Union County is essentially the northernmost county in Central Jersey and, from outward appearances, it seems to be rich in transit. The Morris & Essex Line serves Summit between its namesake counties, the Gladstone Branch goes to 3 stations west of there before leaving the county, Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line trains stop there on their way south, and the Raritan Valley Line (historic Jersey Central) stops at 8 stations on its west-by-southwesterly trip through the county from Newark. There also are plenty of bus routes.
On the third weekend of October, the county sponsors Four Centuries in a Weekend, an event when museums and historic sites across the county are open for visitors. Some are located in towns with a train station, and others are located on bus routes or within walking distance from a train station or bus stop (sometimes a long walk, but accessible to a fully ambulatory person). Only a few are too far from transit to be accessible to both nonmotorists and motorists.
I had visited many of the sites over the years, and a few that I had not yet seen are open only on Saturday, and not on Sunday. There were places I wanted to visit in Summit, Rahway, and Plainfield, so I set out to plan my logistics. It was more difficult than I thought it would be. My objectives were on 3 different rail lines, and I learned the hard way that those lines are not well-connected by bus lines.
The first stop was the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, about a 15-minute walk from the train station. The site opened at 10:00, which allowed some time to see it, catch the 11:40 train to Broad Street Station in Newark, and make a tight connection to a train from Penn Station heading to the Shore. I got off at Rahway and walked to the African-American History & Heritage Learning Center, a school for “colored” children that operated in the middle of the 19th century and is being restored to its original appearance as a one-room schoolhouse. The next stop was the Union County Performing Arts Center, a historic theater that presents live performances and films, sometimes to the accompaniment of a theater organ.
The next town was Elizabeth, on a quick stopover between trains, which allowed enough time for quick visits to catch an exhibit at the Elizabeth Library and a look at Old First Church down the street. Then it was back to the station and onto another train toward Newark, to catch the Raritan Valley Line to Plainfield. After arriving there at 3:15 (almost on schedule), my next objective was across the street. It was the Quaker Meeting House, built in 1787 and still in use. Little has changed there since it was built. I had allowed time for a quick visit there and to another site in Plainfield, but had received word that it had closed early, so I stayed at the Meeting House until they closed, grabbed a bite, and caught the next train back to Newark.
It was an interesting day, and I saw most of what I had intended to see. Still, I learned something important about using transit in Union County: There is plenty of train service, but local buses don’t connect well with it. If you want to go from one rail line to another, you need to go to Newark to connect, and Newark isn’t even in Union County!
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