(The following story by Tom Feeney appeared on the Star-Ledger website on December 13.)
NEWARK, N.J. — NJ Transit will pay $244 million to buy 27 new electric locomotives.
The agency’s board voted yesterday to buy the locomotives from Bombardier Transit Corp., the company that has built the new multilevel cars that have been introduced on the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast lines over the past year.
NJ Transit solicited bids for the locomotives and found Bombardier was the only company that could meet its contract schedule requirements, Executive Director Richard Sarles said.
“These locomotives will help us keep up with anticipated ridership increases and provide better acceleration and reliability than our other locomotives,” Sarles said.
NJ Transit now has 61 electric locomotives in service. The board voted last month to spend $48 million overhauling them.
Meanwhile, Sarles announced during the board meeting that NJ Transit ridership hit a record high in the first quarter of this fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The number of riders increased to 64.4 million, up 3.2 percent over the first quarter of last year.
“High gasoline prices and a strong regional economy have been driving the increases,” he said.
Rail ridership across the system was up 5.4 percent over last year. Ridership on trains to and from New York Penn Station grew by 7.1 percent, and they now represent nearly 80 percent of all NJ Transit rail traffic.
The Main/Bergen County Line saw the steepest ridership gains at 8.7 percent, followed by the Northeast Corridor (7.4 percent), the North Jersey Coast Line (3.9 percent), the Raritan Valley Line (3.5 percent) and the Morris & Essex Lines (3.2 percent).
Ridership on the system’s three light rail lines grew by 13.5 percent. Bus ridership grew by 1 percent.