Going to sample some NJT Rail, HBLRT and NCS Light Rail, and PATH on Thurs. 10/22. Although we're driving from Binghamton, NY, anyone is invited along for the fun: Lv Port Jervis 7:42AM...arrive Hoboken 9:50AM. Then riding HBLRT to Tonnelle Ave to West Side Ave to 22nd St to Hoboken...then PATH to World Trade to Newark...Newark City Subway to Grove St. to Broad St...NJT Midtown direct to Sec. Jct. and back to PJ. Let me know if you'll be along! Still room in my car from Binghamton, but you can join us anywhere along the route. Email me here either on line or with PM. Probably fares for the day from PJ: Adult: around $50; Over 62 about $25; plus gas and food.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Henry:
FYI Middletown is closer to Binghamton by road than Port Jervis, and the train from Port Jervis goes through Middletown on the way to NYC.
I used to live in Sullivan County many moons ago and still have friends there.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
With I81 and I84 PJ is an hour and a half from my house....remember, too, the guys are going because we want to ride trains not just "take the train"....and I like PJ because it does afford me a full two hours to nap, remember I'll be leaving my house around 5:30AM!
Route 97 is a prettier drive down along the Delaware River. Just past the county line north of Port Jervis it runs right along the face of a cliff overlooking the river. A couple of car commercials have been shot there.
Done the ride many a times from PJ and keep my eye always on the NJT site, but appreciate your interest.
And Rt 97 is a beautiful drive this time of year for the color, for the history. But since the likelihood of seeing a train are between zero and nothing, I rarely take the route anymore.. Plus it is a 2 or more hour drive.
Still room for Thurs. 10/22 trip to NJ to ride trains and light rail...see present and past rail yards, ride through WS/O&W tunnel...etc. Room in car from Binghamton, NY to take 7:42A from PJ arrive Hoboken 9:50. Join us enroute if you wish, let me know where and when by replay here.
henry6:
So how was the ride?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Actualy I goofed a little, underestimating road work tie ups and therefore did not make the 7:42Am out of Port Jervis...realizing that at Milford, PA, short of PJ, I turned east and south no Rt US206 aiming at Dover or Denville to intercept several trains...again RT NJ15 traffic forced a decision to Denville. So made changes on the day thus: Got the 8:47 out of Denville (8:11 out of Hackettstwon) via the Boonton Line to Newark, the Newark Light Rail (nee Newark City Subway) to Penn Sta to Grove St and back to Penn. Lunch. PATH to WTC to Hoboken. HBLRT to Tonnelle Ave to West Side Ave to Liberty St. Park to 22nd St to Hoboken. Then the 4:35 Gladstone Train to Summit for the reassuring fact that MU equipment out performs all push pull equipment in hilly, curvey, short distance between stations, commuter service; confirmed by making all stops to Summit still had to wait for time before departing. (Engineer confirmed that crews would rather see more MU's than push pulls and bi levels to perform the work at hand!) The the Mt. Olive train (diesel push pull) to Denville arriving at 5PM. Despite the initial foul up the day went extremely well. And since we are over the hill (62+ yrs.old) our senior fares were: $3 Denville to Newark,; .65 Newark Broad to Grove St. and back to Newark Penn, $1.75 PATH to WTC to Hoboken; .95 Hoboken to Tonnelle to West Side Ave; .95 West Side to Liberty to 22nd to Hoboken; and 3.75 Hoboken to Denville for a grand total of $11.05! Full Adult fare would have been probably a little more than double that but less than $25. Plus $3 parking.still not a bad deal considering you'd spend about the same going to the movies, twice that bowling, three to four times that golfing or going to an amusement park (including meals and incidentals).
All trains and services well patronized; large number of high school and college students using mass transit in all forms; train crews always friendly and encouraging to our being "out to ride for the day"! No photography hassle (just don't do it where you know there will be problems, like anywhere on or around PATH). Honor system on light rail lines: buy ticket, then get it validated with time experation stamp (giving you an hour to an hour and a half's time to ride); you may be asked at any time to show your ticket by "authorized" persons. In our case it was six NJ State troopers (not transit police or other) who boarded the Tonnelle Ave. to West Side Ave.cars at one station and quickly asked everyone to show their tickets...they better have better than 20/20 eyesight as one trooper stood inside the door and asked to see the tickets, people from two to ten feet away held them up as the quickly surveyed the display and said ok and thank you and left! Troopers got off and the train was on its way with only a minutes delay! But so what? No terrorists were spotted and no unfair fare crooks were caught and we are all safer for it and NJT is apparently been fed it's needed stipend for ride without criminal behavior!
Will do the Port Jervis ride...have several trips planned out of there including 7:42Am PJ to Secaucus Jct. to Gladstone to Hoboken to Spring Valley, [bus to Suffern], to Port Jervis arr 6:55PM. Also a request for some as yet undefined LIRR trips (always ready to do the Lower Montauk!), got a Hackettstown or Dover or Port Jervis to Poughkeepsie via Amtrak or MNRR ready for anyone who wants total scenery along the Hudson...haven't done to Canan or New Haven in years; if anyone wants to go let me know. Plus next summer I will do NJT to LIRR to Port Jefferson, boat to Bridgeport, MNRR to GCT and back to Jersey...And gotta get some NJT to SEPTA trips going, too.
Our light rail is also a present on demand ticket system, but it does not delay the train at all. A fare inspector or a Charlotte Mecklenberg police Officer gets on the train at a randomly chosen station and checks tickets as the train continues on it's trip. At the next station he/she gets off and takes the next train back doing the same thing on that train. If anyone is caught without a valid ticket they are given a $50 citation and put off the train at the next stop, or arrested as appropriate.
I believe they catch about 200 people a month out of 15,000 riders a day..
Say $2 a head, that's $400 a month lost. Say recovery is 200 times $50 you get $10000 a month or $120,000 income which puts you $115,200 to the good minus the officer's pay, say $50,000, then puts you at about $65,000. Another $15,000 adminsitrative, printing, whatever, and you net $50,000. 15,000 a day is about 360,000 per month at $2 or $72,0000 times 12 is $8,640,000 a year plus $50,000. So it costs $65,000 to net $50,000 which is .005787% of the total income. Isn't there a better way? Does the cost of retrieveing .005787% of total farebox revenue warrent a cost of .0075231% of the total? Could not that $65,000 be better spent within the corporation for better return?
You can't count the Officer's pay because he is not dedicated. A patrol officer just parks his car at a station periodically and hops on the train, the return train brings him back to the original station, and he returns to patrol.
It's not about fare recovery. I'm sure they don't catch everyone. But if they didn't do that several times a day a great number of people wouldn't bother to ever buy tickets. It's about punishing violators, not recovering the fare.
It is also a very common method of fare enforcement in above ground at grade rail systems. It is difficult to secure light rail stations and would require a person at each station to keep people from jumping turnstiles etc. or a person in each car to collect fares.
I can understand that. But in NJ at the 9th St station, 6 NJState Troopers! I wonder what better could have been done with these guys' time. Too bad there can't be a swipe card system at the car door for turnstyle type entry or something...just food for thoughts.
Well, there's "M-NR Middletown" and the real (Erie) Middletown, which is no longer on the route. All things considered, I'd recommend Port Jervis, only for the drive on NY 97 on the "Hawk's Nest" and following the old D&H canal. They prob'ly call it "Hawks Nest" now (PC), but so do all birds. I worked in Narrowsburg (Sullivan County), NY as a kid. Aktchu'lly in Wayne County, PA, just across the river. "Peggy Runway Lodge". Did the Erie to get home. Cool trip! Did a "Tom Sawyer" thingie there: helped unload a boxcar of chicken feed. Ended up doing all of the work, after I was taught how! Loved it! No covered hoppers, in those days (early '50s). Friends in Narrowsburg tell me that Conrail came in one day and demolished the depot, in one fell-swoop! Single track, now, methinks.
Yup! Single track PJ to Binghamton...CNY leases from NS and NYSW operates about three roundtrips per week....97 is a beautiful ride (Hawk's Nest is still a great site, the Roebling Bridge for the D&H canal is still used for road crossing at Lackawaxen, other great sites and views) but terrible drive if you want to make time, thus RTs I81-I84 from Binghamton...old Erie main through Middletown is gone; today's Middletown stop is on the Graham freight line north and east of town adjacent to I86/17. If railfan riding, you lose Otisville tunnel, Howell's Jct. remnants and Black Rock Cut if you use Middletown on the MNRR..plus I like the two hour SJ to PJ in the afternoon/evening to catch a few winks before driving back to Bing...
There is a model of that Roebling Bridge at Minisink Ford in the American History Museum at the Smithsonian. The model is of the bridge as it originally looked before they "restored" it. The appearance was substantially changed by the "restoration". I worked in that area during the late 60s. At that time the bridge looked much different than it does today. The restoration was needed, it was no longer structurally sound. It was privately owned until the Parks service took control of the river in that area.
I was also there when the Erie tore up the second track. In fact I investigated the theft of several hundred ties from the Skinners Falls area during that project. A local business man was using them for a landscaping project.
Some other notes on the day (some repeated perhaps):
Trains and light rail seem to be clean and kept that way by management and riders....
Mostly full trains and vehicles, well used by the public: commuters, shoppers, high school and college students; many making other connections to get to final destinations...lots of people on the move at every turn...public transportation is a must....
On time performance all the time: NJT, HBLR, NCS, PATH! Even when the 6 NJSP troopers boarded HBLRT at 9th St.to check tickets! Lost a minute maybe, but seem to make it up.
Friendliness and cheerfulness of all employees cannot be underplayed. They make riding fun. A rather young lady--a new conductor--on the NJT train first thing was knowledgeable, friendly, efficient and professional; the motormen/women on the light rail and PATH talking with us and enjoying our pursuit; the crews on NJT in the afternoon understanding why we rode the MU train to Summit rather than the diesel push pull all the way without saying so; the engineer eager to have his picture taken with pride while stating he was ahead of time because the train was an MU rather than BiLevel Push Pull!
Met the "leaf train" going east as we were coming through Chatham...but the leaves were giving us problems as we entered Morris Plains and moreso, Mt. Tabor: it felt like pumping on an old Ford on ice!
CSX treated us to two 50+ car trains...one, a nortbound at Liberty St. Park as we headed toward West Side Ave, and the other a southbound about an hour later as we pushed north around Danforth Ave.
You get unique views of the railroad scene while getting to ride some new and some old rights of way. A chance for photoraphers to scope out good locations for the future. Others can get a feel for what riding and operating trains can be like. As I noted someplace, there are new trips yet in the near future as requested by some of my friends...latest is suggested by what looks to be a very intriguing venue: Poughkeepsie, NY and the newly opened walkway on the old NH bridge across the Hudson...working on the logistics in Pou.; already know I want to Amtrak out of NYP and MNRR back. Just got to set up the when,
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