Raritan Line also being cut on weekends
April 27th 2008 01:17 pm
This little-used service to Hoboken is eliminated on weekends as of May 11. It will eliminate the use of a trainset and crew with the remaining service run with 3 trainsets. Except for a St. Patrick’s parade in Hoboken, I have never witnessed more than 6 people on board those trains east of Newark. That is partly due to the lack of advertised connections with NJCL and NEC trains at Newark. The service did not dovetail with NYPS trains as they didn’t want the train to sit around Newark. Hopefully the eastbound trains will all arrive on Track 1. As pleasurable as it was to use this service to avoid PATH’s wretched weekend service, and possibly use the 126 bus to enter Manhattan, I can’t blame them.
But a bad by-product of this is that the 5:18am train from Raritan and 2:05am train from Newark are also eliminated. A common schedule defect on the Raritan, Bergen, Main, and Pascack diesel lines is that it is impossible to arrive Manhattan before 7:40am. I have been on that train a couple of times over the years, it is far from empty, and I don’t think anyone gets up to ride it unless they have to. In addition for some that have to be at work on a weekend that early, it will be impossible for anyone on those lines to catch once a day trains like the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, Palmetto, or Carolinian.
Eine Kleine Multi-level responded on 28 Apr 2008 at 1:48 pm #
There was no sense in operating such service on the weekend. If anything, direct service to/from the waterfront should have been a weekday affair, when they could have attracted the most passengers.
Now of course, there’s no service at all. The only trains to use the Waterfront Connection in revenue service will be the “former CNJ” NJCL trains to/from Bay Head. Ah, but who cares when it’s still “full speed ahead” towards THE Boondoggle?
Clark Morris responded on 06 May 2008 at 3:48 pm #
If the Raritan service was every 15 minutes (or at least every half hour) and with the SAME fares as the bus between Newark, Raritan and all points between, would the ridership be enough better because the service would then be true TRANSIT. I could see with proper bus connections to some of the malls that this would be a help to people living in Plainfield and Newark. Then if the Hoboken connection was fast it might be a better way of getting around New Jersey.
Joe Versaggi responded on 06 May 2008 at 5:44 pm #
What you are suggesting would cost about a $1 Billion since the Lehigh Line portion between Aldene and Hunter would have to be triple-tracked, then a flyover junction onto the NEC, which is even more big bucks, and finally the Waterfront connection completed in the westbound direction. It is done only on the eastbound side, which precluded anything but NJCL trains from using it weekday rush hours since they “wrong-railed” westbound to Rahway.
What they should do is run service once or twice an hour between Plainfield and Elizabeth, and further east, restoring the old CNJ main east of Cranford.