Newark-Philly via West Trenton

Great true tales philipmartin, thanks for posting.

I rode the Septa Newark-Philadelphia service every chance I could back in the late 1970s. I'd ride from Newark to Jenkintown, hang around a bit, then catch a local to Reading Terminal, get something to eat and head over to Suburban Station.

My own tale -I remember at least once when the outbound Budd cars got to the Lehigh Valley crossing in Bound Brook the Conrail dispatcher held us for an eastbound freight. The Septa crew was not too happy about that.

Holding the passenger train for the freight. That's a good story too.
I dug a 1979 schedule for No. 5602, from Reading Terminal to Newark, out of my old Conrail timetables. It only stopped at North Broad St., Wayne Jct., Jenkintown, West Trenton, Hopewell, Belle Mead, Bound Brook (K stop, to discharge,) and Newark. But it fills the page, showing every location on the line from Bound Brook west; places like Glen and Wing between Hopewell and Trent, but the vast majority of them in Pennsylvania. This timetable is a Conrail, Eastern Region, Reading Commuter Territory employee timetable and only shows Newark east of Bound Brook, so I am guessing that it didn't have any other stops on the CNJ.
I'm looking at another employee timetable from 1976, when Conrail began. This one is a renamed PC timetable, showing all the former CNJ moves between NK, (the old Lehigh Valley tower in Newark) and the Harrison CNJ yard. It shows 5602 arriving at Newark at 9:21am.
In '79, as in '76, they had two Yorkers east in the morning and two west in the evening; 5600 and 5602 east and 5619 and 5621 west in the evening. 5602 left Reading Terminal at 7:40am and arrived in Newark at 9:32am (if Ferchak's alarm was working and there were no freights around.)
I'd like to scan what I have and put them on this thread, if possible. I'm hoping I can find the designation of the railroad between Weston and Trent, showing the mile posts, stations, interlockings, and rules in effect. It was a nice little piece of railroad to run; you could run trains around each other.
For what it's worth, (not much,) in 1972, when the Aldene plan began, I had first trick at Hunter, the tower on the PC that controlled moves to and from the Lehigh Valley. I don't remember the Yorker Budd cars; only the CNJ coaches reconfigured into push-pull cab cars.
The CNJ trains coming east from Rahway were quite a sight, with their Jeeps going full speed. I'd never seen anything like that on the PC before. On the other hand, the CNJs coming up from Newark threw a monkey wrench in the works, running slow all the way, to divert to the LV.

philipmartin wrote: ..It only stopped at North Broad St., Wayne Jct., Jenkintown, West Trenton, Hopewell, Belle Mead, Bound Brook (K stop, to discharge,) and Newark...

Whenever I see that note about Bound Brook it always takes me back. Whenever I rode 5619 there was always at least one person waiting at Bound Brook. A young business woman usually. Once she sat next to me. If memory serves I think she went to Jenkintown. A regular commuter I'm sure.

I'm not sure if I'd bother looking it up any other time, but my excuse now is it's a lazy Sunday morning. Maybe I already mentioned it in this thread, but at least one of the 'Yorkers' originated and finished in Reading Pa. If it was only one of them my guess would be the 2nd one in the morning and the 1st one in the evening.

You know, maybe if we took the powers that be on an excursion along the proposed route, things would finally get moving. Talking & presentations can only do so much.

You could take an amtrak GP38-3H with working HEP and a few unused compatible cars from wherever for the outing, and make it a round trip. Explain where the second track or station stop sidings would go, and try to make a realistic simulated commuter run in one direction.

Short of that i think this line is pax dormant for now.

I worked the Reading extra operator's list in the middle of 1982 and weekday afternoons we had a train from Pottsville that was scheduled to arrive in Reading five minutes after the train to Philly was scheduled to leave. Another (frustrating) True Tale.

philipmartin wrote:I worked the Reading extra operator's list in the middle of 1982 and weekday afternoons we had a train from Pottsville that was scheduled to arrive in Reading five minutes after the train to Philly was scheduled to leave. Another (frustrating) True Tale.

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

Can you pull any strings to get this all moving?

Going to be tough to "get this going" with SEPTA threating to drop Phila - West Trenton
http://planphilly.com/articles/2013/09/ ... rail-lines

NY&LB wrote:Going to be tough to "get this going" with SEPTA threating to drop Phila - West Trenton
http://planphilly.com/articles/2013/09/ ... rail-lines

Meh.

Looking at parts of old Conrail employee timetables I see it called the Trenton Line, CP Brook to Glenmore, (not to be confused with the Trenton Branch which was somewhere else.)
I work in Middletown, NJ, and annual parking is $450.00 and the lots are ⅔ full.