By Mike Frassinelli/The Star-Ledger
on February 18, 2014 at 9:26 AM, updated February 18, 2014
at 8:41 PM
Raritan Valley Line commuters next month will be able to get
a trip into New York without having to
transfer to another train in Newark ,
but for now the "one-seat rides" will only be offered on weekdays
during off-peak travel hours, NJ Transit officials said today.
The one-seat rides are scheduled to begin Monday, March 3,
when the first of five daily roundtrips into and out of New York Penn Station
is offered, beginning with train No. 5126, expected to arrive in New York at
10:09 a.m.
For now, the one-seat rides will be for trains arriving at
New York Penn Station between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays, or trains leaving
the station between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
The way Raritan Valley Rail Coalition Chairman Peter Palmer
sees it, the first step in a four-step process has been accomplished with the
off-peak service on weekdays.
Step two would be having any Raritan Valley Line train that
leaves New York
after 8 p.m. be a one-seat ride. Steps three and four — weekend service and
full weekday rush-hour service — will not be as easy to accomplish, Palmer
acknowledged.
He noted that due to Amtrak train tunnel maintenance on
weekends, only one tunnel is available for Jersey
trains.
But, Palmer said, "We achieved step one and we’ll keep
working. We’ve only been doing this for 15 years."
Palmer’s group has been fighting for the one-seat ride into Manhattan for nearly two
decades,
Commuters on the Raritan Valley Line make up nearly
one-tenth of NJ Transit’s weekday train ridership of about 302,000. However,
they haven’t been able to get a train to New York City
without stepping off their diesel-powered train in Newark and transferring to an
electric-powered one.
Diesels don’t operate in the train tunnel under the Hudson River .
For commuters, it was often aggravating to have to leave one
train at Newark Penn Station and go down and up stairs to get to another one on
a different platform.
But NJ Transit now has dual-powered locomotives that can
switch between diesel and electric power, allowing the long-awaited one-seat
rides to happen.
The Raritan Valley Line runs from High
Bridge , in Hunterdon
County , to Newark Penn Station, with
stops in Annandale , Lebanon ,
White House, North Branch, Raritan, Somerville , Bridgewater , Bound Brook, Dunellen, Plainfield ,
Netherwood, Fanwood, Westfield , Garwood,
Cranford, Roselle Park and Union .
The transfer-free rides will originate from High Bridge
as well as Raritan .
In addition to the one-seat rides, there will be more
capacity on the Raritan
Valley
The train sets now have six double-decker cars plus a
locomotive, but an extra multilevel train car will be added beginning March 3.
The additional capacity for Raritan Valley Line customers is tied to the
upcoming Pulaski Skyway rehabilitation project, which will limit lanes and
close the Pulaski in the direction toward New York for about two years.
One-seat rides cannot be offered at this time on weekends
due to capacity restrictions at New York Penn Station that would require
additional coordination with station owner Amtrak, officials said.