NJT restricting access to onboard restrooms?

Traveling from New York to Long Branch on Dec. 27, my wife and I couldn't use the NJT restrooms in Penn Station because they were being cleaned. On board the train, the first two cars, which included the restroom, were blocked off. A conductor said we could request access, but only one person at a time was permitted into the cab coach. I told her I had been riding the coast line for 50 years and asked what was going on. She shrugged.

It reminded me of the security theater we watched for years after Sep. 11, 2001. Now what? Only one terrorist at a time in the cab car? The NJT web page "Covid-19: How We're Protecting You" (https://www.njtransit.com/covid19) doesn't say anything about protecting passengers by not letting us use the restrooms. Is it to reduce passenger fatalities in case of a collision? Is it just to add to passengers' misery? I might have enjoyed the trip if not for this latest stunt by NJT.

Most likely the number of crew available to run trains was too low to crew the whole train due to COVID. (They have to have a certain number of conductors + assistant conductors per car open.) The decision to block off the first two cars instead of the last two is very strange - my hypothesis is this was an error by crew who didn't consider the restrooms, not an instruction from above, and that letting people go up front one at a time into a carriage that was uncrewed was technically a rules violation.

Not an expert.

There are several other restrooms in Penn Station FYI.

Wow, the things going through people's minds these days. Yes, of course, NJT wants you to pee your pants!

I was being sarcastic about one terrorist at a time in the cab car, but I really wonder whether the crew or the agency is trying to discourage passengers. Some of the Alexandria (VA) Transit buses have posters telling me why I should ride, but some have posters telling me, "Stay home." Maybe NJT or its crews, or some of them, are trying to give the same message.

lensovet wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 3:18 am Wow, the things going through people's minds these days. Yes, of course, NJT wants you to pee your pants!

I'm assuming there aren't enough of the 3rd party contractors to do train cleaning, and thus bathroom maintenance.

scratchyX1 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:15 pm

lensovet wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 3:18 am Wow, the things going through people's minds these days. Yes, of course, NJT wants you to pee your pants!

I'm assuming there aren't enough of the 3rd party contractors to do train cleaning, and thus bathroom maintenance.

Seems OP had the opposite problem — the bathroom was being cleaned. I guess you can't win here — if the bathrooms don't get cleaned, we're going to get posts about how filthy they are, and if they are being cleaned, we'll get posts like this, claiming that NJT is trying to get people to stay home by closing all the bathrooms.

2022, ladies and gentlemen.

I very frequently come across this on the Coast Line, specifically that regardless of where the bathroom is, it may be in a closed car. This should honestly never be the case, but it beats the time that I was told there was no working restroom when I needed to use one and was traveling Long Branch to Newark.

There are at least two other sets of rest rooms in Penn Station. One in the LIRR waiting area across the corridor from NJ Transit area. And another in the Amtrak main-concourse.

I have to laugh at NJ Transit in this regard. New York's much criticized MTA has a rest room in every pair of electric MU cars in the Metro-North and LIRR fleet. Not sure what they have in their Diesel fleets. Why can't NJT be just as smart?

@Head-end View Because NJT is more concerned about pocketing millions of taxpayer dollars annually than running any sort of efficient or pleasant-to-use transportation system.