Whitehouse Siding Approved (NJT PR)

Customers on the Raritan Valley Line (RVL) will soon enjoy more service and easier transfers at Newark Penn Station, thanks to two items approved today by the NJ TRANSIT Board of Directors.

The Board approved construction of a quarter-mile-long passing track in Readington Township near White House Station along the RVL that will enable NJ TRANSIT to increase service by 60 percent at stations west of Raritan, including North Branch, White House, Lebanon, Annandale and High Bridge. Once the passing track is constructed, weekday service west of Raritan Station will increase by eight trains—four in each direction—including two new morning peak-period departures from High Bridge Station, two midday roundtrips and two new evening trains to High Bridge Station.

http://www.njtransit.com/nn_press_relea ... SE_ID=2186

That will end the predicament of folks who meant to get off not later than Raritan but negect thru snoozing or some such to do so, only to find that the next train east from High Bridge is a little before 6 a.m. the next day (or Monday if it's Friday).

This will be a good way to increase ridership.

An even better way would be to send the RVL all the way to Allentown again. High Bridge denizens have already complained about locos idling in town; consider how much more they'll complain with more trains, plus more commuters coming in from the ABE area and trying to park/ride in order to get around the I-78 parking lot...?

Ken W2KB wrote:That will end the predicament of folks who meant to get off not later than Raritan but negect thru snoozing or some such to do so, only to find that the next train east from High Bridge is a little before 6 a.m. the next day (or Monday if it's Friday).

I don't know. I didn't see anything about any added revenue sevice going eastbound from High Bridge in the evening. As long as crews are still "X'ing" back from High Bridge to Raritan Yard at that time of the day, passengers are still technically not allowed to ride.

Why did the RVL service to Phillipsburg end in the first place?
Was it a lack of ridership at the time it happened?

Bout time that transit will be expanding service on the RVL. The next steps are ronning some more trains and of course, running to the Lehigh Region.

CNJFAN wrote:Why did the RVL service to Phillipsburg end in the first place?
Was it a lack of ridership at the time it happened?

A (relative) lack of ridership and it saved money by not having to build a bridge where the track intersected the under construction I-78 (at the latter's mile marker 3). NJT was somewhat in a downsizing mode and transportation planners felt I-78 would eliminate the need for trains in the western part of the state. Note service was cut back to Raritan for several years.

mcmannors wrote:

Ken W2KB wrote:That will end the predicament of folks who meant to get off not later than Raritan but negect thru snoozing or some such to do so, only to find that the next train east from High Bridge is a little before 6 a.m. the next day (or Monday if it's Friday).

I don't know. I didn't see anything about any added revenue sevice going eastbound from High Bridge in the evening. As long as crews are still "X'ing" back from High Bridge to Raritan Yard at that time of the day, passengers are still technically not allowed to ride.

Can't tell for sure. But under the present arrangement, the deadhead trains often have to lay over on the siding east of Annandale until the next westbound passes so passenger service is impractical. With the new passing siding the meet at Whitehouse might allow for east bound evening service.

Hello all,

I thought I'd add my two cents worth in this thread.

I have come to understand that the new 4000' siding will be built, for some reason, "west" of Whitehouse. It will start near the overpass just west of Whitehouse station and end near the Mountain Road grade crossing between Whitehouse and Lebanon.

What I thought was interesting was the siding will be between milepost 45 and 46. Isn't Clint interlocking near at MP 49 or 50? Given the thirteen million dollar price tag, wouldn't it have been far cheaper, and better, to simply have added double track all the way to Clint?

By way of comparison, if new track construction costs say 1.5 million a mile, 4000' ft of track would cost about a million, making the two interlockings at each end roughly 5 million + each. For the same amount of money, you could have had a double track section totaling 7+ miles of the total 14 miles of single track west of "Brad".

Just a thought, but the project seems to have not been thought out too well. I thought that the new siding was going to be just east of Whitehouse. That would have put the siding roughly half way between Brad and Clint. I guess NJT knows best. I think the new siding at the location they are building it is a waste of Taxpayer's money.

Just my thoughts.

Well, that's all for now folks.

See ya all later.

The Rising wrote:I have come to understand that the new 4000' siding will be built, for some reason, "west" of Whitehouse. It will start near the overpass just west of Whitehouse station and end near the Mountain Road grade crossing between Whitehouse and Lebanon.

The press release only mentions a ¼-mile (1320-foot) siding.

why not build a longer siding. This is so stupid to waste money like this on a short siding.

Frogger wrote:why not build a longer siding. This is so stupid to waste money like this on a short siding.

Well, because it's more expensive to build a longer siding, especially when all you need it for is passenger trains. At $1.5 mil per mile (as hypothecized above), opting for a 1320' siding (approx. $375,000) in place of a 4000' (approx $1.1 million) once is a saving of quite a bit of money that would otherwise have been wasted. Unless there are near-term plans to double-track the whole line (which I don't believe their are), then making the siding 1320' long makes perfect sense; it would be a waste of money to make it longer than it needs to be.

The reason I said that is because a train has to then idle in that siding while it waits for the other train to pass. If you say built a 3 mile stretch of double track it would only add about $3.5M to the project and provide much more flexibility. What NJT has done is a near-term fix but not something that is looking 10-15 years down the road like they should.

By comparison, how long are the passing sidings on the ACL?