Trains with Lowest Ridership

What are some trains that have very low ridership and are essentially running to move the train itself and not the passengers?

For the line I normally ride (Main/Bergen/Port Jervis), I'm guessing weekday eastbound 1130 and everything behind it has very low ridership. 1130 arrives Hoboken after 9pm, and there is really not enough time if you're spending an evening in the city going in that late. 1786 on weekends most likely doesn't carry more than a few passengers since it arrives Hoboken after 1am. I also think that Port Jervis Line 43 is a fairly empty train because it's too late to draw any reverse commuters and the areas around the stations aren't very walkable. The only people taking that train would be people who spent the night in the city and are leaving in the morning.

Although not on the line I use most frequently, I heard that there was an ACES train that averaged 3 passengers before they killed the entire service in 2012.

not quite...

1130 and 1132 can be packed SRO with college kids going into hoboken on various nights for 1$ and 2$ beers at Green Rock, Texas Arizona among other bars in Hoboken...

1134 on fridays for the same reason but its a later crowd with the weekend...

1132 i have the most experience with..

Do they open extra cars on those trains if they get crowded?

trainbrain wrote:I also think that Port Jervis Line 43 is a fairly empty train...

I've taken this between Secaucus and Port Jervis three times and once between Secaucus and Salisbury Mills; it is a well-patronized train. Anecdotally, I would say that Middletown and Port Jervis have the heaviest discharges.

trainbrain wrote:Do they open extra cars on those trains if they get crowded?

This happens on almost all trains if necessary. However, they won't do it if they don't have enough crew.

I took train 47 (12:42 Hoboken departure for Middletown) from Hoboken to Tuxedo today. Doesn't appear to be very well ridden. It's a 7 car set with 3 cars open, and there were maybe 20 people in the first open car upon departure from Secaucus. Most of the passengers who boarded at Secaucus had luggage, so I assume they were coming from the airport. I've never ridden 43 or 45, but 47 had lower ridership than the current 49 did when I took that train.

They do this on the NJCL with an early PM eastbound to Hoboken (train 2312). Whenever I was waiting at Matawan for 3256 and 2312 came in, I never saw many people boarding it. I've always thought that it's just in revenue service because the folks on the lower coast line wanted a one seat ride heading North in the evening, and transit needed to get an NJCL set to Hoboken during that specific time frame so they killed two birds with one stone there.

trainbrain wrote:I took train 47 (12:42 Hoboken departure for Middletown) from Hoboken to Tuxedo today. Doesn't appear to be very well ridden. It's a 7 car set with 3 cars open, and there were maybe 20 people in the first open car upon departure from Secaucus. Most of the passengers who boarded at Secaucus had luggage, so I assume they were coming from the airport. I've never ridden 43 or 45, but 47 had lower ridership than the current 49 did when I took that train.

I have taken 47, it's a nice convenient ride for those who want to get their bike to Orange County before rush hour. But yes, it is commonly dead. Most passengers I saw got off at Ramsey Main Street.

trainbrain wrote:I took train 47 (12:42 Hoboken departure for Middletown) from Hoboken to Tuxedo today. Doesn't appear to be very well ridden. It's a 7 car set with 3 cars open, and there were maybe 20 people in the first open car upon departure from Secaucus. Most of the passengers who boarded at Secaucus had luggage, so I assume they were coming from the airport. I've never ridden 43 or 45, but 47 had lower ridership than the current 49 did when I took that train.

The train gets whatever equipment is scheduled for it due to availability. While having the 7 car set roll back and forth might seem as a waste, if there are no shorter sets that could be scheduled to be at the correct locations at the right times, you will end up with the longer sets rolling back and forth as it is more cost effective than separating the set and then putting it back together later. While 47 (and some other trains) might not have a great ridership, a sure way to reduce ridership (further than the constant problems that NJT has been experiencing have already done) is by creating big 4-5 hour gaps in service.

The main cause of low midday ridership is the lack of anchor urban area at the west end of the line. Such an area would create natural demand for travel in direction opposite to the main commuter direction. It does not exist on the Port Jervis/Main/Bergen lines. For NJT such area only really exist on the Northeast Corridor where Trenton and New Brunswick induce some travel demand. Same for the New Haven line of Metro-North -- Stamford and New Haven induce some demand in the non-commuter direction. If the Hudson and the Harlem lines are compared to New Haven they surely look emptier going north during the late morning hours.

Unfortunately there is relatively little that could be done to induce demand away from NYC during the midday hours. The existing towns are what they are and are unlikely to densify and urbanize within the next century. In my opinion about the best Metro-North could do is to restore the Piermont line connection to Suffern and run its off-peak service via the Pascack Valley Line -- express to Pearl River and then local to Port Jervis. That would provide express service to another 3 relatively well utilized stops in NY state during off-peak times at the cost of skipping Suffern (peak time expresses would still run via the Main/Bergen lines). However this is unlikely to happen even though I suspect that it is a better return on investment for the state than some of the currently contemplated projects -- the ridership from those there stops has been steadily growing, while the PJ line has actually lost customers recently.

47 has a 7 car set because it's the normal cycle for 52's equipment which runs on 52-47-66-57. The open cars were maybe a quarter full, and the biggest discharges were Ramsey Main Street and Suffern. I got off at Tuxedo. I was never advocating for eliminating it. I want to see more trains, not less.

Normally speaking, I've found that the off peak Port Jervis trains have 3 cars open. I'm not sure if they open a 4th on 62 because it's local in NJ and has to take passengers from 17 additional stops.

I think it was great to add train 49, as it gave an early afternoon option, and it seemed like well patronized train when I rode it. 47 is essentially the same train as old 49, which was moved up half an hour.

Train 813, the 6:34 out of Hoboken, has fairly light ridership for a peak period train. It's all local stops to Lake Hopatcong, and the MidTown Direct express picks up Newark Broad street transfers past Summit before 813 arrives at Broad Street. It's usually almost empty after Maplewood, with a few people getting on at Summit for points west of Dover.

Train 47 used to carry a lot of kids from Don Bosco Prep that got dropped off at Rt 17 station. When the train was moved earlier, it lost those riders. Those riders now board 49 a bit later as I believed they petitioned NJT to have the train stop at Rt 17.

Brandon4500 wrote:They do this on the NJCL with an early PM eastbound to Hoboken (train 2312). Whenever I was waiting at Matawan for 3256 and 2312 came in, I never saw many people boarding it. I've always thought that it's just in revenue service because the folks on the lower coast line wanted a one seat ride heading North in the evening, and transit needed to get an NJCL set to Hoboken during that specific time frame so they killed two birds with one stone there.

2312 was/is great, as it used to (when I rode it, I'm not sure what it does now). It'd skip Hazlet, and express from Matawan or South Amboy to EWR. Andy was the AC on that job, and they'd go up to Hoboken, fuel up the trainset there, and then come back down as 2313, and work the LB-BH shuttle for the night.