Members of the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition (RVRC) are pleased with this week’s announcement from NJ Transit that one-seat ride service to New York’s Penn Station will be expanded to evenings after 8 p.m., starting this fall.
“One-seat ride service during off-peak weekday hours on the Raritan Valley line has been received very positively since it was launched in March,” said Somerset County Freeholder Peter S. Palmer, who chairs the rail coalition. “We are very proud of the working relationship we have established with NJ Transit and the evening service is a very important second step of getting increased one-seat ride access using the new dual locomotives.”
“Union County’s Freeholders welcome NJ Transit’s cooperation in expanding this train service to New York,” said Freeholder Bette Jane Kowalski, a Trustee of the RVRC. “We have a lot of riders who will benefit from a shorter ride into New York City, and we’ll keep working with the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition to make this rail service easier and faster.”
NJ Transit has dual-mode locomotives that operate as diesels through Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex and Union counties and can switch to electric to go through the tunnel to Manhattan, making the one-seat ride possible. Ten trains are part of the current pilot program.
The Raritan Valley Rail Coalition, joined by a coalition of 30 mayors of towns along the line, seeks to ultimately achieve a full one-seat ride Manhattan service on the Raritan Valley line.
“We are a few steps away from getting peak hour access to the one-seat ride,” Freeholder Palmer said, “but this is our number-one, long-term objective. We’ve been working on this for 15 years and now that we have dual locomotives, we’ll continue to push for this.”
Currently the off-peak weekday direct trains arrive in New York between 10 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. For departure times from the High Bridge, Raritan and other stations going eastbound, and from Penn Station going westbound, visit http://bit.ly/OneSeatRide
For more information on the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition, visit their website athttp://www.raritanvalleyrail.com/
Questions: Contact Ken Wedeen, 908-231-7021