21-05-08 PHOTOS: Airport Run

Since visitors who why in tend to fly back out, a week after picking up someone from JFK airport I was involved with dropping the same individual off at JFK airport for their return flight to the west coast. With three people on hand, paying the AirTrain penalty was not particularly appealing so I suggested taking Uber to the Rockaway ferry terminal to take the scenic route to Manhattan. After dinner I proceeded back south via NJT, RiverLINE, PATCO and Amtrak. The full set of photos can be found here ( mirror ).

The Rockaway Ferry was started in 2012 as a way to connect the peninsula to downtown after Hurricane Sandy took out the A Train causeway over Jamaica Bay. With subsidized fares, a scenic route and $3 beers, the Rockaway Ferry quickly became one of the best deals in the city and since my friend had never been to New York City before I figured it would be a fun tourist activity.

Unfortunately the weather was a bit cold and grey and they weren't selling any beer on board, but we still had a great time.

Although our destination was Central Park we decided to connect with the A train at Chambers by walking down to the Battery and then up past Wall St.

The expensive PATH headhouse and Fulton TC oculus were both still a thing.

Catching an R46 A-train at Chambers with #6070 in the lead and then a video of it leaving 59th St.

An R46 C-train at 59th St.

New super-tall residential skyscrapers going up south of Central Parque.

Dinner complete I dashed back to 59th St to catch a train to Penn Station. Here is an R68 D train I met along the way.

My car was parked at Bordentown, so I would be transferring to the RiverLINE at Trenton. As usual, the RiverLINE had scheduled a departure just before the arrival of an NJT NEC train so I had about a half hour to kill. Here is SETPA Silverliner IV #165 waiting to depart as the next inbound R7 run to Philly.

My NJT train was on track 4 waiting for the conductors to clear out the passengers. The route towards the Morrisville Yard had already been lined up.

The 4AW signal at FAIR interlocking typically displays a Limited Clear indication for Amtrak Regional trains that pull over to stop at Trenton. NJT movements to the Morrisville Yard will diverge again at MORRIS interlocking. As a PRR position light is Unable to display a Medium Approach Medium aspect, the traditional solution would have been the use of exit signals to immediately modify a "Diverge to Clear" type indication. to save money Conrail allowed trains in this situation to diverge over an Approach Medium etc. Amtrak's solution is to reduce the Limited Clear to Medium Clear and then hold the cab signal at Approach Medium.

The trainset eventually departed with ALP-46 #4620 pushing on the rear.



Trenton's split flap displays are going strong in 2022.

RiverLINE LRV #3512 arriving at Trenton.





It was soon joined by #3508 that would wind up being the first train to depart..

#3508 at Bordentown.

Skipping ahead a day here is PATCo #1031 at Haddonfield and then again at 15-16th and Locust.

New York City's largest export appears to be municipal waste. Here a northbound waste train passes a southbound waste train on the CSX Philly Sub along the Schuylkill River. Power for the northbound train was a pair of ES44AC's including #830 and other cargo include Tropicana Juice cars that will likely return in a few weeks inside the green waste bins.

Again at 30th St, here is my Southbound Amtrak Regional with ACS-86 #657.

I'll finish up with some suburban deer being interrupted by a passing Atlantic City Line train in the Patco zone with GP40PH-2B #4218.





Hope you enjoyed these, next week we'll be headed out to Tucson, Arizona.