Baristaville Weekend Train Update

..and WHY is it this line doesnt work on weekends-? The Main line runs~and it really didnt, from what I saw--attract any negative element. SERVICE will probably end at 12:00 midnight..its not like it goes all night! Families wanting to go to the museum,Central Park-whatever-can go in. ALSO if you happen to have to work a Javits show for work purposes you can actually not have to drive to another line to catch a train! AMEN

Or, you could drive to Toonerville and take the Trolley, ja? To hear that Amtrak has the lead on these projects instills in me ... uh, confidence ... that DeCamp has no weekend railroad competition to fear for quite a while yet.

I believe that when mid-town direct service went into effect, Glen Ridge had an agreement with NJT that blocked weekend service for a few years. I think that provision has or is soon to be expired.

Montclair has an agreement with NJT that when weekend service is established, Montclair will become a 24 hour quiet zone (no train whistles). In order to make it a quiet zone, all of the Montclair grade (street level) crossings will need upgraded crossing barriers to prevent cars and people from going around the barrier.

Given the number of projects that need to be completed and the various parties involved, I would bet that we will not see weekend service until 2009.

Everytime I drive into the city on a weekend (which is almost the only time I go in), I curse the fact that I live 5 minutes walking from the Walnut station and 15 from Bay Street station and that trains don't run on the weekend.

Then again, a stop of service at midnight won't actually do me a whole lot of good.

..we can listen to the whistles during the week--but weekends are taboo for some reason-? I lived for 11 years in an area where the train was down the block~ran all weekend. IN addition, my aunt has lived by the "Upper" station for about 30 years, and you really become immune to it. IF it makes things convenient--why fight it-? IT could also encourage commerce into the area and help with the RI-diculous parking problem if people could "train-it"...

The Bay St. Station i can consider my backyard. I enjoy waking up to the whistle during the morning. Don't get me wrong it has it's days where i want to kill it, but I know it serves its purpose.

I'll also put money on those complaining don't even live near a station. Cause the reality is the whistle isn't always a whistle (more of a tone) and it's not even that noticeable unless you live within 100 feet of a station.

Seriously. The whistle ban is just rediculous. It's an unncessary provision. Yo, local officials! Get on that. Get involved in this. Make something happen for a change. If there is really a provision for 24 hour quiet on weekends it needs to be dropped so there is one less obstacle to this. Montclair is a town with SIX TRAIN STATIONS -- we should have train service and drop this false squeamishness about hearing a train whistle every half hour in the middle of the day.
If you read more in to NJT's statement, it basically says "you aren't getting weekend service. Here are the current excuses. As soon as they expire, we'll find some others." So our town officials need to show some actual leadership on the issue and start lobbying and working to remove obstacles.
I also looooove the NJT corporate mantra of "blame Amtrak".

What I don't get is that somehow the other M&E Midtown direct is able to run without interuption through the Broad St. station and yet the Montclair line can't? Shouldn't the factors, like construction, that were sighted by the NJT official effect the other lines that are already running as well? I just don't buy what they say anymore. The promise of weekend service has been pushed further back about dozen times now. With no NJT train or bus service from this area to the city on weekends we should all be complaining much louder than we have. The bottom line is that we are paying taxes for service that we aren't getting!

"Everytime I drive into the city on a weekend (which is almost the only time I go in..."

Why do you do this? Just drive 10 minutes to South Orange station and take the train in on weekends. Parking is also free at the South Oragne station. OR drive to the Grove St. Light Rail in Bloomfield and take the light rail to Newark Penn, then catch the PATH or another line into the city. OR take the bus...

We never drive into the city!

Perhaps you should consider living a cleaner, healthier, more devout life, GNM. Perhaps party a bit less, pray a bit more. Just a suggestion.

"What I don't get is that somehow the other M&E Midtown direct is able to run without interuption through the Broad St. station and yet the Montclair line can't?"

It's not that the Montclair line can't run...it's that on weekends, the Broad St. station is sometimes only 1 track...meaning all in-bound and out-bound trains ride on the same track. This causes an adjusted (and slower) train schedule already...thus, adding additional service through Broad St. on the weekends would produce an even slower service for the M&E line, and a crappy "first try" at weekend service in Montclair. NJ Transit wants to offer something we like (and may have to wait another year for), instead of crappy service once every 2-3 hours just because. Basically, they need to finish the track work (3 lanes) in Broad St. first.

FYI, you can also park at the Grove St. light rail for free. And an "all-nighter" option is to park in a garage near any PATH station (e.g., Hoboken, Journal Sq., Newark) and take the PATH into NYC 24/7. You still drive, but a shorter distance, less traffic, avoid tolls and higher parking fees.

And an "all-nighter" option is to park in a garage near any PATH station (e.g., Hoboken, Journal Sq., Newark) and take the PATH into NYC 24/7.

That is what I usually wind up doing. But, Hoboken can sometimes be as bad as actually driving into Manhattan (sans circling block after block looking for parking)... especially with 2 train stations within 15 minutes walking distance from my front door.

Pete and Repeat, I'm sure what you are describing is true, but its a bit naive to think that the carefully constructed language of that NJT missive above meant anything other than "not going to happen." Quoting the spokesman: "Of course, this is contingent on community support, as well as our financial ability to provide such service".
Well that's just a bunch of BS. Community support? Why the hell wouldn't a town like Montclair want train service? We have, six train stations for crying out loud, and ther are few other towns in NJ that are more full of people who are as connected to the city not just for 9-5 but socially, etc.,
When the political climate in MOnclair is one of whistle bans and other such nonsense, that can easily be taken as a lack of community support, if NJT were looking for some lazy excuses.
In addition, adding weekend service does not make them money. Like any other transit venture, some trains make you money (a 6am-er with a few hundred people) and some lose you money. In fact, since you and I pay the same $150 a month for a pass, but the guy living in South Orange gets 7 days of service for that price, they are already exploiting this situation. That doesn't make it right to not offer the service though. We need better mass transit in this state and our local officials should be working harder (and more visibly) to enact a change. It's not good enough to drive my car to a station, park there and take another mode into New York when I can see a train station from my front door.

"we should have train service and drop this false squeamishness about hearing a train whistle every half hour in the middle of the day."

Actually, the train noise issue is not as simple as you portray it, Drob. Montclair and NJT have had a handshake agreement that trains will only sound their whistles between 7am and 7pm. A few years back, the federal government put new rules in effect that require trains to sound their whistles at grade crossings regardless of the time of day. Montclair, and other communities like it, have a grace period where they can follow their existing "quiet time" rules, but eventually if Montclair does not follow federal regulations to establish a 24 hour quiet zone, then there will be no quiet period at all. So,we will have trains blowing their horns from 5am until midnight every day. If you look at a map of Montclair, many homes are located along the tracks and near grade crossings. The many owners of these homes and their families have a right to enjoy some peace and quiet, as much of a right as you have to ask for weekend service.

What Montclair is doing, and rightly so, is getting NJT to foot the bill for the establishment of the 24 hour quiet zone (building new crossing gates, etc.) by making it a requirement for weekend train service. This creates the most benefit for ALL of the residents of Montclair. Homeowners don't have to put up with excessive noise during sleeping hours, and the community gets weekend service.

I wonder what the odds are of us poor, less-deserving folk in Little Falls and Wayne getting weekend service even after it's implemented in Montclair? I bet it will only go to MSU.

As for the horns, I guess it's wildly subjective. I practically lived on a train track for a year and after a few weeks didn't even notice the train as it came tearing through my kitchen.