Current News
New Jersey Transit Partially Re-Opens Hoboken's Lackawanna Terminal:
Three months and one day after five feet of salt water from the Hudson River surged through Hoboken during the height of Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey Transit will partially re-open the historic Lackawanna Terminal for public use on Tuesday, January 29, 2013. The flood damaged all areas of the main concourse, including the waiting room, ticket office, rest rooms, newsstand,
food and beverage vendors, and NJT's stationmaster's and transportation offices. With more than six inches of caked mud and debris having to be removed from the interior of the waiting room before anything else could be started, contractors have since stripped the floors, power-washed the walls, replaced heaters and electrical panels, and rewired outlets. Nevertheless, much remains to be done. All wood structures, including the handsome wooden benches that date back to the terminal's opening in 1907 by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, will be covered until mold remediation can be completed. In addition, all concession space, restrooms, and storage areas will be rebuilt. In the interim, temporary restrooms will be available on four passenger cars placed on the terminal's Track 8. In announcing the partial reopening, NJ Transit's Executive Director, James Weinstein, said "We recognize that our customers have endured a number of challenges in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and we want to thank them for their continued patience and understanding."
Ridership on NJT's eight railroad lines was reported to be at the following passenger volumes and percentage increases during the three-month period overall and on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays:
For NJ Transit's three light rail operations, the comparable statistics are:
SEPTA Looks to Buy More MU Electric Cars:
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), operator of the railroad, light rail transit, streetcar and bus system serving the Greater Philadelphia Region (including Trenton, New Jersey), has taken one of the first steps towards replacing its aging fleet of 231 Silverliner IV electric multiple unit cars with a new fleet ofSliverliner VI MUs. SEPTA held a conference for potential bidders, attended by Alstom, Kawasaki, Nippon Sharyo USA, Sumitomo, Sojitz, Bombardier ,and Mitsubishi, on this past Thursday, January 24, 2013. SEPTA expects that the Silverliner VIs will cost approximately $3 million apiece and is seeking federal and state funding for their purchase. It is about to accept, two years late, the delivery of the last five of the 120 Silverliner V MUs that it ordered from Hyundai Rotem and are being assembled in a South Philadelphia plant.
The Silverliner IV MUs, the mainstay of SEPTA's Regional Rail Division, were built by General Electric and delivered in 1974-1976. General Electric also built New Jersey Transit's 230JerseyArrow III MUs (now down to 223, of which 53 were damaged during Superstorm Sandy) that were delivered in 1977-78 and are due for replacement within the next five years.
Loyola Avenue Streetcar Line Opens in New Orleans:
The Loyola Avenue Streetcar Line, connecting the Union Passenger Terminal (served by Amtrak and Greyhound) with Canal Street, opened on Monday, January 28, 2013. A dedication ceremony attended by US Secretary of Transportation Raymond LaHood, was held at UPT 11:00 AM, with revenue service beginning at approximately 1:00 PM.
The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA), the operator of Jefferson Parish's bus and streetcar system, reports that since federal and local funding for the Loyola Avenue Streetcar Line became assured over $2 billion of new investments has been committed to the area it will serve.
The new streetcar line is about 0.8 mile-long, involved the construction of 1.94 miles of new track, most of which is in mixed traffic lanes shared with motor vehicle traffic. It has four stations: Union Passenger Terminal; Julia Street, Poydras Street; and Tulane Avenue. After reaching the track connections with the Canal Street Line, Loyola Avenue streetcars will run to the foot of Canal Street on weekdays and be extended via the Riverfront Line to the French Market on weekends. It will be operated by home-built "apple red" quasi-replicas of Perley Thomas streetcars equipped with modern features such as air conditioning and ADA-complaint wheelchair lifts.
New Orleans' next streetcar expansion project will be a 2.48 miles-long line with 13 stations extending from Canal Street through the French Quarter and along Elysian Fields Avenue to a connection at the French Market with the Riverfront Streetcar Line. While not following the route of the long-abandoned Desire Line, made famous by Tennessee Williams' famed play and subsequent motion picture film, A Streetcar Named Desire, this future line will serve the same general area and re-create much of its atmosphere; track connections for it were built during the construction of the current Canal Street Line, itself a revival of the original line replaced by diesel buses in 1964 and reopened in 2004 with a branch along North Carollton Avenue that did not exist in its original configuration.
Here is a link to a pdf describing the streetcar services operated by NORTA and a schematic route map
SEPTA Initiates King of Prussia Rail Project Study:
Public informational presentations about a proposal to build a branch from its Norristown High Speed Line (the former Philadelphia and Western Railroad) to the King of Prussia Mall and Valley Forge will be held on January 29th-31st in King of Prussia, Villanova and Norristown, Pennsylvania. The proposed branch, for which there are several alignment options, would be approximately five miles long, part of which would be alongside the former Pennsylvania Railroad's Trenton Cutoff, a freight line opened in 1892 to bypass Philadephia and now owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The Norristown High Speed Line is a 13.4 miles-long third rail inteurban electric railway, equipped with high-level platform stations, connecting 69th Street, Upper Darby (the western terminal of SEPTA's Market-Frankford Line, long known as the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated Line and more recently as the Blue Line) with Norristown. Most likely the King of Prussia Branch would deviate from the NHSL north of its Hughes Park station. A triangular junction that would permit trains to run directly from both 69th Street and Norristown to King of Prussia and Villanova will be included in the study.
SEPTA has enough equipment to operate the new services, having ordered 26 N-5 electric multiple unit cars from ASEA-Amtrak in 1987 that were delivered by ABB in 1991-1993, including six for what even then was planned as a King of Prussia Branch. Similar ideas, like the proposed extension to Bergen County of New Jersey Transit's Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system along the former Erie Railroad's Northern Branch, may also take a very long time to come to fruition.
During the six years that it took to engineer, manufacture and deliver the N-5 cars, ASEA (Swedish General Electric) merged with Brown Boveri (Swiss) to become ABB; Amtrak dropped out of its planned role to perform US final assembly at its Beech Grove, Indiana shops and was replaced by Morrison-Knudsen, which performed this work in Hornell, New York under a subcontract. Subsequent to the delivery of the N-5 cars, ABB and Daimler-Benz merged their rail car manufacturing facilities in 1996 to form ABB Daimler-Benz Transportation dba as Adtranz. In 1999, DaimlerChrysler bought ABB's shares and changed the official name of the company to DaimlerChrysler Rail Systems and then sold it in 2001 to Bombardier Transportation. At that time Adtranz was the world's second largest manufacturer of rail equipment; its acquisition of Adtranz made Bombardier the world's largest supplier of such equipment.
Los Angeles Doubles Weekend Service on Gold Line:
A clear success story can be observed in Los Angeles - that "motor crazed city where no one would ride public transit - with the decision of the Los Angeles County Metroplitan Transit Authority (Metro) to increase the frequency of service of its Gold Line light trains from a twelve-minute headway to six-minute headways between 10:00 AM and 8:00 PM on Saturdays and Sundays on this past Sunday, January 27th. Weekday service was put on six-minute intervals two years ago, causing a surge in ridership. The Gold Line extends in two directions from the Los Angeles Union Station (served by Amtrak, Metrolink and Metro's heavy rail rapid transit Red and Purple Lines), northeast through Pasadena to Sierra Madre Villa and south through Little Tokyo and then east to East Los Angeles.Meanwhile, in recent years, New Jersey Transit has cut back the frequency on weekends of service on its Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system and restricted its direct service between Tonnelle Avenue, North Bergen and Hoboken to weekdays only. This requires weekend riders who wish to travel between HBLR stations in North Bergen, Union City, Weehawken, and the west side of Hoboken and Hoboken's Lackawanna Terminal to transfer at Newport-Pavonia between Tonnelle Avenue-West Side Avenue trains and Hoboken-8th Street trains. In Newark, Belleville and Bloomfield, compared with the more frequent weekend service provided under NJT's 7 City Subway timetable dated June 25, 2005, 10-minute headways previously operated on Saturdays have been lengthened to 20 minutes and 20 minute headways previously operated on Sundays have been lengthened to 25 minutes. The lesson to be learned by NJT is that service frequency does influence the ridership levels of railroad and light rail transit lines when discretionary off-peak and weekend passengers have reasonable alternatives at their disposal; they are not "captive riders" just because they choose not to drive a motor vehicle for a specific trip.
Coming Events
Grand Central Terminal's Centennial Celebration on February 1st:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Metro-North Railroad will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad's opening of Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal on Friday, February 1, 2013. A day-long program of activities, commencing at 9:30 AM, will include a public re-dedication ceremony and musical performances that will continue well into the evening. The morning ceremony will feature elected officials, celebrities and VIPs, including a descendant of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (who put the NYC&HR together from a series of short lines extending across New York State), and performances by award-winning musicians. Events will include the placement of a commemorative plaque in the Stationmaster's Office by the National Railway Historical Society. Harking back to the days of the Twentieth Century Limited, red carpets will be rolled out at entrances to GCT. And historic railroad equipment will be on display. Will Hickory Creek, one of the two famous streamlined tavern-lounge cars used in later years on the Century, be there? You'll have to come to the celebration to find out. More information about the GCT centennial celebrations, which will continue for months, can be found at click here.
Next NJ-ARP Board Meeting on March 16, 2013:
The next meeting of the NJ-ARP Board of Directors has been scheduled for Saturday, March 16, 2013, likely to be held in Perth Amboy. The location and timing will be posted on our website as soon as details are firmed up. All currently-paid up members will be welcome to attend and participate in the board's discussions.
