greatcats
Engineer
I was an employee of Erie Lackawanna, Conrail, and NJ Transit for 27 years, most of my time being a Crew Dispatcher and the last six years a suburban Ticket Aent. I left nine years ao in a nasty dispute. I still do not care much for the management that motivated me to resign. That is another story, which I do not wish to address here. I have made use of the service several times since then, but I live and work in Arizona and Alaska now. I have been on an extended driving trip starting in Alaska and am now in Florida. I used NJ Transit three times a few weeks ago while staying at the home of friends who live near Walnut Street Station in Montclair, NJ. One trip was made to Hoboken, to have lunch with a former co-worker, another trip to Newark Broad Street, connecting to the Light Rail Extension to take Amtrak to Washington, and a third trip to Princeton.
My point is that I was actually quite pleased with the service, and NJT I believe is the butt of many critical remarks, especially the recent fare increase, which my hosts were not happy about. The are regular commuters to New York. I found the reliability to be good, and the trains and stations were fairly clean. The ride to Princeton, in order to attend a concert and avoid driving down there at rush hour, was the most unusual of the three, as it was an indirect route: Montclair to the fairly new Secaucus Junction, then to Princeton Junction, then to Princeton on the shuttle. This took about two hours, but this was perhaps 45 minutes longer than driving ( under good conditions ) and far less hectic. I did notice that service on the Princeton Shuttle has been cut back so that it does not start until after 9:30 am on weekends - eveidently this is where they made some recent service cuts.
Last year I made a post on travel by rail in Japan, which was overall excellent and extremely punctual. To be honest, I feel the commuter service of NJT compares fairly well in many respects. One difference: Japanese crews are far neater and more professional in appearance, with even the engineers of normal commuter trains wearin sharp uniforms.
My point is that I was actually quite pleased with the service, and NJT I believe is the butt of many critical remarks, especially the recent fare increase, which my hosts were not happy about. The are regular commuters to New York. I found the reliability to be good, and the trains and stations were fairly clean. The ride to Princeton, in order to attend a concert and avoid driving down there at rush hour, was the most unusual of the three, as it was an indirect route: Montclair to the fairly new Secaucus Junction, then to Princeton Junction, then to Princeton on the shuttle. This took about two hours, but this was perhaps 45 minutes longer than driving ( under good conditions ) and far less hectic. I did notice that service on the Princeton Shuttle has been cut back so that it does not start until after 9:30 am on weekends - eveidently this is where they made some recent service cuts.
Last year I made a post on travel by rail in Japan, which was overall excellent and extremely punctual. To be honest, I feel the commuter service of NJT compares fairly well in many respects. One difference: Japanese crews are far neater and more professional in appearance, with even the engineers of normal commuter trains wearin sharp uniforms.
