The new Portal North Bridge located west of Secaucus Station is essentially ready for service, and NJ Transit has plans to start using it. Cutting over from the existing bridge, which is more than 100 years old, is a complex process that will require single-track operation between Newark Penn Station and Secaucus Junction Station. Although trains coming from Broad Street Station in Newark enter Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) at Swift Interlocking, a junction west of the bridge, capacity will still be constrained. Between the agency‘s reductions and Amtrak’s, the number of weekday moves there will be cut almost in half.
According to NJ Transit, there are 3 important principles guiding the temporary service plan, which is slated to start on Sunday, February 14 and last through Saturday, March 14, with regular service slated to resume the next day. Those principles are to maximize capacity and seat availability, to continue offering rail service for every community that has it, and to maintain an emphasis on safety. The temporary service plan was announced by NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri and Amtrak President Roger Harris, both of whom touted the new fixed bridge (i.e., it does not open) and described how Amtrak and NJ Transit have been working together on the Portal North Bridge project.
The temporary service plan will affect every NJ Transit rail line to some extent, with the sole exception being the Atlantic City Rail Line. On Thursday, January 15, NJ Transit announced schedules for the 4-week period; these can be found on the agency’s web site, www.njtransit.com. Look for “Major Service Update Portal North Bridge Cutover” and click there for schedules. All lines will retain roughly the level of service they have today, although there will be some service reductions and consolidation of trains. The Main/Bergen, Raritan Valley, Pascack Valley, and North Jersey Coast Line will have new schedules for the month; of these, only the North Jersey Coast line has significant changes, as well as the Northeast Corridor. Secaucus connections will be the biggest change on some lines. Please check https://lackawannacoalition.org/stuck-on-njt/ for options.
The operation on the Lackawanna Coalition’s primary lines of concern, the Morris & Essex (M&E), Gladstone, and Montclair-Boonton Lines, will change the most. Weekday Midtown Direct routing to and from Penn Station will be suspended. Instead, all trains on those lines will run to and from Hoboken Terminal, as they did before Midtown Direct service was established in 1996. To get to New York City, cross-honoring will be in effect on PATH trains at Hoboken and 33rd Street (substitute for Penn Station), ferries to 39th Street, and NJ Transit’s #126 bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The trip to Manhattan will take longer, although NJ Transit advises customers to purchase Hoboken tickets (fares are lower than New York tickets from the same origins), and the NYC leg is included, so overall commuting cost is a bit less.
Midtown Direct trains on the M&E will continue to run on weekends but, as on other lines, the schedule will be different. Trains will leave Dover at 39 minutes past the hour, and Penn Station at 51 minutes past the hour. Trains from Dover or connecting from Gladstone at Summit will not conveniently connect with trains from Montclair at Newark. Instead, NJ Transit is advising Hoboken passengers to change at Secaucus on the weekend. Convenience of connections between the M&E and other lines will also change.
For more-detailed coverage, see the author’s article on the Railway Age website, www.railwayage.com, posted on Friday, January 16.
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