Current News
NJ Transit Rebuilding Anderson Street Station in Hackensack:
New Jersey Transit has started construction in Hackensack of a replica of the Anderson Street Station of its Pascack Valley Line. The original station, a local landmark that was placed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and the National Register in 1984, had been opened by the Hackensack and New York Rail Road on September 9, 1869. After almost 140 years of existence, the station was destroyed by fire during the early morning hours of Saturday, January 10, 2009. It had served passengers of the New Jersey and New York Railroad (as the Hackensack and New York Rail Road was reorganized), the Erie Railroad (which leased the NJ &NY for 99 years in 1896), the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad and its successor the Erie Lackawanna Railway, Consolidated Rail Corporation, and finally New Jersey Transit after 1983. It the time of its destruction, the Anderson Street Station was the second oldest railroad station in New Jersey; the oldest is in Ramsey, built in 1868 by the New York and Erie Rail Road.
The new station will cost approximately $571,000 to construct. Unlike the original, it will not be built entirely of wood. Instead, it will have a façade with a low stonework base, topped by cement board walls textured to look like wood. The new building will have a highly pitched roof, similar to the original. The waiting room will be 46 feet by 20 feet, the same dimensions as the original, as well as equipped with benches.
Queens Lawmakers Seek Re-Opening of LIRR Rockaway Beach Line: U.S. House of Representatives Members Gregory Meeks and Hakeem Jeffries have joined New York State Assemblyman Philip Gold feder in calling for re-opening of the Rockaway Beach Line of the Long Island Rail Road to provide much faster public transportation service between southeastern Queens and Manhattan. Understandably, their constituents seek less time-consuming rides to and from Midtown Manhattan that the A train’s current circuitous routing via Downtown Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan and the West Village before serving stations along Eighth Avenue. It is not clear, however, what form of restoration of rail service is being sought - LIRR or New York subway?
Perhaps these elected officials and their constituents do not understand that safety regulations promulgated by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) preclude the concurrent operation of compliant railroad trains, such as those of the LIRR, and non-compliant trains, such as those of MTA NYCT on the same tracks. Even if FRA regulations were not an issue, it is certain that the LIRR would oppose re-instituting Whitepot Junction and devoting precious slots (timetable paths) into and out of either Penn Station or Grand Central Terminal to revival of a branch that has been moribund for over a half century.
If anything, connecting the Rockaway Beach Line to the Queens Boulevard subway in Rego Park would be a more likely possibility. Indeed, when the New York City Board of Transportation started construction of the Independent (IND) Subway System in the late 1920s, it included eastbound and westbound bellmouths on the Queens Boulevard local tracks located east of the 63rd Drive-Rego Park Station, as well as a long-sealed westbound underpass, for track connections to and from the Rockaway Beach Line in anticipation of its acquisition from the LIRR. These provisions, if brought into use, would allow either MTA NYCT’s M train or R train - which serve Midtown Manhattan respectively via the (IND) Sixth Avenue Subway or the (BMT) Seventh Avenue-Broadway Subway - to be diverted from their current Queens terminal at Forest Hills to serve the Rockaway Peninsula, perhaps terminating at Rockaway Park-Beach 116th Street with the A train operating only to Far Rockaway.
With sections constructed between 1880 and 1910, the LIRR’s Rockaway Beach Line extended from Whitepot Junction in Rego Park to Hammels on the Rockaway Peninsula, where a triangular junction connected it with lines to Far Rockaway and Rockaway Park. It crossed Jamaica Bay between The Raunt and Broad Channel on a long wooden trestle that burnt on May 8, 1950, ending direct LIRR service from Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to Far Rockaway and Rockaway Park. After this event, the LIRR terminated the Rockaway Beach Line at Howard Beach, renaming it the Ozone Park Branch, while continuing to run a round-about service via its “land route” in Nassau County via Valley Stream to Far Rockaway and Rockaway Beach. Subsequently, the City of New York purchased the outer portion of the Rockaway Beach Line from the LIRR for $8.5 million and spent an additional $47.5 million to convert to convert it for subway use. As part of this work, ramps connecting the IND Fulton Street Line, on elevated structure over Liberty Avenue, were built just beyond Rockaway Boulevard down to the LIRR’s right-of-way, which then was followed through Howard Beach and Hammels, continuing to Rockaway Park and Far Rockaway. The IND’s “A Train” was extended to the Rockaway Peninsula on June 28, 1956.
The LIRR continued to operate a skeleton service on its rump Ozone Park Branch until June 8, 1962. Following its discontinuance, the right-of-way and railroad assets (much of which remain in place albeit covered with weeds and rubbish today) were sold to the City of New York with an expectation that subway service would someday operate north of Liberty Avenue and be connected into the IND (now Division B) Queens Boulevard subway line. A half century later, NIMBYs oppose this and Rails-to-Trails advocates are seeking to claim this portion of the Rockaway Beach Line as their own “Green Way.”
Summer Weekends Old Colony Service to Cape Cod to Reopen: Governor Deval Patrick has announced that summer season passenger train service between Boston and Hyannis on weekends - dubbed the CapeFlyer - will resume on Friday, May 24th, coinciding with the start of the Memorial Day Weekend. The service will operate every weekend through Labor Day at the beginning of September. Trains will leave Boston’s South Station on Friday evenings and Saturday and Sunday mornings, with return trips from Hyannis on Saturday and Sunday evenings; there is a possibility that an early Monday morning trip from Hyannis to Boston will be added if the initial response to the rail service suggests that it would attract riders whose families “summer” at the Cape. The current plan is to add “a couple of air-conditioned coaches and a bike car” to trains operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) on its commuter rail line to Middleborough/Lakeville and extend them to and from Hyannis with intermediate station stops at Wareham and Buzzards Bay. The last time rail passenger service was operated between Boston and Hyannis was in 1995.
The goal of reinstituting it is to provide motorists and their families with an alternative to enduring 70 plus miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic, compounded by back-ups at the Bourne and Sagamore bridges (which must open on demand for water traffic). Despite a rather leisurely schedule varying between 2 hours 15 minutes and 2 hours and 38 minutes for its 78 miles-long trip, the CapeFlyer is viewed as having a good chance of “catching on.” If the service is successful in attracting riders, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is prepared to upgrade the trackage between Middleborough/Lakeville and Buzzards Bay, currently FRA Class 2 which limits passenger trains to 30 miles per hour, to permit higher operating speeds and shorter travel times.
Trains will leave Boston’s South Station at 5:12 PM on Fridays and 8:00 AM on Saturdays and Sundays. They will return from Hyannis at 8:30 PM on Fridays and 6:30 PM on Saturdays and Sundays. No determination has been made about running an early morning northbound trip on Mondays, which would require running a late evening southbound trip on Sundays – either as a non-revenue (light) move or an additional passenger train.
The Cape Flyer will be sponsored by the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority (CCRTA) but operated by the MBTA on its behalf. The new weekend passenger service will be operated south of Middleborough/Lakeville over tracks owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and operated in freight service by the Massachusetts Coastal Railroad and in tourist service by the Cape Cod Central Railroad. Both CCRTA and the Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway Company are expected to have their buses meet CapeFlyer trains to provide car-free service to and from towns on the Cape.
Light Rail to Salt Lake City International Airport to Open: The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) will open its Airport TRAX Line on Sunday, April 14, 2013. This light rail transit line will extend for six miles from the existing Arena Station, located at 400 West South Temple in the downtown area via North Temple to the Salt Lake City International Airport. It will have stations along North Temple at 500 West, 800 West, 1100 West, 1500 West and 1950 West, as well as a Welcome Center and station just outside Terminal One at the airport. Direct transfer facilities connecting the Airport TRAX Line with the FrontRunner commuter rail line, which extends for 70 miles from Ogden through Salt Lake City to Provo, will be provided at the 500 West Station, built on the newly renovated North Temple Viaduct over the FrontRunner and Union Pacific Railroad tracks. The Airport TRAX Line will be operated as an extension of UTA’s Green Line, which current runs between West Valley Central and Arena Station; this initial portion of the Green Line opened on August 7, 2011. UTA operates two other light rail transit lines, the Blue Line from Sandy to Salt Lake Central (formally known as Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub) and the Red Line from Daybreak Parkway in South Jordan to the University Medical Center Station on the campus of the University of Utah. All three lines operated at 15-minute base headways, which provides intensive service in the southern approach to downtown where they share common trackage. Two other extensions currently are under construction, one being 3.8 miles-long running south from Sandy to Draper Town Center and other the 2.7 miles-long Sugar House Streetcar extending east from the Central Pointe Station, currently service by the Blue Line and the Red Line, to McClelland Station; the first is expected to be in revenue service by August and the second by the end of 2013. Further LRT and streetcar expansion projects are under consideration. These include a second phase of the Draper Extension that would bring the Blue Line another 4.2 miles to 14600 South, where a 1,300 car park-and-ride lot is proposed close to the Bluffdale-14600 interchange Interstate 15. During the forth quarter of 2012 (October-December), the American Public Transportation Association reported that UTA’s TRAX system carried an average of 60,600 passengers and the FrontRunner another 7,800 riders on weekdays. In contrast, UTA’s 131 bus routes carried an average of 76,900 riders on weekdays during the same period. The development of an extensive light rail and commuter rail network in the Salt Lake Valley and the public’s response to it is significant, especially because of the conservative politics of its majority population, in light of the claims heard from anti-rail forces prior to the 1999 opening between Sandy and downtown Salt Lake City of what is now called the Blue Line that “Nobody is going to ride this thing. It’s a boondoggle. Buses are all we need.”
Got Some Spare Brake Rotors?: The Northern County Transit District (NCTD) suddenly shut down its 22 miles-long Sprinter rail line between Oceanside and Escondido, California as of 12:00 AM on Saturday, March 9th because the brake rotors (disks) of its 12 diesel multiple-unit (DMU) cars were showing an unusual wear pattern. The suspension of service is expected to last for 60 to 120 days while new split-disk rotors being are obtained from Faiveley Transport, the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) of the brake system of the Siemens-built Desiro DMUs used on the Sprinter, which are not compliant with FRA regulations governing passenger equipment used in mixed service with railroad freight trains.
How did this come about? Sprinter began carrying passengers on Sunday, March 9, 2008 with considerable local fanfare. During pre-revenue service testing, the brake pads of the DMUs were emitting a high-pitched squeal. A different type of pad, which was smaller and did not cover the surface of the rotors, was substituted to get rid of the squeal. The replacement pads exceeded the braking requirements of all agencies that regulate Sprinter, including CPUC and the FRA. Within a year, however, the abnormal wear pattern on the brake rotors became evident. The decision made at the time, when the vehicles were under warranty, was to allow them to continue to be used until they were due for replacement. The rotors were expected to last for 600,000 miles of vehicle use before requiring replacement; NCTD’s Desiro DMUs have accumulated approximately 300,000 miles during the five years that they have been in service. During a routine visit on February 28, 2013, an inspector of the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) observed the accelerated and irregular wear pattern on a rotor. Because of irregularity, there was no proper way to measure the rotor to determine its acceptability for continued use even though there were no visual indications of burn marks or cracks. A few days later, on March 7, 2013, NCTD received a letter from the CPUC dropping this bomb: “Any service use of any of your light-rail vehicles [CPUC considers DMUs that are not FRA compliant as LRVs] with brake rotors that are not within the manufacturer’s wear limits may be deemed a violation” of California law. Tom Tulley, NCTD’s Chief of Safety, said “We tested the brakes and found that the brakes were anywhere from 17% to 44% above the standards required by the CPUC to operated in California. We also tested the train under the worst conditions and they were still above the standards required.” NCTD’s Chief Executive Officer, Mathew Tucker, while acknowledging that the brake rotors “don’t meet the standards of compliance,” insisted that the DMUs “are still safe to operate.”
Nevertheless, even though Sprinter train operators and passengers never observed any braking problems during five years of revenue service, after meeting with the PUC on March 8th, NCTD concluded that it had no choice but to shut the line down until new brake rotors can be installed on all of the DMUs and testing to demonstrated compliance with CPUC regulations. Meanwhile, NCTD, which also operates bus lines, has set up an express bus line between Oceanside and Escondido as a temporary replacement for the Sprinter. NCTD continues to operate its Coaster commuter rail service between Oceanside and San Diego over trackage shared with Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains and BNSF Railway freight trains acquired from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in 1994. Coaster trains typically consist of five double-deck coaches built by Bombardier powered by diesel-electric locomotives.
Coming Events
NJ-ARP Patrons Lunch to be Held in Bordentown: This year’s luncheon for Patron Members of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers will be held in Burlington County on Saturday, April 13, 2013, commencing at 11:30 AM and concluding at 2:30 PM, at the Farnsworth House, 135 Farnsworth Avenue, Bordentown, New Jersey 08505-1343 (Telephone 609-291-9232). This restaurant is within walking distance of New Jersey Transit’s RiverLINE station. Our guest speaker will be a representative of Bombardier Transportation, which operates the RiverLINE on behalf of NJT under a design-build-operate and maintain (DBOM) contract.
Next NJ-ARP Board Meeting on May 18, 2013: The next meeting of the NJ-ARP Board of Directors has been scheduled for Saturday, May 18, 2013. It will most likely be held in Chatham, N.J. either at the Chatham Library or at Cafe Beethoven commencing at 9:30 AM. Please see our Calendar of Events for updated information. All currently-paid up members are welcome to attend and participate in the Board’s discussions. Those wishing to attend meetings are requested to please e-mail NJ-ARP at njarp@nj-arp.org at least three (3) weekdays prior to the meeting, leaving your name and phone number so that we can notify the venue how many members will be attending, as well as contact you with any late venue or time changes.
