On Friday November 14th, 2025 the Rail Users’ Network held its Fall Conference, An Update – keeping you informed in the world of Passenger Rail & Rail Transit.             RUN Chair Richard Rudolph gave the opening statement.  He spoke on RUN’s history. It started with an 8-page newsletter in 2000.  He said that we must…

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This past month has been one of the coldest in New Jersey in quite some time, with lots of snow—February’s storm was the largest in 5 years.  Both the January and February meetings of the Lackawanna Coalition, scheduled to be held in person at the Summit Free Public Library, were cancelled when the library was…

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The Lackawanna Coalition considers its geographic purview to include lines that were once part of the Lackawanna Railroad, even if they are located beyond NJ Transit’s reach.  That includes the line to Scranton over the Cutoff, an engineering marvel that crossed the Pocono Mountains and began service in 1911.  The last scheduled passenger trains ran…

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Amtrak’s Wolverine service in Michigan, which runs between Chicago and Pontiac through Detroit, has not been doing very well lately.  There have been reports of breakdowns, cancellations, and other problems on the line, including with new engines that recently entered service.  For a group of about 30 blind and otherwise sight-impaired campers, the train trip…

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An Unintended Preview of Things to Come If you are old enough to remember what commuting and/or occasional trips to the City were like before Midtown Direct service started on the Morris & Essex (M&E) Line in 1996, you will get to relive the experience this February and March, and probably again in the fall. …

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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…

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Our state has a lot of Revolutionary history to celebrate this year.  European settlers first landed on the Atlantic coast before moving across the continent, and much of New Jersey was already settled by 1776.  We are between the much younger West Coast, where buildings from the mid1800s are considered very old, and Europe, where…

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As we welcome 2026, we enter the nation’s 250th anniversary year, and for many of us it is way different than we ever expected.  The Coalition’s hometown of Millburn is honoring the nation’s birth with a mural made of wooden tiles painted by nonprofit groups in the municipality.  We were honored to be given a…

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On Saturday 11 October 2025, a group of Lackawanna Coalition members took the train to Port Jervis, New York. We decided upon this date as the leaves will have started to change, weather should be decent, it is the last open weekend for the Port Jervis rail museum. We will have three hours to see…

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Late in October, we learned of a Millburn project honoring the country’s 250th birthday, and were pleased to be offered a chance to participate in the planned municipal celebration with a block in a commemorative tile mural.  With short notice, through nobody’s fault but our own (we have noted that we need to work on…

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