24-02-16 PHOTOS: Rinky Dinky

Most years I travel up to Princeton to watch them play the RPI Engineers in NCAA D-I Hockey. This usually results in some photos at the NJT Princeton Station which is directly adjacent to Princeton's Hobey Baker ice rink. Since that's not a lot of content on its own, I have also included some Philly area transit photos taken over the remainder of the weekend. You can find the full gallery here ( mirror ).

That night single car Arrow III #1309 was performing in the role of the "Dinky", shuttling back and forth to the Princeton Jct NEC station every 20 minutes or so. Not going to lie, the service could probably be more frequent s there was a lot of layover time.

Although there are many detractors, the new Princeton station location is quite nice with an attached Wawa that seemed to be pretty busy and is frequented by both students and local residents.

I also remembered to get some video of the Dinky's comings and goings.





After the surprising RPI win, I went back to South Jersey I caught a northbound Atlantic City Line train running along the PATCO right of way at Wheeler Park in Haddonfield with NJT GP40PH-2B #4209 and Comet V cab car #6025.

PATCO rebuild car #1049 crossing Upland Way.

Here a southbound Atlantic City Line train runs through the Haddonfield trench with comet V cab car #6078 and GP40PH-2B #4203 and tries to catch up with an eastbound PATCO local that departs slightly ahead of it at the Haddonfield station. While the PATCO MU's can quickly accelerate to 65mph and aren't subject to the 30mph speed restriction of the Haddonfield Trench, the ACL will be good for 80mph and lack the stops at Westmont and Ashland which will create a very competitive race to Lindenwold.

A more competitive version of the previous video, we have another southbound NJT Atlantic City Line train with our friends Comet V cab car #6025 and GP40PH-2B #4209 trying to catch up with an eastbound PATCO local at night.



Rebuilt PATCO car #1091 at 8th and Market.

SEPTA Silverliners V #713 and #883 at 30th St Station.

Back down in Maryland the MARC Camden line is the rare peak period operation with trains in both directions. When the Camden Line is running close to schedule, eastbound and westbound trains can pass each other at the Dorsey station around 6:35pm. Here the DC-bound train arrives first led by single level cab car #7758 and a Clear signal displayed on the westbound track #1 signal. While it is completing its station work, the Baltimore-bound train arrives with MP36PH-3 #18 leading and multilevel cab car #8046. In order to prevent getting hemmed in by existing passengers, the westbound immediately departed with MP36PH-3 #10 pushing hard from behind.



The Baltimore train after the departure of the DC train.

I'll wrap things up with a short video of an early am northbound Acela Express trainset blasting through the BWI airport station on the center express track.



Next time I'll be headed back up north to grab some photos at Croton-Harmon.