(The following article by Tom Feeney was posted on the Newark Star-Ledger website on October 12.)
NEWARK, N.J. — The double-decker future of rail travel between New Jersey and Manhattan will arrive on the busy Northeast Corridor line on Dec. 11.
That’s the day the first of New Jersey Transit’s much-anticipated, multilevel rail cars will begin carrying commuters between Trenton and Penn Station in New York.
By sometime in 2008, NJ Transit will have 234 of the cars in service on the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast lines, as well as on Midtown Direct trains on two other lines, Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton.
“These cars will give us more capacity on our busiest routes,” said state Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri.
NJ Transit officials announced the timetable for the first multilevel rail cars at their monthly board meeting yesterday.
The cars, which have upper and lower levels of seats and a mezzanine level for commuters who opt to stand, carry about 15 percent more passengers than the Comet series rail cars that now make up most of NJ Transit’s fleet.
A train made up of eight multilevel cars has 200 more seats than a train with the same number of the traditional, single-level cars, said George Warrington, NJ Transit’s executive director.
NJ Transit ordered 100 of the multilevel cars from the Canadian manufacturer Bombardier in December 2002, and ordered the rest of the cars last year.
The first seven cars have already been delivered to NJ Transit. They will arrive at a rate of about 10 cars per month beginning in March 2007, Warrington said.
By the time the order is complete, the 234 multilevel cars will represent about a quarter of NJ Transit’s fleet.