Commuter Rail in the Lehigh Valley

[Flint Hills Tex]

I heard some rumors that NJT was considering extending some runs through Phillipsburg to Easton and Bethlehem. Considering that the Lehigh Valley has become a bedroom community for New York City, a train connection from Allentown into the Big Apple would seem to make sense. But I can't find any reliable information anywhere. Can anybody help me?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

A check on NJ Transit's website shows no such proposal under consideration.  I would find it a bit unlikely since the extension would be in Pennsylvania and would require interstate co-operation from a transit district for that area, which isn't served by SEPTA.

[blue streak 1]

The biggest question is travel time vs car anyone know?

[gardendance]

Remember too that this is service that NJT had formerly operated to Phillipsburg, which they cut back a bunch of miles to Highbridge. I'm afraid if NJT hadn't thought there was a Phillipsburg, NJ, market they're not tremendously interested in going 20 or so miles past Phillipsburg.

 

[TomDiehl]

The fact that the proposal is coming from NJT might be the error. Up here in the Poconos, there's been several proposals to reopen commuter service across the old DL&W Lackawanna Cutoff route. NJT operates the part in New Jersey from around Hacketstown, east into the NYC area, and they were proposed as the operator of the restored portion into Pennsylvania. I'm not sure when NJT actually got involved, but it was well into the proposal period.

As far as the traffic base, this route runs close to parallel to Interstate 80, which is getting worse every year for its congestion (BTW, the Poconos have been a bedroom community for the NYC area for a couple decades). The Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area to NYC area would rely on Interstate 78/US Route 22, which, by listening to the traffic reports in the morning, sound just as bad as I-80.

[JT22CW]

I heard some rumors that NJT was considering extending some runs through Phillipsburg to Easton and Bethlehem

That's all they are right now, is rumors. NJT won't and cannot cross the NJ/PA border without some cooperation from either PennDOT or the Northampton and Lehigh County governments (or all three entities).

NJ Transit's 2020 Wish List displayed not only the restoration of Raritan Valley Line service to/from Phillipsburg Union Station, but also the possibility of extending Boonton Line trains past Hackettstown via Washington into Phillipsburg.

Remember too that this is service that NJT had formerly operated to Phillipsburg, which they cut back a bunch of miles to Highbridge. I'm afraid if NJT hadn't thought there was a Phillipsburg, NJ, market they're not tremendously interested in going 20 or so miles past Phillipsburg.

That's not why NJT cut service (on three trains in each peak direction) back to High Bridge 24 years ago. The service cut was part of a land deal to build I-78 through the border between Bloomsbury and Alpha. The CNJ main line was sacrificed, albeit needlessly, since with minimal expense, it could have traversed the highway as well.

Even in spite of the CNJ's main being severed, NJT could have continued service to/from Phillipsburg by diverting the line onto the former LVRR main line in Bloomsbury and back onto the CNJ in Alpha. However, the CNJ main is now under Conrail's control in Phillipsburg, and Conrail, in their infinite "wisdom", removed the second main track through Phillipsburg station, which NJT would have to restore in order to be able to have service again (there were two main tracks in the station when the passenger service was still operating; see pic below).  NJT has seen fit of late to increase service to/from High Bridge; such service if operated to/from Phillipsburg (or as far west as Allentown) would see only benefit and no detriment.

The fact that the proposal is coming from NJT might be the error. Up here in the Poconos, there's been several proposals to reopen commuter service across the old DL&W Lackawanna Cutoff route. NJT operates the part in New Jersey from around Hacketstown, east into the NYC area, and they were proposed as the operator of the restored portion into Pennsylvania. I'm not sure when NJT actually got involved, but it was well into the proposal period.

As far as the traffic base, this route runs close to parallel to Interstate 80, which is getting worse every year for its congestion (BTW, the Poconos have been a bedroom community for the NYC area for a couple decades). The Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area to NYC area would rely on Interstate 78/US Route 22, which, by listening to the traffic reports in the morning, sound just as bad as I-80

See the 2020 Wish List map linked above.

When it comes to the Poconos, NJT was solicited as operator by the rail authorities of Monroe and Lackawanna Counties, who own the railroad between Scranton and Analomink. (The DL&W's main line between Analomink and Slateford is owned by Norfolk Southern.) The ownership of the Lackawanna Cutoff within NJ was a major sticking point, since Conrail had sold the right of way to one Jerry Turco back in 1981 for $1 million; the state of NJ bought it from Turco for a lot more than that (about $21 million). As I recall, before Conrail abandoned the Cutoff, Amtrak ran a test train from Hoboken to Scranton back in 1979; then along came the Carter Administration cuts, which killed Amtrak's ability to move forward on that matter.

NJT's service to Hackettstown is on the DL&W's Old Road, which has been all but decimated (there are significant remnants along US 46, though) between Washington and the still-standing rail bridge between Manuka Chunk and Portland PA. The Lackawanna Cutoff starts at Port Morris, which is in between Mount Arlington and Netcong stations (used to be that Lake Hopatcong was the westernmost station before the Cutoff), goes on a combined elevated and below-grade ROW that would make LGV builders jealous (I believe that the ROW might have inspired the Shinkansen and LGV, though don't quote me on that) through Greendell and Blairstown, crosses the Delaware at Columbia and joins the Old Road at Slateford Junction on the PA side.

As for the comparison with I-78 and I-80: The I-80 traffic jams at least start on the NJ side, usually around Exit 25 or 27. The jamups on I-78 start on the PA side.

The biggest question is travel time vs car anyone know?

That's not the biggest question. You'd have to run the service to answer your question. Besides, given how immobile I-78 is during peak times (bicycling would be faster), an infrequent service would be packed to the rafters, and a frequent service would have a comfortable standee contingent.

What Conrail did to the former CNJ main line between Easton and Bethlehem is sinful. That would have been the perfect "separated" ROW between freight and passenger; Conrail's Lehigh Line is quite busy, and NS of late has been looking to put in a second track. (Never mind the abandoned LVRR through Phillipsburg and the LVRR bridge across the Delaware that is sitting quiet.)  There is a lot of the ROW left, and it is still under NS ownership, but there are no tracks through Easton and Freemansburg up to the Bethlehem border, and a lot of the ROW has seen some encroachment and de-facto rail-trailing.  (The LVRR is a rail-trail between Allentown and Lehighton too, IINM.)

Incidentally, the last commuter rail service that served the Lehigh Valley directly was not any service from New Jersey, but actually SEPTA rail service from Philadelphia, which ceased when Reading Terminal was closed in the early 80s. This is a service that needs to make a comeback, and could do so by restoring some severed rail links that would get diesel trains into the lower level of 30th Street Station (the easiest one would be the "Railworks" diversion, another brilliant severed link à la Conrail, so SEPTA couldn't do that again if they wanted to, i.e. on short notice); but the bigger obstacle would be the state of the former Reading ROW through Bethlehem, which the mayor wants turned into a "greenway", and restoring the ROW through Hellertown and Coopersburg, which is overgrown (the ROW between Lansdale and Quakertown would merely need to be "reconditioned", by comparison). The Lehigh Valley does indeed need commuter ra

[TomDiehl]

As for the comparison with I-78 and I-80: The I-80 traffic jams at least start on the NJ side, usually around Exit 25 or 27. The jamups on I-78 start on the PA side.

The traffic backup on I-80 would depend on time of day and direction of travel. The main reason I go to work so ungodly early in the morning is to beat the worst of the traffic. The backups start at Exit 25 around 0615 on weekdays, but wait until 0645, you're looking at Exit 19. And Lord forbid there be an accident that blocks up the Delaware River Bridge.

Plus there are more employers just over the Jersey border from Easton that contribute to the traffic load. On I-80, there's no significant reason to get off the interstate until around Exit/MP 19. East of MP 4 on I-80, it goes to three lanes each direction with a fourth added on long hills. Fortunately, they did this while the land was easily available. It gives a better buffer zone to absorb the traffic before the bottleneck areas.

[Flint Hills Tex]

I would agree that you don't need to run commuter service to both Philly and NYC. I believe that the original proposal was made in connection with a developer's plans to build upscale condos and a casino on the old Bethlehem Steel site, with some thoughts of a transfer station to light rail out to ABE Lehigh Valley International Airport.

Personally, I think that commuter service to New York would take more folks off the highways than a connection to PHL. It would require a lot of capital investment (from whom) to build a dedicated ROW, which, to my knowledge, is one of NS's stipulations on agreeing to any such plan. Of course, the PHL connection could just run down the Perkiomen Branch to the Keystone Corridor!

[JT22CW]

I would agree that you don't need to run commuter service to both Philly and NYC. I believe that the original proposal was made in connection with a developer's plans to build upscale condos and a casino on the old Bethlehem Steel site, with some thoughts of a transfer station to light rail out to ABE Lehigh Valley International Airport.

That's not the reason for restoring commuter service between ABE and Philly. Have you seen Routes 309 and 476 of late?

The closest SEPTA station to the ABE area presently is Colmar, on the R5. That's 30 miles away. Quakertown is closer, at 14 miles, and passenger rail advocates have been pushing to reactivate service up the North Penn Branch to at least that location (one proposal has diesel service running between Norristown and Quakerstown using the Stony Creek branch); but the potential for worsening that town's already-bad traffic by turning it into a commuter rail terminus is quite high, whereas there would be less of a problem in that respect if you brought the terminus back to the ABE area.

Personally, I think that commuter service to New York would take more folks off the highways than a connection to PHL. It would require a lot of capital investment (from whom) to build a dedicated ROW, which, to my knowledge, is one of NS's stipulations on agreeing to any such plan. Of course, the PHL connection could just run down the Perkiomen Branch to the Keystone Corridor!

The Perkiomen Branch is currently a rail-trail. There's more hope for the North Penn Branch than for that.

There's still a lot of the former CNJ right of way in existence. As I said in a prior post, freight and passenger can be permanently separated by a rebuild of the CNJ between High Bridge NJ and Bethlehem PA, and a rebuild of the LVRR between Easton PA and Alpha NJ. However, the short-sighted politicians still want to blow megabucks on highways, which would solve no mobility problems whatsoever...(and since NS continues to deprecate the former CNJ Allentown Yard, that could definitely make things less stressful for a new passenger rail service to the NYC area.)

(Here's a map of the area, showing the railroads that used to run.)

 

 

[Anonymous]

Actually a study is underway for this project... Please take a look at these links. The Penn Live artice was published last week:

http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/NJSOMER/NJSOMER_101/NJSOMER_101_20071203_160000_en.htm

http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/expresstimes/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1204520709242550.xml&coll=2

http://www.njtpa.org/Project/Devel/PDWP/documents/Appendix_D_FY08PDWP_000.pdf (see 06389)

[oltmannd]

Conrail moved from the LV bridge to the CNJ bridge over the Del. River in the early 90s (?) because the LV bridge needed serious repairs and the CNJ bridge was still decent.  It'd cost a nice chunk-o-money to get the LV bridge back into shape.