MOM Rail Service

Build Red Bank AND Monmouth Junction routes!

They both could stand on their own, with or without "direct" and "one seat" service to NYP!

The population of Monmouth/Ocean counties is higher than that of many medium size cities in this country....for chrissakes!

Like NY&LB, I am hung up on the 18-24 months it will take to complete the new study, which also means that we are paying a company to provide 18-24 months of labor services in actually doing the leg work.

Now correct me if I am wrong here but doesn't it take 18-24 months to complete a study when starting from scratch??

Since all the historical and environmental work has been completed as well as engineering assessments, it would appear that they only need to revise the portion of the study that involves projection of ridership. What "on God's Great Green Earth" would require 18-24 months to do to complete this one portion of the review??

After 30 years of Study, isn't it time to demand a justification of time spent and paid for? Or would that require another Study?

18 to 24 months for additional analysis/study is absolutely ridiculous. The Asbury Park Press editorial also blasted this timing.

They now want to factor in a direct ride to NYP without a change of trains in Newark - which is how the models were geared till now (transfer in Newark).

Intermediate stops? Does NJT and their consultants know what these are? Is this another NYP or bust syndrome? Well I take that back - NJT must know what these are b/c some existing NJT Express trains keeping getting adjusted to add more intermediate stops - defeating the purpose of what an "Express" train is supposed to be.

Only way MOM riders will get a one seat ride to Manhattan is after THE Tunnel is built - and they will be studying on how to build THE Tunnel for another few years as well.

So what's the hidden agenda? In my opinion - delay in making a decision or choosing a preferred MOM route....."let's link it to the THE Tunnel now." Amazing how THE Tunnel didn't alter plans for building Secacue Transfer Station - and how THE Tunnel may make this Transfer Station useless.

Argh!

How much has all this cost us - and a one seat ride to Manhattan was never even factored in - or even a one seat ride to Hoboken?

wow after a 3 hr Bus ride last night ,. now i see this now i am madder .what's it going to take to get a rail line in ocean co and Monmouth co ?

Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong direction. Maybe we need to focus on what is truly trying (and suceeding) to block the forward progress of this development. For approximately 28-30 years (I believe according to NJARP), people have been trying to get this project through.

Politically speaking, that means there have been a few changeouts in the actual political leadership in Trenton and as far as NIMBYs go, they too have grown up, retired, moved away and been replaced by others.

There is obviously one or more other factors that have hung in there to discourage Trenton all this time and it would be beneficial to MOM if we could isolate these actual issues and figure away to either minimize them, go around them or neutralize them. The way this line has been delayed seems more like a vendetta against it rather than logical pros & cons regarding public welfare.

Is it cost? Although they assigned a higher price tag for the Jamesburg option, there have been more costlier projects undertaken.

Is it the NIMBYs? Although the Monroe area is home to some fairly upper class type people (and so is Marlboro/Colts Neck - the Matawan option), the quantities of those who would consider themselves truly effected in a negative manner are rather small. And those areas only really started developing in the early '90s.

No, I feel that there must be some other factor we are not recognizing here that creates a 30 year stall. These items like additional studies, the change of option route selection and suggesting a route to Matawan where there are even more influencial NIMBYs actually living adjacent to the ROW all come across as stall tactics. Because it does take effort to resist for this long, something else significant is in play that is not being discussed.

Any ideas?

why not electrify MOM?

Why not electrify the whole NJT system as well, while we're at it.

May as well be diesel, since the point of electrification would be to get trains right into NYP, where there is currently no room to put them.

Irish Chieftain wrote:Why not electrify the whole NJT system as well, while we're at it.

May as well be diesel, since the point of electrification would be to get trains right into NYP, where there is currently no room to put them.

by the time this project gets finished I would hope the tunnel is built. Wouldn't it be cheaper to electrify it now while the line is inactive or nearly inactive of all train activity? Isn't it cheaper to electrify that way?

It's never cheap to electrify. That's why it's hard to come by in the US-of-A...and it never was part of the MOM capital budget anyway. If it were cheap to electrify, it'd be part of the Lackawanna Cutoff proposal, and the Montclair-Boonton would have no diesels on it at all. If DC were serious about breaking this "oil addiction", we'd be seeing wires go up everywhere, from all commuter and freight lines to city streets for trolley buses...but it's business as usual on Capitol Hill and at 1600 PA Ave...

Rest assured that there would be no room in NYP for MOM trains, even if THE Tunnel and THE 8-track Station get built...

Irish Chieftain wrote:It's never cheap to electrify. That's why it's hard to come by in the US-of-A...and it never was part of the MOM capital budget anyway. If it were cheap to electrify, it'd be part of the Lackawanna Cutoff proposal, and the Montclair-Boonton would have no diesels on it at all. If DC were serious about breaking this "oil addiction", we'd be seeing wires go up everywhere, from all commuter and freight lines to city streets for trolley buses...but it's business as usual on Capitol Hill and at 1600 PA Ave...

Rest assured that there would be no room in NYP for MOM trains, even if THE Tunnel and THE 8-track Station get built...

I didn't say cheaper to electrify, I said cheaper to do it now rather than later.

What is the point of this tunnel if no new lines will fit into it? Can someone explain where those 24 new slots an hour are going?

24 slots an hour where...? Not even that many trains on that High Line in one hour during the rush hours. 24 trains per hour means a train every 2½ minutes.

Depending on what source you believe, any new slots in NYP will be absconded by Metro-North from both the Hudson and New Haven Lines, or will go to those dual-mode Main-Bergen trains operating via the "cloverleaf" rail interchange at Secaucus...

well that is what everyone has been repeating all over. 24 new slots.

Frogger wrote: What is the point of this tunnel if no new lines will fit into it? Can someone explain where those 24 new slots an hour are going?

Heh... heh.... I guess you haven't heard about the grand plans of running DMMU as in Dual Mode Multiple Units and Dual Mode locomotive hauled trains from the diesel lines into Penn Station then. Dual Mode here refers to Diesel and 12kV AC electric that NJT is busily specifying and negotiating with the likes of Alstom as we speak or write, for all I know.

In one of the draft operating plans that they shared at the RCLC, of the 24 new slots 12 go to Main, Bergen, Port Jervis and Pascack Valley Lines, and as I recall 8 in some combination to the following:

• West end of Montclair Boonton Line
  Bay Head
  Raritan Valley

The remaining 4 are for additional electric service.

There were no slot allocations for MOM, Lackawanna Cutoff or Northern Branch. But then these can of course be re-jiggered to take care of whichever line one wants to deal with. Afterall recall that the Midtown Directs are using slots that were originally allocated to Raritan Valley.

Don't confuse ARC studies with actual plans

The dual mode mania at NJT will leave along with Warrington. And that day is rumored to be approaching fast...