2026 Soccer World Cup coming to NJ & NY, with many games (including the final) in MetLife Stadium

https://www.nj.com/sports/2024/02/njs-m ... final.html
Fantastic!
The final and about 8(?) other games will be at Met Life Stadium.
I can't find the thread that was active in the last year or so about new plans for getting from Secaucus station to MetLife stadium. One involved the old Erie DB draw ROW - but I think it was to make some new kind of bus route.
In any case 2 years is not a lot of time...
Ole Ole (the soccer cheer).
Jim S

>>>"Fans blast New Jersey's MetLife Stadium as 2026 Finals host over its lack of transportation and unpredictable weather"<<< https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/world ... -fans.html

On another thread in the past year which I also can't find (maybe the same one that I mentioned earlier), a poster suggesting running dedicated trains out of NY Penn. Going west through Secaucus to the "Waterfront connection" near the sawtooth bridges where the ex-PRR goes over the ex-DLW, reversing towards Hoboken, and then in western Jersey City reversing again at the DLW "West End" wye, going forward past Secaucus station w/o stopping and getting on the Erie to go to Met Life. It involves about 8 miles extra, but then you can load up at Penn Station and run nonstop (not counting the reverses) to Met Life.

No infrastructure required. During off-peak hours or weekends it might just work.

The complexities involved in threading those movements in between scheduled trains, in addition to taking time overall, plus two reversals, with apparently nothing happening while the crew goes through the required routine for changing ends, could occasion a degree of impatience among a trainload of soccer fans, who have a worldwide reputation of being unable to contain their displeasure.

(Edit) It just occurred to me that during the reversal at West End the entire train will be motionless inside a dark tunnel.

Waterfront connection is a single track. You’re crossing the entire NEC during potentially rush hour. What could go wrong?

Sounds nice in theory (which is disconnected from reality) and on a map, but logistically and operationally would be a complete nightmare. Plus I don’t know where you are staging these trains, Penn doesn’t exactly have a ton of space to just store a bunch of trains to load them up one after the other as fans board. Hoboken, OTOH, is perfectly set up for this, and you can add just a few trains that run from Penn to Secaucus and let the existing schedule take care of the rest.

Ken W2KB wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 12:50 pm >>>"Fans blast New Jersey's MetLife Stadium as 2026 Finals host over its lack of transportation and unpredictable weather"<<< https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/world ... -fans.html

Lol, we got ONE tweet from someone who doesn’t even know what the transportation options to the Meadowlands are (rent a car? What?) posted by a UK tabloid and offering Dallas and LA as having “better” transportation infrastructure? That’s hilarious.

I’m more annoyed by them calling it “New York New Jersey”, whatever on earth that means. It’s New Jersey, full stop.

https://www.nj.com/news/2024/02/nj-tran ... -plan.html

tl;dr: murphy says busway + meadowlands rail service will move 22k people an hour from SEC to stadium...

i definitely have my doubts!

Previous thread here quot-innovation-challenge-quot-project- ... 72668.html

Knowing NJ Transit, it’s probably just gonna be a repeat of the 2014 Super Bowl and Wrestlemania.

They really should’ve built some kind of HBLR branch to the Meadowlands.

"Knowing NJ Transit, it’s probably just gonna be a repeat of the 2014 Super Bowl and Wrestlemania."

2014 Super Bowl trains at Secaucus
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/ ... id=3747503
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/ ... id=3747505
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/ ... id=3747512

Well, they seemed to do well for Swift: https://www.nj.com/news/2023/05/nj-tran ... ekend.html

Though 80k people over 3 concerts corresponds to just 26k per event.

I've seen quotes of capacity for the line being 10,000 passengers per hour. That's less than 10 trains per hour. (Assuming 10 car MLV sets.) Are the platforms at the stadium long enough for a 12 car set with locomotives on both ends? What about two motors on the East End so they would be off the platform at the stadium?

The platforms at Secaucus max out at 10 cars.

Not sure what having 2 locomotives gets you, cab cars don't have that much fewer seats to make that worthwhile.

All these plans are centered on getting folks from the Meadowlands to Secaucus. This just moves the bottleneck. Extra trains will also have to be scheduled to transport the crowds at Secaucus.

Have M8 trains run through NYP for games at the Meadowlands before?