(The following article by Michael Lavitt was posted on the Trenton Times website on October 30.)
TRENTON, N.J. — As the last Clocker train pulled out of Princeton Junction last night, the 200 Club ended a tradition that stretches back at least to the 1950s, when the private rail car ran on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Reading Line.
Or maybe not.
Surely, there will be no 200 Club car running next week when NJ Transit adds new trains to replace the discontinued Amtrak Clockers.
But B. Grant Fraser of Princeton Township, who has run the club since 1989, isn’t going to let the half-century-old tradition die easily. He was introduced to the club car tradition by his father-in-law, who started riding in the 1950s.
Fraser said the 200 Club is a diverse group of individuals who shared one desire: having a pleasant commute.
“The concept of the club car is really about having a comfortable seat,” he said. “You can step onto the train two minutes before it’s supposed to leave and know you can get a seat.”
And he values the camaraderie and friendships he developed over the years with other members.
He isn’t the only one.
“What I’m really going to miss is the people,” said Eva-Marie Davis, who has been commuting for about 10 years. “It started out about a seat, but it’s ending with the people.
“You commute three hours a day, 15 hours a week and to be surrounded by a wonderful group of people, it has really made all the difference.”
On Wednesday night Fraser made his last trip with the club. It was the club’s farewell party.
Members gathered around the counter in the cafe car sipping Coors Light and pinot grigio as Fraser described his efforts to keep the club car tradition alive. Porters being a thing of the past on Clocker trains, there were no glasses to be had this night. The wine was in small bottles with screw tops.
Fraser said he’s been speaking with Amtrak and NJ Transit officials for months, knowing that the Clockers’ days were numbered. Many of the club’s approximately 75 members have offered ideas for keeping the group rolling.
Amtrak doesn’t have a train that stops at Princeton Junction, where almost all its members board, during the morning rush.
There are various reasons that NJ Transit can’t accommodate the club for now. First, it doesn’t have coaches to spare, as anyone who rides its crowded trains knows. And most of its locomotives already are pulling their limit of cars.
While Amtrak parked the Clocker trains at a Queens train yard during the day, NJ Transit tries to keep its trains rolling.
The club’s car was always a chartered add-on to the number of cars that Amtrak allotted to the Clockers. “We weren’t taking away seats from anybody,” Fraser said.
That was an important point when other cars on the Clockers were standing room only. And there were people who questioned why they had to stand when there were plenty of empty seats in the next car.
Conductors passed along the names of people interested in joining, Fraser said in an interview 12 years ago. And there were times when the club had to actively look for members.
Fraser still hopes that one railroad or the other will be able to accommodate the 200 Club when train schedules change again next spring.
“Both Amtrak and New Jersey Transit have been extremely cooperative,” he said.
Amtrak conductors told members the best bet might be to tack on an extra car to the Keystone trains that run between Harrisburg, Pa., and New York.
There’s also a private club on the North Jersey Coast Line that refurbished half of an NJ Transit car, installing comfortable seats like those on Amtrak trains and cafe car tables.
NJ Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett Hackett said the Coast Line club was grandfathered. The club made a capital investment in the car, paying for the improvements.
Fraser said he’s contacted the other club. And its existence shows there is a precedent at NJ Transit for a private car.
“It hasn’t flat-lined yet,” one woman said of the 200 Club as she sipped white wine from the small bottle.
“In the early days, the club was a very informal group,” said Jeff Wald of Skillman, who first joined the club in the 1970s when it was still on the Reading Line.
He formerly got on at the West Trenton station and rode the club car to Newark, where passengers had to transfer to a New York-bound train.
Wald recalled one trip on the Reading Line in a heavy snowstorm back in the days when the car had its own waiter. Switches froze and the train got stuck. When it became apparent they wouldn’t make it to work that day, the members opened the bar.
“I’d love to see the Reading Line come back,” Wald said.
Once passenger trains stopped running north of the West Trenton station and the club moved to the Northeast Corridor, Wald dropped out because the morning trains didn’t arrive until about 9 o’clock. He said he came back about a year ago when the schedule changed.
Fraser spent most of his career in reinsurance, a business where deals take a long time to negotiate. And he’s applying the same kind of tenacious attitude to keeping the 200 Club from dying.
“I’m sort of a bulldog, and unwilling to concede defeat,” he said. “I will be back.”