a give-or-take relationship insofar as available slots at PJ station. Amtrak ownership would not be the absolute deciding factor.
BTW, in terms of the FRA, what is a 130-mph standard? Class 7 trackage has an FRA-mandated top speed of 125 mph, whereas Class 8 trackage has a (theoretical) top speed of 160 mph (in spite of the 150-mph limit on FRA Tier II-crashworthy trainsets).