The Raritan Valley Rail Coalition and the One-Seat Ride Coalition have announced that NJ Transit will roll out a morning off-peak, one-seat ride to New York’s Penn Station starting March 3.
The trains will 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
NJ Transit has purchased dual-mode locomotives that will operate as diesels through Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex and Union counties and as electric locomotives through the tunnel to Manhattan, making the one-seat ride possible. Ten trains will be part of the pilot program.
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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, which currently terminates in Newark.
“Step two, which we hope to see in a few months, will be a one-seat ride in the evenings after 8 p.m. going out from Penn Station,” said Somerset County Freeholder Peter S. Palmer, who chairs the rail coalition. “That way people who go to the theater or whatever don’t have to worry about changing trains on the way home.”
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He said the third step would be weekend service and the ultimate goal is weekday rush-hour service. “Making that happen is a ways off,” he said, due to track scheduling issues. “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.”
