The following is an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer on 10-15-07. The story is about new express trains between New York and Atlantic City, and it mentions historic trains the "Nellie Bly," the "Flying Spray," and the "Blue Comet." The first two were PRR trains that ran from Penn Station in New York City to Philidelphia and then to Atlantic City, which is the route the new trains will take. The Blue Comet was a CNJ train that actually left from Jersey City (one could depart from a New York City terminal by ferry to Jersey City), and ran to Atlantic City entirely within New Jersey. The Blue Comet ran on the New York & Long Branch to Red Bank, then roughly down the center of New Jersey on the old New Jersey Southern to Winslow Junction where it turned east on the Reading line from Philidelphia to Atlantic City. So, the new express service described below is not quite the Blue Comet.
N.Y. to A.C. express returns
The new train service will echo the popular pre-WWII traffic.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
ATLANTIC CITY - Following in the storied path of the "Nellie Bly," the "Blue Comet" and the "Flying Spray," express trains soon will run again between New York and Atlantic City, carrying passengers lured more by slots and cards than sea breezes and saltwater taffy.
The Atlantic City Express Service, aimed at affluent young New Yorkers who don't want to ride a bus or fight traffic, is expected to start late this year or early in 2008.
The new rail service comes as more visitors are rediscovering Atlantic City trains, a faint echo of the pre-World War II era, when the Shore resort drew dozens of trains daily from New York and Philadelphia.
"The attraction is comfort, convenience, and the time to get here," said Agostino Cipollini, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, one of the casinos paying for the new service. "You don't have to spend time in traffic, you don't have to worry about anything involved with driving."
The new trains from Manhattan's Penn Station will offer modern amenities, food and drink, and 300 leather seats in double-level cars.
But they won't be significantly faster than the trains of 1938.
Bankrolled by three casinos and operated by NJ Transit, the service is scheduled to run nine round-trips on weekends, making the 143-mile run in two hours and 40 minutes, with one station stop in Newark, N.J.
That's about the same time it took in the halcyon days of steam locomotives.
Seventy years ago, the Pennsylvania Railroad's daily "Nellie Bly" made the trip in two hours and 45 minutes, and that train stopped at three stations. The Jersey Central's daily "Blue Comet" made the trip in three hours, with four stops.
The leisurely pace of the modern service (average speed, 54 m.p.h.) is due to several factors. Atlantic City Express Service trains will have to share the tracks with Amtrak and NJ Transit trains. And the express-service train will stop briefly in Northeast Philadelphia to allow the engineer to walk from an electric locomotive (used on the main Northeast Corridor) on one end of the train, to a diesel locomotive (used on the Atlantic City line) on the other end.
(Trains on the Atlantic City line are now slowed briefly by a 10-mile-per-hour speed restriction for repairs on part of the Delair bridge across the Delaware River, but NJ Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett-Hackett said repairs would be completed before the express service began.)
Fares have not been set, but casino officials say they expect prices to be competitive with Amtrak's service through Philadelphia, which ranges from $53 to $87 each way.
"It's still a moving number," Cipollini said. "It will be competitive, not necessarily comparable, but it will be a good value for the customers coming into this market.
"Currently, the only way to take the train from New York to Atlantic City is through Philadelphia. NJ Transit operates 14 trains daily from Philadelphia to Atlantic City, charging $8 for the 11/2-hour trip.
Ridership on that Atlantic City line is up 27 percent in the last four years, rising to 1.27 million passengers in fiscal 2007.
The new express service is a joint venture among the Borgata, Harrah's Atlantic City, Caesars Atlantic City, and the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. The casinos are buying and refurbishing eight double-level cars for $15 million, and the development authority will lease four locomotives for $4.5 million for three years.
The joint venture will pay NJ Transit $3.8 million a year to operate the trains.
"The train doesn't have to be wildly profitable for this to work," Cipollini said, noting that passengers are likely to also spend money shopping, going to casino shows, and, of course, gambling.
To promote the new service to the 25- to 35-year-old New Yorkers who are the prime target market, the casinos have hired Tierney Communications of Philadelphia to handle public relations, and One Trick Pony of Hammonton for marketing.
"There certainly is a strong demand from New York . . . in some aspects, it's an underserved market," Cipollini said. Friday nights and weekends, he said, can be especially challenging for New Yorkers trying to get to Atlantic City by highway, when the normal 21/4-hour drive can turn into a 31/2-hour slog.
Casino marketers were also encouraged by New York's rising population and declining auto-registration numbers.
"It's just too expensive to have a car in New York City," Cipollini said.
The return of the New York express is a back-to-the-future move for Atlantic City.
"Ironically, it was the train that really opened up the Jersey Shore," said Dave Coskey, Borgata's vice president of marketing.
Although trains once ruled Atlantic City (on one August weekend in 1904, 70,000 people arrived on 98 trains from Philadelphia and Camden), the new rail service will be pitched as looking forward, not backward.
With the announcement last week of a massive new $5 billion MGM Grand casino-hotel complex here, Atlantic City is, more than ever, styling itself as a Las Vegas kind of destination.
"Atlantic City has changed from yesteryear," Cipollini said. "We're looking to the future."