New Dinky to Nassau Street

Why not just use an actual RIVERline set? Or switch off the AC and repower with 750 VDC for electric LRTs? It’s a hideous choice to abandon any sort of rail transport, even if heavy rail is obviously too much.

I doubt the rail union would allow your proposed changes. The Dinky job is one of the most desirable assignments on the Newark Division and that's why high-seniority employees operate the Dinky. Electric light rail or DMU equipment is a non-starter as the rail union likely would object most strongly.

Dcell wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 9:37 am I doubt the rail union would allow your proposed changes. The Dinky job is one of the most desirable assignments on the Newark Division and that's why high-seniority employees operate the Dinky. Electric light rail or DMU equipment is a non-starter as the rail union likely would object most strongly.

The rail union won’t have a job to bid on soon, if NJT has its way with this proposal.

Why do you think NJT would convert the Dinky operation to light rail vehicles now? NJT firmly rejected Mr. Fisk's offer to operate the Dinky at a lower cost some 30 years ago and I don't believe I've read anything about current riders or the NJT Board saying a change is needed.

To come think, once all the Arrow IIIs are retired, keep a small fleet of 5 to 8 single units for dinky service.

With all the other cars scrapped and parts salvaged and cannibalized, there would no more parts shortage and
more than sufficient parts for such a small fleet.

Dcell wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 9:29 pm Why do you think NJT would convert the Dinky operation to light rail vehicles now? NJT firmly rejected Mr. Fisk's offer to operate the Dinky at a lower cost some 30 years ago and I don't believe I've read anything about current riders or the NJT Board saying a change is needed.

I agree, but someone at NJT wants to end Princeton-PJ rail service (or at least study ending it) according to lensovet’s last post. All I’m saying is that if they’re so obsessed with ending commuter rail service with MUs, they should at least start using a smaller rail vehicle rather than tearing up the rails.

lensovet wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:58 pm Tucked away at the end of the "Bus Infrastructure" section of NJT's new Capital Projects sheets is a new section on the "Princeton Transitway" which calls for

a new surface transportation route to serve the Princeton area. The existing Princeton Branch right-of-way would provide an anchor for this new system, which would help to accommodate Princeton University’s plans to expand housing and facilities beyond the current campus limitations. The study and design phase would determine the preferred alternative for the initial implementation of the surface transportation route. The design phase would include removal of the electrified rail service, which is costly to maintain, and replace it with a surface transportation route between Princeton and Princeton Junction.

Estimated cost of $61 million.

The future Multilevel MUs will have too much capacity to handle the ridership demands on the Princeton Branch. More often than not, the Dinky has been running with only one open car for a while. People do not like the fact that they are dropped off a little further from Downtown Princeton when using the Dinky. In fact, much of the borough of Princeton is cut off from where the Dinky station presently is. NJT still wants to continue using MUs but they will be needed more on lines like the NEC, the M&E, the MOBO, the Coastline, and the Gladstone Branch. I think I'd rather see a three car multilevel mu set run on the Gladstone Branch during the off peak hours than on the Dinky where the ridership will probably cause only 1/3 of the train to only be open.

again no one is saying that the new MUs are going to run on the branch. that's literally why their proposal is to replace it with BRT service.

Yes. I don’t want to change this too much into a bus forum but I’m for bus rapid transit as long as if the bus ride from the current Princeton Station to the Junction takes as long as the train. The advantage of BRT is that the buses will be able to stop in Downtown Princeton.

mtuandrew wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:53 am Why not just use an actual RIVERline set? Or switch off the AC and repower with 750 VDC for electric LRTs? It’s a hideous choice to abandon any sort of rail transport, even if heavy rail is obviously too much.

You would end up with a very small fleet of rail cars with no easy way to maintain them.

I can see the quandary. If no new single level EMU are ever going to be ordered anytime soon, you really have no options that are reasonable. Of course, why NJT is so against EMU is another story.

If it's not easy to maintain the small fleet of railcars, then it's not worth the time and money to have them cover the Dinky. Sadly, there are absolutely no plans for NJT to order single level MU equipment. The Stadler RiverLine vehicles are needed for their own operations. Septa's Silverliner IVs and Vs are needed for their own lines. The Septa Silverliner IVs are very old too, just like the Arrow IIIs but are probably maintained better.

Much of the weekday and weekend ridership loads on the Dinky can be fit onto buses. When a commuter train that is running with two cars often runs with one car open, the ridership isn't meeting the benchmarks, more often than not. I do go to Downtown Princeton occasionally and while I like walking, I don't always like having to walk the distance from the Princeton Station to Downtown Princeton. If these proposed bus rapid transit vehicles can drop me off in Downtown Princeton after I board at Princeton Jct, I think that my trip would probably be = to over presently taking the Dinky from the Junction to Princton borough and then walking a little more than a half a mile to get to the downtown area from the borough station. Why constantly have three multilevel mu sets run 2.7 miles back and forth on a line where few people would be inconvenienced over running that same three car set on a MOBO rush hour train where the ridership needs are greater than.

It obviously makes zero sense to have multilevel EMUs on this route. Streetcars or LRVs would make sense, but that requires the city and the university to buy into the plan. A busway isn’t the worst idea - the worst would be allowing the ROW to revert - but this better be a short-mid-term plan where the long-term plan includes rail transit again.

I don't think the borough and University would want tracks running on their property. One thing about University Pl is that there are already buildings on both sides of the road, I think. Building a busway wouldn't be terrible. The one big advantage with doing this along the Dinky route is that after the buses can end their runs in Downtown Princeton, much closer to the Palmer Sq, than the previous NJT rail station in Princeton. If the Dinky is replaced with a busway, I wouldn't hold your breath about the rails coming back again. Yes, the bus ride would take longer than the train from the current Princeton Station but I guess maybe by no more than five minutes. Your walk from Downtown Princeton to a proposed bus stop closer to Downtown Princeton than the current NJT rail station would be cut timewise over walking from the present NJT station to Downtown Princeton. One concern that I have with these buses though is once they would enter the local streets, they would probably be subjected to traffic.

Bustitution is inevitable!

NJT should have thought about a solution back in the late 90s when the Arrows were about 20-25 years from the end of their useful lives, with plenty of time to think and act.