Pittsburgh-PAT train,,,Cleveland -Erie Laccawanna to Y town.,,,,Albany NY-Had a loop of commuter trains that went Albany-Waterlievet-Troy-Schtadady that ran up untill 1959-1960.Detroit,...I would assume Kansas City would have been had commuter locals. A commuter train is deferent then a local in that its used for workers and had 10 ride tickets or passes.
Englewood, Tenafly, Bergenfield, Dumont, Harrington Park -- all the cities and towns along the Northern branch and the old West Shore.
The New Haven Railroad used to run the Beacon Hill, a morning train from New Haven to Boston that made all, and I mean all, local stops along the line. People used it to commute to Providence. Either Penn Central or Amtrak stopped the train and stopped serving many of the stations it stopped at.
The New York Susquehanna and Western Railroad a/k/a the Suzie Q operated between Butler, New Jersey and New York using a ferry connection at Jersey City. It operated commuter service in Bergen and Passaic Counties but stopped all commuter service in 1968.
The Milwaukee Road ran over sixty commuter trains each day between Minneapolis and St. Paul in the 1800s. The St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba RR ran at least a couple dozen between the two cities in the same time frame.
Camden, NJ had commuter service on Penn Central's Pemberton branch until 4-25-69. Baldwin BRS12sx (Penn Central's class) 8084 had the honor of propelling the last run with a P70 equipped with a headlight, zebra stripes and an air horn for back-up moves. The evening consist added a PRSL P70 to accommodate the crowd of last riders. PRSL ran service from Millville into Camden until '70 or '71. All other PRSL service into Camden ended with the construction of the Patco high speed line in the late 60's, this being primarily connecting shuttles from Haddonfield with trains from Atlantic City, Cape May/Wildwood/Ocean City. Shuttles, which could incidentally, could be operated with a G5s tender first at 40mph if one should happen to stumble across one. PRR Trenton-Camden service ended in 1963 with a gas electric, 4666 I'm pretty sure.
Pittsburgh used to have a sizable suburban operation with trains operating over PRR, B&O and P&LE. MILW used to operate a single round trip out of Milwaukee to Watertown. MP operated a single round trip out of St. Louis to Pacific, MO.
In the "modern" era Burlington VT had a Charlotte-Burlington train over the Vermont Railway from 2000 to 2003.
I recall riding the Metro-North line from Poughkeepsie to NYC in the 80s on their newly acquired South East Michigan Transit Authority coaches after Detroit service shut down. Those were some nice looking and riding coaches, in beautiful condition. I wonder what happened to them?
Have you tried snooping around the RIP yard at Croton-Harmon?
rfpjohnPRR Trenton-Camden service ended in 1963 with a gas electric, 4666 I'm pretty sure.
This is one of the oldest rail lines in the country and began as the Camden and Amboy in the 1830's. In 2004 New Jersey Transit resumed service calling it the RiverLine. It still runs between Trenton and Camden with a transfer to Philadelphia available. In Trenton it connects with Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and SEPTA trains as well as some Trenton bus routes.
There used to be a lot of freight traffic on that line also. During the Penn-Central era, there was a nightly through job in each direction between Camden and Trenton. They also ran a turnaround job out of Pavonia (Camden) and Burlington (I think) six days a week. Road switchers were based out of East Burlington and I think at least one switcher worked out of Bordentown. As a misguided youth, back in the mid '70s I did some poking around East Burlington yard and made friends with the crew on the evening job, the A35. That job worked Hooker chemical, US Pipe and a host of smaller industries. A couple of customers were on the remaining stub of the Burlington-Mt. Holly branch which had been torn up in the late '20s. The guys on that job were all WW2 era men. They had no radios, as was typical for jobs in south Jersey at the time, but boy could they switch some cars! They normally had an RS11 or SW7 on the job (ARS18m or ES12m). I did a lot of running under the capable instruction of Mr. Potts. My, how things have changed!
Freight trains still use the line at night. The RiverLine stops about 11 pm and freight trains have it untl the RiverLine resumes. RiverLine is light rail so it cannot run when heavy rail freight trains run but with scheduling both use it.
New Jersey Transit actually owns the line now. However, part of the argeement provided hours the line is available for freight trains.
54light15 I recall riding the Metro-North line from Poughkeepsie to NYC in the 80s on their newly acquired South East Michigan Transit Authority coaches after Detroit service shut down. Those were some nice looking and riding coaches, in beautiful condition. I wonder what happened to them?
Those SEMTA cars ran on the GTW between Pontiac and Detroit. IIRC the service ended about the end of 1983. It had to be one of the last cities to loose commuter service, although they are now talking about starting up an Ann Arbor -Detroit service.
What's even more interesting is the list of metro areas that acquired suburban/commuter service since about 1980: Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Dallas/Fort Worth, Seattle. Are there any others?
Nashville also started a commuter line recently.
CSSHEGEWISCH:
New commuter rail lines in the last 30 years:
Denver and Orlando are about to, Austin, TX (DMUs), Stockton to San Jose ACE trains, Washington DC VRE trains.
Cities that used to have commuter service which now do not:
ST Louis had MOPAC, WABASH, Illinois Terminal (interurbans) and a couple of other short lines that at one time provided Commuter Service to STL.
Milwaukee had service as well.
One city that both gained and lost commuter rail in the last 30 years; Syracuse NY.
Not sure if interuban should count. if it does, there are many places that had something akin to commuter lines once and it would be great if they were still in place. To name a few: Oregon Electric in Eugene, OR; AE&FR up and down the Fox valley in the far western Chicago suburbs; IT from Danville to Springfield , IL and beyond.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I remember! The four-track line, the Dumont station with it's pedestrian underpass and park fronting Madison Avenue, and Lowden Pit (the coach/locomotive storage facility north of New Milford Avenue). The trains went south, through the tunnel under North Bergen to West Shore Terminal and ferries in Weehawken.
Milwaukee had commuter service on the Milwaukee Road west of town until 1972. Plus the North Shore Line until January 1963.
Pittsburgh- PRR had commuter trains in all directions until the mid-60's. The PATrain (port Authority Transit) ran until the mid 80's from the downtown Grant St B&O station to McKeesport. There were several "test" runs on the Montour around the southern loop before the line was ripped out.
P&LE ran commuters from Beaver Falls to the main P&LE station on the south side until about 1986 or so.
San Fransisco Southern Pacific Commuter Train- (before Cal Train)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2151_1196125200_-_Flickr_-_drewj1946.jpg
I suspect many more towns big and small had commuter service. Even the small city of Petoskey, Mich which only has a few thousand population had seasonal commuter service on 3 GR&I lines at the turn of the century (1900).
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Stations/CountyStations/EmmetStations/PetoskeyCommuterMI.htm
The Ann Arbor also had a seasonal "dinky" service out of Frankfort along Crystal Lake to Beulah, with some trains continuing on to meet C&O trains at Thompsonville.
Illinois Central operated commuter service out of Chicago on its line west to Broadview and Alsip early last century.
cbq9911a Milwaukee had commuter service on the Milwaukee Road west of town until 1972. Plus the North Shore Line until January 1963.
Milwaukee had much more than that. Some were interurban lines that do not count as commuter rail lines but the lines from the public service building to Mequon and Brown Deer had frequent rush hour service. The Waukesha line could be considered commuter rail and the line from Hales corners could also be considered commuter.
Randy
The Milwaukee Road continued the service at it's own expense past Amtrak formation in the hope that Milwaukee County would take it over. It was Watertown to Milwaukee in the morning and Milwaukee back to Watertown in the evening on their Twin Cities Mainline and was a holdover from a train created way back when the railroad was first built.
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