The Raritan Valley Line Thread…

5445 had F40's on both ends tonight. 4124 was the unit on the east end. I didn't catch the unit on the west end, but based on what's still rolling, I suspect it was 4120. They are bracketing 7 comets.

Hmm. A step back in time.At least for a weekend anyway.

There was an interesting equipment move out of Raritan today. I assume this had something to do with repositioning equipment after the Super Bowl.

MM-02 with 4303 and 4013 on the head end, with 10 MLVs:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 752&nseq=8

Plus 4017 and 4028 on the rear:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3747923

I caught one other interesting equipment move last week as well; 4149 & 4210 shoving 4 MLVs eastbound:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 238&nseq=3

If nothing else, the Super Bowl forced a little variety on the RVL for a change.

Rob

Handsome shot of 4149. Looks SO good. And the snow shots are always great. It IS nice to see some variety on the RVL.

There was an interesting consist operating on the RVL today. As seen on train 5719, with 4801 on the west end:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=469862

The usual 6 MLVs and 4216 (missing a number board) on the east end:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=469875

Both units appeared to be online, and the same set was on 5729 later in the afternoon.

Rob

Erie Limited, REALLY nice photos. Nothing like the RVL in the snow. Love it. I need to saddle up the tauntaun and head that way....

The Star Ledger is reporting that single seat rides into NY Penn will begin shortly but due to capacity issues at Penn, there will be no weekend service. Can someone who knows better than I please explain how on weekends when the train frequency is greatly reduced there can be a capacity issue? If NJT copied what they used to do when the RVL went to Hoboken on weekends we are talking about one train in and out every 2 hours.

There's no slots on the weekends to get to NYP, when the schedule assumes that one tunnel will be OOS for maintenance ...

nomis wrote:There's no slots on the weekends to get to NYP, when the schedule assumes that one tunnel will be OOS for maintenance ...

And Amtrak takes out two tracks in the station for the Moynihan project...

http://www.njtransit.com/AdminTemp/rvlwkday030214.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So where did NJT get the slots from? Has service on any other line been changed?

Look at the time of day.

Well, it's a start. Although it won't do most of us prime-time commuters any good. I'd love to go from Westfield instead of Metropark, but until they have a pre-7am nonstop, I'll just have to wait. Might try a late-morning run, though, just for fun. It IS a step in the right direction.
I wonder how ridership at that time of day is, anyway? I wonder if the plan IS to increase this to prime-time? Or is it strictly off-hours?
If it's posted earlier, my apologies for missing it.

BigDell wrote:Well, it's a start. Although it won't do most of us prime-time commuters any good. I'd love to go from Westfield instead of Metropark, but until they have a pre-7am nonstop, I'll just have to wait. Might try a late-morning run, though, just for fun. It IS a step in the right direction.
I wonder how ridership at that time of day is, anyway? I wonder if the plan IS to increase this to prime-time? Or is it strictly off-hours?
If it's posted earlier, my apologies for missing it.

The plan is to eventually add evening service.

My question is this: Obviously there are no tunnel slots during the peak of the peak in the peak direction. But are there reverse peak slots or non-peak of peak slots? (arriving before 7am/after 9am, leaving before 4:30pm/after 7pm)

Amtrak7 wrote:

BigDell wrote:Well, it's a start. Although it won't do most of us prime-time commuters any good. I'd love to go from Westfield instead of Metropark, but until they have a pre-7am nonstop, I'll just have to wait. Might try a late-morning run, though, just for fun. It IS a step in the right direction.
I wonder how ridership at that time of day is, anyway? I wonder if the plan IS to increase this to prime-time? Or is it strictly off-hours?
If it's posted earlier, my apologies for missing it.

The plan is to eventually add evening service.

My question is this: Obviously there are no tunnel slots during the peak of the peak in the peak direction. But are there reverse peak slots or non-peak of peak slots? (arriving before 7am/after 9am, leaving before 4:30pm/after 7pm)

This is the proverbial "getting the foot" into the door. NJT will get a very small foothold of getting RVL trains into New York. After this happens, we'll see what happens (and I suspect, so will they.) They know it has to happen at some point... just how it will happen is a mystery. It could come about by several factors:

1) Renewed push for more tunnel capacity by infastructure improvements
2) Trasnferance of NYP slots from other lines to the RVL (which would cause upstirs)
3) Further schedule squeezing of already tight capacity issues