(The following article by Joe Malinonico was posted on the Newark Star-Ledger website on December 8.)
NEWARK, N.J. — A door marked “reserved” divides train No.3269 on the North Jersey Coast Line into two commuting worlds.
Outside the door, on most of the train, haggard passengers stand in vestibules or cram against each other on uncomfortable seats, next to coffee-spillers and cell-phone gabbers.
But on the other side of the door, in the tranquillity of the private car, riders often have two seats to themselves, even during rush hour. And these are like no other seats on NJ Transit trains. They are cushioned and contoured. Press a button and they recline. They have flip-down trays, just like on airplanes.
Commuters looking in from the outside often wondered about the people in the private car.
“I never knew who they were,” said Sue Bergen, a passenger from Red Bank. “For all I knew they were executives from NJ Transit enjoying a nice ride.”
But the only thing that’s exclusive about the reserved car of the Jersey Shore Commuters Club is that its members — about 30 these days — are willing to pay extra for a more relaxing trip.
The dues are $1,400 a year per member, in addition to passengers’ regular fares. Those dues cover the cost of the club’s $56,000 annual lease with NJ Transit for the car. A couple of years ago, when the car was being rebuilt, the club members kicked in $27,000 to cover the cost of the customization.
“Do they have a satellite TV in there?” asked Morris Farca, who was sitting near the closed door.
Well, there’s no satellite television, no television of any kind. In fact, many of the amenities that club cars featured in the past — the bar, the stove, the lounge chairs, the smoker stands, the lockers — have all gone by the wayside.
These days, the main attraction of the club car is the availability of comfortable seats in an enclave separate from the crush of other commuters.
The Jersey Shore club first formed seven decades ago, back when there were several groups of passengers who pooled their money and bought or leased their own passenger cars on the railroads. It was somewhat of a tradition within the world of commuter railroads.
The other clubs folded, particularly those that owned their cars, because the cost of maintenance and repairs became too great. That left the Jersey Shore club car as the only one still in operation in New Jersey.
The Jersey Shore club almost disbanded this month because its membership had dwindled to the point where it was having trouble covering the cost of the lease with NJ Transit. So, the group starting recruiting, partly by dropping fliers on train seats.
Quickly, enough newcomers signed up to boost the membership to 30, keeping the club afloat for another year.
“My presumption was that the car was some closed society that you couldn’t get into readily, so when I heard it was open, I jumped at it,” said one of the newcomers, Doug Whiteman, a publisher for Penguin Books who likes to read on the train.
For 18 years, Whiteman, of Freehold, rode in the regular passenger cars.
“It was getting unbearable,” he said, setting aside the latest book by Tom Wolfe for a moment. “All the cell phones and people talking loudly. It was obnoxious.”
Across the aisle from Whiteman sat Hance Sitaus, an accountant from Allenwood who was still busy balancing the books on the ride home.
On one seat-back tray, Sitaus had stacked a pile of contracts. On another tray were invoices that he was checking against the contracts. This was not exactly the sort of work he could do among the crowds on the regular passenger cars.
“It’s good and it’s bad that you can bring your work with you,” said Sitaus, who joined the club car several weeks ago. “Sometimes, I can leave the office a little early and finish off here.”
Carl Bergeron is one of the veterans of the Jersey Shore Commuters Club. For 30 years, on-and-off, he has been a member of various private commuter clubs. He recalls the club cars that had seats made of cane, the lock boxes where club members stashed the bottles of booze, the waiting lists for club memberships.
“Really, anybody’s welcome to come here and sign up,” said Bergeron, who lives in Middletown.
Next year, the dues are jumping to $2,000 per person. Just two years ago, the fee had been $600. But members say that is still less than the cost to take the ferry from Monmouth County to Manhattan. The club had to raise its prices to match the $36,000 increase in the cost of the lease with NJ Transit, which for 20 years had been $20,000.
Club members say they understand why NJ Transit negotiated a higher fee.
“Scheduling a club car for the same train, coming and going, day in and day out, can pose operating constraints,” said William Vantuono of Manasquan, a club car member and editor of Railway Age, a trade magazine.
Club members know the private car is only going to be on the Manhattan-bound train that leaves Long Branch at 7:11 a.m. and on the evening train that departs from New York Penn Station at 5:33 p.m. If they happen to catch a different train, club members have to ride in the regular passenger cars.
At times, some NJ Transit customers have griped about the club, complaining it wasn’t fair for them to be forced to stand while there were empty seats in the reserved car. But the state’s largest rail watchdog group doesn’t have a problem with the existence of the private car.
“I don’t want to get into the sociological issues of a classless society,” said Doug Bowen, president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers. “The fact is some people want to pay to get something extra and NJ Transit is willing to let them. What’s wrong with that?”