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  • Discussion related to New Jersey Transit rail and light rail operations.
Discussion related to New Jersey Transit rail and light rail operations.

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 #1525034  by Yankees1
 
Lots of businesses around there for industry purposes have workers who take the train to Jersey Avenue for that purpose.
Jersey Ave has that issue where it can't run an eastbound train unless it originates there. The last eastbound train of the day towards Penn leaves Jersey Ave. at 9:25 AM. I'm not sure what kind of business would be able to entice workers that way, unless they have them take the train there, and then shuttle the workers to New Brunswick at the end of the day.
 #1525037  by Roadgeek Adam
 
Yankees1 wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 2:49 pm
Lots of businesses around there for industry purposes have workers who take the train to Jersey Avenue for that purpose.
Jersey Ave has that issue where it can't run an eastbound train unless it originates there. The last eastbound train of the day towards Penn leaves Jersey Ave. at 9:25 AM. I'm not sure what kind of business would be able to entice workers that way, unless they have them take the train there, and then shuttle the workers to New Brunswick at the end of the day.
I grew up in Highland Park and for a few years went to school not far from Jersey Ave station.

The rush of people getting off trains to go to businesses across the street was real.
 #1525055  by njtmnrrbuff
 
Jersey Avenue Station is not set up at all for those people who might be heading to and from work in one of the industrial facilities in that immediate area. The fact that there is no platform on the eastbound side of the main poses a major challenge for having NYP bound trains stop there throughout the day. Three mile of a distance between commuter rail stations(ex. Jersey Ave to the proposed North Brunswick Station) is fine. Probably the majority of people who use North Brunswick Station will be coming from Monroe Twp, Jamesburg, Cranbury, S. Brunswick, and Kendall Park. I hope that there will be access to the North Brunswick Station from the side closest to Rt. 130. For those people driving to North Brunswick Station from Rt. 130, they would probably appreciate having to not have to backtrack a little north to Adams Station Rd and then access Rt. 1 south and then go through the transit village.
 #1525064  by andrewjw
 
The plan was for the North Brunswick station and mid-line loop to be built along with full-high platforms on both sides of the main line at Jersey Ave, iirc.
 #1525067  by Roadgeek Adam
 
andrewjw wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:24 pm The plan was for the North Brunswick station and mid-line loop to be built along with full-high platforms on both sides of the main line at Jersey Ave, iirc.

Correct.
 #1526205  by EuroStar
 
I finally have a public source to which I can point. The loop is gone (it has been gone for a while, but I had not seen it confirmed publicly). The $70 million only buys two side platforms and two elevators for ADA access. Anyone who was hoping for the loop will need to wait for another 20+ years and by then the area will be so built up that the NIMBYs will kill it.
 #1526230  by Roadgeek Adam
 
Do we really need the loop at this point? The approach of using County Yard & Jersey Avenue has sufficed for 56 years.
 #1526240  by lensovet
 
also the whole point of this station is that you can walk to it from the new residential construction. 2 miles is close for a train…not so much for someone walking.

Jersey Ave will stay and so will this.
 #1526262  by njtmnrrbuff
 
Unfortunately many people who live in any of the Brunswicks have to drive a few whole miles to get to the train. The towns are laid out for driving everywhere, in fact. North Brunswick will see plenty of pedestrian traffic and in fact, this station will be built based on the emerging transit village concept-being able to live in apartments that are adjacent to a train station. It's not just the train, but also having retailers and eateries in the same units. The loop isn't needed, to be honest. The trains are either push pull or they will run under their own power.

Jersey Avenue is staying permanently. It serves plenty of people fine. It's great for people who not only live along the border of New Brunswick and North Brunswick. It serves Millstone, parts of Somerset and Franklin Park quite well. In fact, it will be great to add a high level platform on the eastbound side while building a high level platform on the westbound side. There are plenty of warehouses very close to Jersey Avenue Station and probably many of those employed there live very close to other stations along the NEC where they could take a train from. County Yard is probably like many other yards along the NEC where all tracks eventually will narrow to one track to access the NEC. It's a pain that a train coming from County Yard heading to NYC must cross all of the mains to get over to Track 1 but that's how it is.
 #1526278  by Roadgeek Adam
 
I'm not questioning closing Jersey Avenue station. I was questioning if we needed the flyover loop. The locals to Jersey Avenue stationed in County Yard seem to do the trick and have for a long time (56 years).

Unfortunately if the Millstone Branch still existed in full-size and could get to the West Trenton Line, it would make Jersey Avenue even more vital. Alas.

I am a full supporter of the North Brunswick station and Jersey Avenue co-existing. It works nicely. I'd still not be opposed to another station further south.
 #1526338  by ExCon90
 
The whole point of the loop was to avoid tying up the whole NEC while a local deadheads across at slow speed at the cost of a number of slots--but, as pointed out above, maybe it's a "nice-to-have" rather than a "must-have."
 #1526399  by rr503
 
It's a nice-to-have if you're content with a railroad that doesn't have much operational resiliency and has serious capacity problems. Grade separated terminal facilities are an absolute must if you want to act like a halfway decent regional rail system -- am quite sad to see it dropped (though I'm sure there's some better/cheaper way of replicating that infra).
 #1526449  by ThirdRail7
 
rr503 wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:11 am am quite sad to see it dropped (though I'm sure there's some better/cheaper way of replicating that infra).
Not really. You said correctly above. Grade separated terminals are almost mandatory at this point, particularly if you're planning to raise speeds. AS it is, you're at the fringes of 135mph territory and everything must come to a stop if a train needs to head east from County Yard.

Granted, there are plans to raise the diverging speeds through County, but you're still talking about stopping all traffic.

Eliminating JErsey Ave as a terminal is the only other solution because even if you decided to run east on 4, the train would still have to cross over somewhere.
 #1526472  by ApproachMedium
 
ThirdRail7 wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 4:37 pm
rr503 wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:11 am am quite sad to see it dropped (though I'm sure there's some better/cheaper way of replicating that infra).
Not really. You said correctly above. Grade separated terminals are almost mandatory at this point, particularly if you're planning to raise speeds. AS it is, you're at the fringes of 135mph territory and everything must come to a stop if a train needs to head east from County Yard.

Granted, there are plans to raise the diverging speeds through County, but you're still talking about stopping all traffic.

Eliminating JErsey Ave as a terminal is the only other solution because even if you decided to run east on 4, the train would still have to cross over somewhere.
When the whole new situation is complete, a train coming off at new burnswick to the new line will do so off 4 track at 80mph. The current switch off the millstone runner at county will no longer be slow speed it will be 45 at least.
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