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NYC to Pennsylvania commuter service meeting set for Tuesday
Talk is cheap. It’ll take a lot of money and cooperation between NJ & PA to ever make this happen.
NJ Transit to Scranton ! One can only dream.
This could really help the economy of the Scanton area. Could you imagine being able to work in the hustle and bustle of NYC and live in the quite if the Poconos?
I would very much like for the Quakertown-to-Lansdale line to once again have commuter service.
I still honestly believe that once the right people can get passenger rails to Phillipsburg,NJ. The rest will fall into place. Easton,PA,Bethlehem,PA (Sands Casino), and Allentown,PA with the potential to go even farther. But NJ officials seem hell bent on letting this happen. Especially Chris Christie.
Ha. Who wants to spend five to six hours a day commuting to NYC from Scranton? The best time the DL&W’s “Phoebe Snow” was about two hours and 15 minutes. Its other trains took about 2:35. And how many folks would want to live in Scranton and commute to NYC? A van running from Scranton to East Stroudsburg or Delaware Water Gap to meet the train would make more sense. But then there’s politics involved…
I think people would rather take the train. It’s a lot smoother then commuter busses.
I agree - taking the train is lovely - BUT - although dollars are not mentioned in the article, my guess it would take a lot of bucks to start up the service and keep it running. Who pays?
Any chance, that we wil read the outcome of this meeting in the near future?
Getting this done should not be a complicated matter, though it has proved vexing for many years. NJT and Metro North already work together on Port Jervis and Spring Valley trains on the Erie side, so NJT has experience working with other agencies. In PA, they will have to either work with PennDOT, or possibly the rail authorities in Monroe and Lackawanna counties, but this should not prove a problem. The key is cooperation. The advantage this route has is that much of the right of way is already in place, with the PA section in service. Granted, on the Lackawanna cutoff, it is not as simple as just laying track. There will have to be some construction and grading work on a line that has not had rail on it in many years, and little maintenance in the last years it was operating. The signal system will have to be put in place, and stations built. But with an existing right of way, the rest is just a matter of the will to get it done. Taking the train will be a lot nicer than the bus. While it’s true that there will not be many riders all the way to Scranton, it would be a convenient place to tie up the trains, as there is space there. Perhaps most trains could run to Stroudsburg(there will need to be a layover yard there), with only a couple going all the way to Scranton.
How did I know that NJT would be handling transportation issues for NY and PA? How did I know that?
This is nice to see in the works and it was a shame it was discontinued back in the 1950’s Hopefully They can get thier act togegther and set things in motion hopefully in the foreseeable Future