Tag Archives: New Jersey

Rail Photo of the Month: September 2019

Posted on by

PA-1 657

PA-1 657

Location: Exchange Place Station, Jersey City, NJ
Operator of Vehicle: Port Authority of New York & New Jersey
Date of Photo: September 4, 2001

Next week, the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks will be commemorated.  One can cite a long list of things that changed in the wake of the terrorist attacks that no one would have expected in the years since.  On the transit side of things, one did not feel a sense of urgency to visit the World Trade Center PATH station on September 4, 2001, just one week before the station would be destroyed when the Twin Towers collapsed.  I certainly did not, which is why I opted to transfer to trains at Exchange Place instead of at World Trade Center while traveling between Newark and Hoboken that day.  As it turned out, I would never have a chance to visit the original World Trade Center station, and it would be the only station on PATH that I did not travel to prior to September 2001.  I have since been to the temporary station that opened in 2003, but not the Santiago Calatrava designed Oculus 

For more photos of PATH, please click here.

 

Rail Photo of the Month: July 2018

Posted on by

Multi-level car 7058

NJT Multi-level Car 7058

Location: Metropark Station, Iselin, NJ
Operator of Vehicle: New Jersey Transit
Date of Photo: August 6, 2017

What do you do when you operate a commuter rail service in to the busiest train station in the United States, want to add service, but that station is at capacity? In New Jersey Transit’s case, the answer is design and purchase Multi-Level cars!  However, this was more challenging for NJT than it might have been for some other US commuter rail systems.  The multi-level cars had to be designed in a way so that they could fit in the North River Tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York Penn Station.  Those tunnels were constructed in the early 1900s and opened in 1910, and as it is, the multi-levels’ design makes for a tight fit.  Double decker trains such as Amtrak’s Superliner cars and the Long Island Railroad’s C3 cars can’t fit in the North River Tunnel at all.  Although the tunnels  clearances are not nearly as restrictive as in the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel south of Baltimore Penn Station, MARC exercised an option order on NJT’s original contract with Bombardier for its own multi-level cars.

For more photos of New Jersey Transit trains, please click here.