(The Times Herald-Record of Middletown, N.Y., posted the following story by Judy Rife on its website on July 2.)
TUXEDO, N.Y. — Metro-North Railroad will add rush-hour trains to the Port Jervis line as soon as the Secaucus transfer opens — something now targeted for Dec. 15.
Peter Cannito, Metro-North’s president, voiced confidence yesterday that this tentative target date for the start of weekday service via the new $450 million transfer to Penn Station in Midtown is realistic. The transfer’s been under construction since 1995.
“I was just there (Secaucus) last week and it’s pretty close to being done,” said Cannito, whose agency contributed $50 million to the NJ Transit project. “So I’m pretty confident weekend service will start in September, and weekday service in December, and our new schedules, when we print them, are going to reflect that. December 15 isn’t firm but we’d definitely like to start before Christmas.”
The transfer will give upstate commuters a choice of destinations for the first time — a choice that has become more critical since 9/11, because so many companies have relocated to Midtown from lower Manhattan.
At Secaucus, commuters will have the option of transferring to trains to Penn Station in Midtown, or they may remain on their trains and continue to Hoboken and take PATH or NY Waterway ferries across the Hudson River to the city.
The railroad projects the choice of destinations — Penn Station or Hoboken — will increase ridership by 60 percent over the next five years.In addition, the transfer will shave some minutes off the commute, though that varies by origin and destination. About 2,400 commuters use the Port Jervis line now.
On a related matter, Cannito also said he doesn’t think any new issues with delivery of new train cars, the Comet Vs, will affect Metro-North’s and NJ Transit’s plans for Secaucus at this point. The new cars are to be used to expand service with additional trains.
Right now, Alstom Transportation is meeting the revised production schedule of the new train cars at its factory in Hornell.
The cars, at $1 million apiece, are the cornerstone of Metro-North’s $200 million investment in its west-of-Hudson service to capitalize on the Secaucus transfer’s opening.
Cannito reprised these plans yesterday at the first concrete example of them — the formal opening of the new parking lot at the Tuxedo train station.
“We’re going to have a lot more of these types of ceremonies in the coming year,” said Cannito.
The event was hosted by the Town of Tuxedo, which owns the property and designed the park-like lot to complement and foreshadow a revitalization of the community’s core along Route 17. And the 12-man town highway department built it, at the same time it was building a new garage and renovating an old building for a new police headquarters.
State Sen. Tom Morahan, R-Nanuet, who secured the $800,000 that made the joint venture between the town and Metro-North possible, surveyed the lush landscaping, period lighting and brick-and-granite walkways and stairs and remarked: “This is what I like — to see, when I get them money, that they’ve spent it well.”
After the ribbon-cutting, Cannito and his entourage visited the Harriman train station to inspect ongoing construction of a major expansion to the parking lot there.
Improvements are being made at Campbell Hall this year, too.