(The following story by William H. Sokolic appeared on the Courier-Post website on April 19.)
CHERRY HILL, N.J. — Upscale rail service between New York City and Atlantic City is on schedule to launch at the end of this year, said Auggie Cipollini, senior vice president and chief administrative officer of Borgata, one of three casinos anteing up to support the trains. Harrah’s and Caesars have also joined in.
Dubbed “ACES” for Atlantic City Express Service, the trains will be operated by New Jersey Transit as a three-year demonstration project.
Preliminary plans call for initial service to operate on weekends only for the two-and-a-half hour trip between Manhattan’s Penn Station and the Atlantic City rail terminal. The route will follow Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor line to a point several miles from 30th Street Station, where it will cross the river near Pennsauken and join up with the tracks served by New Jersey Transit’s existing Atlantic City Line.
When the service is up and running, reservations can be booked through Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and the online sites of each of the three casinos, as well as the ACES Web site.
“It will be as seamless as possible,” Cipollini said.
While the service targets New Yorkers looking for an alternative to driving to Atlantic City, customers from South Jersey can board the train for New York City, he said. The agreement with the CRDA, which will provide $1.5 million a year, requires the casinos to set aside 25 percent of the seats to the general public, with the rest for preferred customers.
Details are being finalized for the new service, said D. C. Agrawal, assistant executive director for the agency. Fares and scheduling still need to be ironed out, but the bulk of the service will be paid by a consortium of Borgata, Caesars and Harrah’s.