(The following story by Judy Rife appeared on the Times Herald-Record website on August 14.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Relentlessly growing ridership is prompting NJ Transit to buy more of its popular double-decker cars to boost capacity on trains that travel to Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan.
The agency’s board Wednesday approved the purchase of 50 additional cars from Bombardier Transportation, the rail arm of the Montreal-based company, for $76 million — which will bring NJ Transit’s fleet of double-deckers to 329.
The first cars debuted in the winter of 2006, and now 143 are in service, enough that Metro-North Railroad customers who transfer at Secaucus Junction to NJ Transit’s Midtown-bound trains have ridden on them. Another 27 cars have been delivered and are being tested. Delivery of all 329 will be completed in the spring of 2010.
“The double-decker cars are great, a very good solution to overcrowding,” said Brian DeLorenzo of Port Jervis, N.Y., who now bemoans the standing-room-only conditions on his Metro-North train from Secaucus. “In addition, they are very comfortable and offer a quiet and smooth ride.”
Maggie Bergara of Rock Tavern, N.Y., still finds double-deckers scarce and is forced to contend with the “awful” overcrowding on NJ Transit’s trains and the “almost worst” crush from the train to the escalator and into Penn Station.
“I love that there’s no middle seat on the double-deckers, but I haven’t seen one all summer,” said Bergara.
More room, happier riders
The multilevel cars — they have seats up and down and a spacious mezzanine for standees in the middle — are NJ Transit’s temporary solution for getting more and more people into Penn Station until a second Hudson River tunnel is built that will double train capacity to Midtown.
The cars have 15 percent to 20 percent more seats than the Comet Vs, the cars used on Metro-North and most NJ Transit trains. Their customer-designed interiors also offer a full inch more of leg room and 2.2 inches more of seat width — and none of those middle seats that commuters like Bergara dislike so.
Construction of the tunnel, the $7 billion joint venture with the Port Authority that is known as Access to the Region’s Core, is scheduled to begin next year and finish in 2017.
NJ Transit already is running as many trains with as many cars into Penn Station as is physically possible. The station and the tracks and tunnel leading into it are owned by Amtrak, which uses much of the capacity itself.
The double-deckers have been deployed on five of NJ Transit’s rail lines that feed into the Northeast Corridor line to Penn Station. All these trains pass through Secaucus but only some of them stop there.
The cars will continue to be used once ARC becomes operational, but the new tunnel will make transfers to Penn Station obsolete for commuters from Orange and Rockland counties in New York. The new tunnel will extend NJ Transit’s rail lines in North Jersey — the ones that bring Metro-North riders to Secaucus — into Midtown, giving customers a one-seat ride.