Jersey Mike's Rail Adventures: 06-02-03 PHOTOS: NJT Binge

Friday, February 3, 2006

06-02-03 PHOTOS: NJT Binge

Here are the photos from my NJT Binge taken during their free ride week for college students. Felt I should take advantage of it before I started working full time on the 6th. I went on this journey with my NYC friend Pigs.

You can see the main trip photos at:

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/06-02-04_NJT_BINGE/-Thumbnails.html

And the Tower photos at:

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/Towers/-06-02-04-Thumbnails.html

Pigs and I met at Newark and proceeded to take an early RVL train to Raritan. I was impressed about the frequency of inbound rush hour trains. Conrail SA must have a mighty headache during every peak period trying to get trains movin along the Lehigh Line. Unfortunately the segment from NK to CP-ALDENE is no longer controlled from NK tower, which has also been demolished. All the signals were also freshly painted silver and black. I also saw the new Union Union Station complete with gauntlet tracks for the freight trains.

We pulled onto the RVL proper, cutting in front of an eastbound waiting at the base of the Aldene Ramp. The NJT RVL is a haven for Bracket Signals. The RoW is 4-6 tracks as it was the old CNJ main line into Jerey City. Only two tracks remain today and NJT erected bracket masts on the empty roadbeds. The first station on the line, Cranford, was built by the CNJ as a pair of high level island platforms and so at that point the tracks have to widen to meet the platforms.

Along the line I was surprised to see that QUEEN tower was still standing as well as BOYD tower in Raritan, which is now a crew base.

We got off and waited about 20 min the a returning train comming from High Bridge. We rode that back to Newark and transfered to the city Subway for a ride out to Grove St and back. It was my first ride since the PCC's were replaced and I have to say that the extension could really use some better traffic light pre-emption. Slow as snails it was.

We got back to Penn Sta and I was overjoyed to see that the interlocking there used pneumatic switch machines (A-10's) totally awsome!!

After lunch we took PATH to Exchange Place to then transfer to the HBLR for a jaunt to 22nd St in Bayone. We rode back to the PATH, then took PATH round the loop at the WTP, before returning to Newark. I got a lot of good pics from the RFW.

Back at Newark we caught an NJCL train to Red Bank. This was my first trip down the NJCL. It would have been nice to go all the way to Long Branch, but by short turning at Red Bank we were able to catch a return express train to Hoboken.

Our train was 10min early to Hoboken and we snagged a BCL express train to the Secaucas Connection, but we almost missed our NEC connection due to poor customer service dealing with our Student ID's and the automated faregates. We got a first stop Metro Parque train which was good as Pigs was getting off at Metro Parque as that is where he parked at the start of this amazing adventure. I continued on to Halilton where I had a ride to pick me up. Along the way I got this sweet shot of the home signal at COUNTY which still have the Limited Speed triangles, although they will probably be removed when the re-signaling project is completed.