Scheduling Trains in New Jersey with the Gateway Project
Devin and I have draft timetables for intercity and commuter trains on every segment of the Northeast Corridor; what is left is to merge the segments together and see how they interact, tweak based on further constraints, and look at some alternatives. The good news is that in New Jersey, the last area we looked at, sharing tracks turns out to be easy. It’s a happy accident of how the Northeast Corridor has been designed that, with 21st-century train specs, the places where fast trains need to overtake slow ones already have long sections with additional tracks. Work is still required on grade-separating some junctions (chiefly Hunter Interlocking) and fixing some curves largely within the right-of-way, but it’s rather minor. The upshot is that local commuter trains can do New York-New Brunswick in 38 minutes and would do New York-Trenton in an hour, the express commuter trains can do New York-Trenton in 51 minutes, and the intercity trains can do New York-Philadelphia in 45 minutes, all with new rolling stock but few expensive investments in infrastructure beyond what’s already funded as part of the Hudson Tunnel Project for Gateway.
Three speed classes
The Northeast Corridor near New York presents two planning difficulties. First, there is a very large volume of peak commuter traffic into Manhattan, which forces agencies to build infrastructure at the limit of track capacity. And second, there is a long stretch of suburbia from Manhattan, which means that some express commuter rail service is unavoidable. This means that both the New Haven Line and the NJ Transit Northeast Corridor Line have to be planned around three speed classes: local commuter, express commuter, and intercity; moreover, the total volume of trains across these classes must be large, to accommodate peak demand, reaching 24 peak trains per hour. This is why the Hudson Tunnel Project is being built: the existing tunnels run 24 trains per hour already split across many different commuter rail branches, and all of the trains are crowded.
The difficulties in New Jersey and in Metro-North territory are different; for a taste of what is needed for Metro-North, see here. In New Jersey, the quality of the right-of-way is high, and the outer stretches are already cleared for a maximum speed of 160 mph, and with if the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) had more faith in the quality of rolling stock windows they could run much faster than this. The inner stretches are slower but still straight enough for fairly high speed – there are long stretches straight enough for 250 km/h and one section where trains could even briefly reach 300 km/h. Thus, the express commuter trains are noticeably slower than the intercity trains on these segments despite running nonstop from Newark to Metropark.
All trains are significantly faster than today. Little of the speedup comes from any curve modification; rather, it comes from reduced timetable padding (down to Swiss-standard 7%), plus about 1.5 minutes of speedup in the Penn Station throat from better switch geometry.
Six-track overtakes
The Northeast Corridor is largely quad-track, but two sections have six tracks, both in New Jersey: around Newark Airport, and from just south of Elizabeth to just south of Rahway, where the North Jersey Coast Line branches off. The four-track section through Elizabeth is annoying, and I was hoping that it would not be necessary to delicately schedule around it. It is fortunate that my hopes have proved correct.
Below is a rough line chart. For one, it does not have any schedule padding. For two, there are still some additional slowdowns not coming from right-of-way geometry not incorporated into it, and in particular there’s a minute of Penn Station and tunnel delay not yet depicted for the intercity train and another 30 seconds of same for the commuter trains. For three, all station dwell times are set at 30 seconds, whereas the intercity needs a minute. In total, the last two factors delay the intercity by a minute relative to all commuter trains by when they depart Newark. All of these factors figure into the trip times above, but not the line chart below.
The blue lines are intercity trains, the red lines are express commuter trains, the green lines are local commuter trains to New Brunswick or Jersey Avenue, the purple lines are local commuter trains branching to the North Jersey Coast Line, and the gold lines are SEPTA trains.
Of note, the intercity trains do not share tracks with the local commuter trains except in the tunnel to Penn Station; the current plan after the Hudson Tunnel Project is finished is for the above-depicted trains to use the old tunnel and for other lines (Morris and Essex, Montclair-Boonton, Raritan Valley) to use the new tunnel. This provides just enough separation that there isn’t much interlining to worry about. The express commuter trains are the only ones with any surface track-sharing with trains of different speed classes.
As the line chart shows, the red/green overtake occurs at Elizabeth, where the express commuter trains then need to be on the inner express tracks. Just south of Elizabeth, the line widens to six tracks, and the express commuter trains can be kept separate from both local trains and intercity trains; all that’s required is installing switches to allow this, for a very small number of millions of dollars for high-speed switches or hundreds of thousands for slower switches. By the time the intercity and express commuter trains are within the signal system’s two-minute limit of each other, the express commuter trains don’t need to return to the inner tracks again. Past Rahway, the express and local commuter trains need to use the same tracks, but are adequately separated from each other.
Robustness check
We are still looking at options for how to match this segment with other segments, in particular how this could through-run east of Penn Station. Most likely, the local trains would run through to the Port Washington Branch of the LIRR and the express commuter trains would become local commuter trains to Stamford via Penn Station Access.
The upshot is that the train most likely to be delayed from the north is the express commuter train. It can afford to be about two minutes behind schedule before it messes up the order of trains using the tunnel; the schedule padding up to Elizabeth can recover one of these two minutes, and then, with the extra minute of slowdown of intercities not depicted in the line chart, the express commuter trains are still well clear of the intercities where they share tracks at Elizabeth.
Pedestrian Observations 
So, the output of the robustness check is “test failed”, if I understand it correctly. The express-commuter train has …given realistic assumptions about not just company operations, but also American passenger behavior, what order of magnitude chance of being delayed by at least two minutes? And when that does happen, what would the contingency stringchart look like?
A: It tries to run in its slot, can’t get out of the way of the IC, and/or the local has to be held for it at Rahway, propagating the delay. (This is more interesting for the IC; I assume that at New Brunswick the turnaround serves as a pad.)
B: It leaves after the purple slot, following it on the slow track until Newark, switching to the fast line after being overtaken by the IC (or not at all). They cannot catch up to the green and instead follow behind it to New Brunswick. Assuming that the turnaround at Trenton isn’t longer than the headway (creating a “rotating spare” to absorb one red being delayed by almost an entire takt), the delayed train would have to turn short (probably at Hamilton).
B2: Between Metropark and NBwick it jumps onto the fast line, if the green is on time. (Green yields at NBwick.)
C: To avoid slightly delaying the IC, instead significantly delay the green. Otherwise same as B. (Perhaps this is the point where platform occupancy at Penn starts to become a burning issue?)
D: “They are not at fault”, hold beyond the green. This basically creates a doubled red. I wonder if this zombie-red should do anything fun, such as skip Secaucus to give some breathing room to its on-time clone behind it.
Bear in mind: two minutes is the maximum delay that any service with this traffic density can be robust to, no matter what. The way the North River Tunnel is set up is, trains can be spaced two minutes apart, but the maximum throughput is 24 tph (very occasionally 25 but nearly all timetables are 24), because six slots are needed for delay recovery.
Re holding up the other trains: remember that the other trains are padded too and can recover delays to an extent. The intercity has three minutes of pad between New York and Philadelphia. Then the schedule has Philadelphia-Baltimore at 46 minutes, of which another three are pad, and there’s no significant track sharing with commuter trains on this section. So a cascade of about six minutes, let’s say five if it starts at Newark and not New York, is recoverable just straight out.
Trains are not going to be turning around in New Brunswick. They haven’t turned around in New Brunswick since the Jersey Avenue station opened in 1963. For decades NJTransit and Amtrak have been proposing a station in North Brunswick. They will be turning around there. With an elevated “loop” track that turns the train around automagically.
Which has been discussed, in comments, on this blog. The North Brunswick station isn’t on your chart.
With this time table all North Jersey Coast Trains are local trains? Currently many during peak hours are express in between Woodbridge and Newark Penn
The view across Ninth Ave doesn’t include things like Matawan locals and Bay Head expresses. For some odd peculiar reason everything is stopping in Secaucus. Other oddities too.
Intercity trains aren’t stopping in Secaucus on the above time table.
Very few commuter trains headed to NY Penn currently skip Secaucus. It’s a major station so it’s perfectly reasonable to have every commuter train stop there if the time table permits it.
Having your express train stop makes it less express-y.
One of the reasons Secaucus appears to be busy is that people on trains going to Hoboken are trekking to the upper level to change trains. Someday they won’t have to. Alternately people who don’t want to take a leisurely train ride to Secaucus pay outrageous parking fees to avoid the leisurely train ride. Or get on a bus to the Port Authority.
They will still have to, the Bergen Loop is both bad and unfunded.
One of the reasons Secaucus appears to be busy is that people on trains going to Hoboken are trekking to the upper level to change trains.
That’s not “appears to be busy” that’s “is busy.” Also known as a feature not a bug, and the exact reason why all commuter trains should stop there. It is a major interchange between the two main sets of lines coming from NJ, and it always benefits transit systems to increase opportunities for connections to other lines.
Express means fewer stops, not no stops.
If the Bergen lop happens and all trains go to Penn post Gateway there is an argument to not stop at Secaucus, but if Hoboken were connected to Atlantic Terminal via downtown the desirability of a connection stop there goes up dramatically.
Only quibble with Secaucus is they should have rerouted a few kk of track so the station was all at one level with cross platform transfers, but what is done is done.
The loop is better than changing trains. There are lots of unfunded things. Including your wilder fantasies. They aren’t going to spend a gazillion dollars on Gateway and not build the connection. So they can send mostly empty trains to Hoboken and the ones to Penn Station can be standing room only.
It’s a bug. There can’t be cross platform transfers when there are 40 trains an hour to Penn Station and 20 to Wall Street. Half of the Penn Station trains could not-stop and no one would notice. Not that there should be more than perhaps half a dozen Wall Street trains on the lower level in Secaucus during rush hour.
They could have this thing called a timed transfer – cross platform !! !! – which you may have heard of. On the lower level. Something like the Suffern-Penn Station express is on the outer track while the Ridgewood-Wall Street train is on the inner track. None of them care that the Hackettstown express didn’t stop there.
Squint at the satellite image of the Secaucus they have lots of options. MIne is that the Grand Central Shuttles are on a Spanish Solution track more or less where the side platform is now.
They are in fact spending a gazillion dollars on Gateway and not building the connection, or Penn Reconstruction, or Penn Expansion.
And re half the trains not stopping: the planned setup from New York to around Harrison is, two tracks for the NEC/NJC and two for the M&E and M-B; the RVL is going to be bundled with the M&E and M-B in order to match demand better. The trains aren’t planned to mix; NEC and NJC trains are staying in the old tunnel, the others are going in the new tunnel. So they’re also not going to even be on the same tracks through Secaucus.
They can plan separate projects. Like the ones to build a new station in North Brunswick with a loop track over the NEC. Where they will be turning trains around. Not in New Brunswick which would have to be done at grade. Separate project like the second Portal Bridge, without the second bridge there isn’t enough capacity across the Hackensack River. All sorts of things can happen between now and 2050 when the new tunnels open.
Yes, Delco Lead has been on the NJT priority list for some time now and is funded. Bergen Loop, nope.
Amazing how they fund different projects every year. And not everything right now NOW NOW. To the disappointment of clueless railfans.
Delco Lead/County Yard are, as far as I know, a separate project from reconfiguring Jersey Ave. and building North Brunswick. which are separate projects from all the other ones NJTransit is working on.
None of them care that the Hackettstown express didn’t stop there.
The people on the Hackettstown express trying to get to dowtown Manhattan would care, because their train would go through the station where they could transfer to another train to Wall Street. Instead they will have a longer trip by going to Penn Sta. then making a longer connection to a subway line, then having a longer ride down Manhattan to downtown. Given that there is one worker downtown for every three in Midtown, we would expect that about 25% of each train headed to Penn would prefer to get off and transfer to a Wall St. bound train, more than enough to get every train to stop at Secaucus.
There can’t be cross platform transfers when there are 40 trains an hour to Penn Station and 20 to Wall Street. Half of the Penn Station trains could not-stop
Sure there can. You have six tracks and four platforms, with a platform between tracks 1/2, 2/3, 4/5, and 5/6. The Wall St. bound trains use tracks 2 & 5, the Penn bound 1,3,4,6. Every train gets a cross platform transfer to the other set of lines, just not all using the same platform.
Not that there should be more than perhaps half a dozen Wall Street trains on the lower level in Secaucus during rush hour.
This is absurd, only 6 tph?!?! Do you think that there should be only 18 tph to Penn and Grand Central combined, from NJT, LIRR and MNR? Downtown is 1/3 the size of Midtown and not much smaller than the Loop in Chicago. It could easily fill 20-24 tph from NJ.
They could have this thing called a timed transfer
There is no need for a timed transfer when you are running 20+ tph. People would only wait an average of less than 2 min going either direction, a maximum of 1m30s for a Penn bound train at 40 tph. That is a negligible wait that doesn’t require optimizing with a timed transfer. If you do want the timed transfer though, you could still do it as I describe above, with a Wall St bound and two Penn Sta bound trains pulling in at the same time.
I understand that railfans have trouble when it’s not the blue line crossing over the red line. New Jersey has multiple commuter lines. Just like Long Island does. People can change trains lots of places.
Even when someday far far in the future they build 50,000 cubicles over Secaucus it’s not going to need a train every 60 seconds. There are three destinations in Manhattan, downtown/Wall Street/financial district, the East SIde of Midtown and the West Side of Midtown. All the trains can’t go all the places. And while everyone wants an express ride from where they are to where they want to go that’s not possible. Someone somewhere is going to be changing trains. They don’t need to do it in Secaucus.
Alon has all sorts of cockamamie proposals. Before the pandemic there were 20-ish very crowded suburban trains serving Penn Station New York. Two more tunnels, it could be 40-ish. Two tunnels from Jersey City to Brooklyn with Son-of-East-Side-Access somewhere in the Financial district would be 60-ish. Unless automobiles are banned that is likely to be enough forever. Work your way out from “60 trains an hour”. Not 17 lines going all over the place. They don’t all need to cross in Secaucus either.
People can change from a Penn Station train to Wall Street train at Broad Street Newark like they do now from Penn Station trains to Hoboken trains. And vice versa!! !! !! They don’t care when the Suffern Express to Penn Station passed through Secaucus or that people on the local from Ridgewood to Wall Street had merry timed cross platform transfers there. Neither of them care what kind of transfers happened at Penn Station Newark. Roughly half of rail traffic in New Jersey will be passing through there. There’s gonna be lots of changing between lots of things.
Railfans have trouble keeping more than one thing in mind. If all the trains from New Jersey go throoooooooooooooooogh Penn Station to Long Island they can’t go to Grand Central. If they all go to Grand Central they can’t go to Long Island. Arithmetic is pesky, isn’t it? Three destinations in Manhattan…..People, in New Jersey, who want to go to the East Side don’t need to stop on the West SIde. People who want to go to the West Side don’t care about the East Side. 60 trains an hour and not being able to send them multiple places… I come up with extending East Side Access trains to Newark. Every five minutes at Penn Station Newark and loitering at Broad Street Newark for transfers from the Penn Station or Wall Street trains. The people having merry cross platform transfers every ten-ish minutes on the lower level can have untimed transfers to the shuttles on the upper level. Who don’t care that some people changed trains at Newark Airport.
60 trains an hour is 6 trains an hour to Wall Street in Secaucus. Timed, they won’t care what time people were changing trains or not changing trains on the upper level. Or at Broad Street. And almost no one will care at Penn Station Newark because that will be “soon” most of the day. It’s not a red line and blue line and people can be changing trains in lots of places.
New Jersey has multiple commuter lines. Just like Long Island does. People can change trains lots of places.
New Jersey has three networks for its multiple lines:
The one place that all three lines come together is Secaucus. That means it is the ideal place for every train to stop so that you can change from any line to any other line.
People can change from a Penn Station train to Wall Street train at Broad Street Newark like they do now from Penn Station trains to Hoboken trains.
The problem is that those people can only change from one of the Morris/Essex train to another Morris/Essex train. The implications are:
1. No timed transfers. Newark Broad has two tracks in and out, which means you cannot have a Midtown and a Downtown bound train coming in at the same time, which means everyone who changes trains this way has an extra few minutes of wait time, needlessly.
2. No transferring to other lines for a complete network. This means you cannot take the train from Rahway to Passaic, or make a trip from Montclair State to Bay Head without going into Manhattan. Trips like this would be a small fraction of commuter traffic to Manhattan, but you get them for free if every train stops in Secaucus, making life better for people with increased transit options.
3. A Broad St transfer makes a poor network, logically with 60 tph to NYC, three groups of lines in NJ, and three destinations past Manhattan then each group of lines in NJ would get 20 tph to one destination to the east. Logically the Lackawanna lines to Hoboken would then go to Wall St and LI, the Morris/Essex lines would go to LI via Penn, and the NEC lines would go to NY/CT via GCT. This maximizes throughput and minimizes disruption by giving each set of lines a pair of tracks across the Hudson without extraneous merges and interlockings.
4. While your “change elsewhere” plan technically works for NEC lines at Newark and M/E lines at Broad, the only place Lackawanna lines come together for such a transfer before NYC is Secaucus. If those lines make the Wall St vs. Penn transfer there, no reason not to make every line do the same and maximize choice and flexibility for the passengers.
Secaucus it’s not going to need a train every 60 seconds.
Trains should not be stopping in Secaucus to serve the local destinations (there are not any) but to allow for transfers between trains so that from any origin you can access any destination.
All the trains can’t go all the places. And while everyone wants an express ride from where they are to where they want to go that’s not possible. Someone somewhere is going to be changing trains. They don’t need to do it in Secaucus.
This contradicts your “they can change at Broad St” plan. The only way you change at Broad St is if there are trains from the M/E lines to both Penn and Wall St, which is exactly the “trains go to all the places” you criticize here. In the logical option described above, the one location where all trains can transfer to each other is Secaucus.
In an ideal world ‘Secaucus Junction’ would be in downtown Newark so that when all trains stop they can serve a large destination. But the 19th Century and the geography of the Hudson Palisades and Meadowlands did not gift us this set up. Instead, Secaucus is where all of the lines meet, so Secaucus should be where they all stop for transfers.
Yes it does. I had hopes that clueless railfans would understand that less area – Bergen and Passaic counties for the former Erie lines and Morris and Essex counties for the former Delaware Lackawanna and Western lines – likely means less people but apparently not. There are a lot more people beyond Penn Station Newark. It’s very likely to be 30 trains an hour through there. Because there are MORE PEOPLE. What a novel concept, sending more passenger trains to place with more passengers.
I’ve decided you can go play with your crayons until you figure out that more people need more trains. That all of them don’t have to change trains a Secaucus Union Station would be nice but I don’t have much hope.
I didn’t have the gumption to go check until now. If you want to do this on the weekend you better check your bus schedules. Up until relatively recently it was the Boonton Line, which did not run on the weekend. The rich suburbanites, in suburbs that are there because of the railroad, have managed to keep it a weekday only line.
You can and will be able to change in Secaucus! Today and in the future. Just imagine how impressed everyone will be with it’s stunning glory. Google and I agree that it would be faster to change in Newark. And if you want to do this on the weekend changing in Newark. Bus to the subway to Penn Station
There are a lot more people beyond Penn Station Newark. It’s very likely to be 30 trains an hour through there. Because there are MORE PEOPLE.
If you want to run more trains on the NEC because it has more people, fine. Then the pattern would be:
20tph Newark Penn-Penn-GCT-CT
10tph Newark Penn-Penn-LI
10tph Newark Broad-Penn-LI
20tph Hoboken-Wall St-Brooklyn
None of this however changes the fact that all of these patterns meet in only one place – Secaucus – making it the best place for trains to stop and make transfers, because it would allow transfers to and from every destination and line.
That all of them don’t have to change trains a Secaucus Union Station would be nice but I don’t have much hope.
Everyone would not have to change trains in Secaucus. People who get on a train in Suffern headed to DT Manhattan wouldn’t need to change at all. Also, with the pattern above, people could choose to transfer from a train headed to GCT to a train headed to Jamaica in Newark Union if they wanted. But it would take them longer than if they made a timed transfer in Secaucus as I described. If the CT bound train pulls up at the same time as the Brooklyn and Jamaica bound trains at the same time, then switching trains is a matter of walking across a platform or two, not getting out and waiting for 2-4 min.
If you want to do this on the weekend you better check your bus schedules. Up until relatively recently it was the Boonton Line, which did not run on the weekend.
The fact that a transit option is bad/unavailable now is not an argument to not plan for it to be better in the future. No law says that trains can never run on the weekend.
Google and I agree that it would be faster to change in Newark.
Then you and Google would be wrong. It is not possible to directly change from a train going from Montclair St. to Bay Head in Newark, because the trains from Montclair St. stop at Newark Broad while the ones to Bay Head stop in Newark Penn. You could take transit between them, but this takes 12-17 min on the shortest routes, plus waiting time, plus time to and from the platforms at each end, plus waiting time for the Montclair St. bound train to arrive. Newark Penn to Secaucus is 7 min, Secaucus to Broad is 11min. At best a Newark change might be a wash time wise compared to a timed transfer in Secaucus, but would undoubtably be more inconvenient.
I lived in Newark or it’s immediate suburbs most of my life. We aren’t wrong. You do realize that in places called “downtown” there are these specialized places for pedestrians that are called sidewalks. It’s a bit over a mile between the two stations. Bit of a hike but walkable.
You can take Newark Light Rail a.k.a. the subway or city subway. The frequency sucks.
Or you can take a bus on Market street up to Broad and change buses. Most hours of most days there will be a bus waiting for the stoplight to change. On Market or Broad. Or a Broad Street bus and change to a Market Street bus when headed the other way. It’s a busy downtown. There is a cab stand at Penn Station and if there isn’t one at Broad Street you can hail one. I’m sure you’ve seen people do that in movies or on television.
Any of those options are faster than going to Secaucus and schlepping back to Newark.
If Alon can decide that nothing is never ever ever never gonna change so can I.
Any of those options are faster than going to Secaucus and schlepping back to Newark.
Except they are not. To repeat myself:
“You could take transit between them, but this takes 12-17 min on the shortest routes, plus waiting time, plus time to and from the platforms at each end, plus waiting time for the Montclair St. bound train to arrive. Newark Penn to Secaucus is 7 min, Secaucus to Broad is 11min.”
The 12 min time comes from Google for the Newark Light Rail. The 17 min is the fastest time on Google for a non-stop bus. Walking between the two is 26 min per Google. “Schlepping” to Secaucus and back is 18 min, plus lets say a minute for a cross platform connection. 19 total min. But 12 min light rail or 17 min bus is faster you say? They would be, except those travel times do not account for:
-Getting from the platform at Newark Broad to the street.
-Waiting for the light rail/bus/hailing a cab (no guarantee your train at N. Broad. arrives at the right time to exactly catch the ride to N. Penn).
-Getting from the street to the platform at N. Penn.
-Waiting for the train to arrive at N. Penn (again, no way to coordinate so that your arrival at N. Penn off of light rail or bus or cab is perfectly timed so that the train to Rahway arrives right as you walk onto the platform.)
Changing at Secaucus (assuming cross platform transfer) has non of these time penalties. Adding just a minute or two to each of these steps turns that 12-17 min in-vehicle trip into a 18-25 min journey. As I mentioned, the best case (where NLR frequency increases a lot to reduce waiting time) and the trip on light rail is effectively the same as the Secaucus transfer, maybe a minute faster, maybe a minute slower. But bus or walking would never be faster than a transfer at Secaucus.
I’m very pleased you and your magical crayons are having such a good time. I give up.
Yeah, it could be either that or that they’d run express, and we went with the option that was harder to timetable as a stress test. If it’s decided that the local stops from North Elizabeth to Rahway don’t need a train every five minutes, it’s fine to drop some locals and turn them into expresses; in either case, the local trains would be a lot faster than anything today.
What software do you use to perform this analysis?
Our own open-source tools.
I think 30 seconds for commuter and 60 seconds for intercity is brave.
I think 45 seconds for commuter like Britain and 90 seconds for intercity is more sensible.
30 s for S-Bahn service here is normal; I’ve seen Zurich do this, even without level boarding. The RER has that dwell too except at the city center stations – even at rush hour, the suburban and outer-city stations are about 30 s, and only in the city does it get to 45 s (and then it’s 60+ s at Les Halles).
I looked at the S Bahn from Berlin to the airport and Zurich to the airport and it very much looks like most of the stops are one minute stops as timetabled.
I also looked at the Zurich-Geneva intercity and that looks to typically have two minute stops.
U.S. railfans love to make videos. It’s less than 30 seconds at suburban stations, with level boarding.
Less than 30 seconds with 30% padding though.
Like I might easily be wrong if the Swiss working timetable says the stops are 30 seconds. I am only aware of the UK working timetables being online where the stops are 30 seconds followed by a minute followed by 30 seconds etc.
THe videos don’t have a timetable. It’s 30 seconds, give or take a few, from the time the train stops to the time the train starts moving. Public timetables, for suburban trains anyway, have departure times. The time the doors are open can be seconds and seconds longer at major stops, lots of people getting off and lots of people getting on.
The normal Berlin and Zurich S-Bahn stops are 30 s in practice (not just on the timetable). Berlin has one two-minute stop on S9, Treptower Park, which is a timed cross-platform interchange with the Ring; the other stops are zero or one minute on the timetable (link).
So it looks like there is 30 seconds of extra padding per stop then vs 15 seconds extra in the UK and 0 seconds with your US proposal.
Not sure about S-Bahn timetabling practice in Berlin, but in Zurich it’s 7% from the technical travel time, which is usually taken as the stop penalty every few stops.
At least as far as the published timetable goes it looks like the slack in Zurich is 30s/stop plus 7%.
I believe that most S-Bahns have more doors and wider aisles than NJT cars.
(Remind me to reply to your comment on Reece’s post.)
Good God, what looks like a “link” to “Reece’s Post”, which is presumably a bunch of text with a few images and some stuff to make comment boxes works, is such a fucking mess of Javascript that it simply fails to render anything at all for me.
https://reecemartin.ca/2024/06/04/who-you-compare-yourself-to-matters/ — looks like a link, but in fact is as utterly useless a walled garden of obfuscation and side-loaded hell as a link to anything on Instagram.
Ladies and gentlemen and others, welcome to The Future, which looks like this:
In other words, it looks like this: “”
which is what you’d expect from the actual HTML it specifies, which is “<body><div id=”root“></div></body></html>”, which is nothing, nothing at all.
Mind boggling. What cretins thought any of this was a good idea, let alone any sort of “idea” at all?
Old Man Yells at Cloud, sure. But dear god, WHY?
/head><body><div id="root"></div></body></html>Reece had a domain renewal issue, which I understand has now been fixed.
OK, so this is fine and well and good and all but in a sense, it’s crayoning with sharper pencils. My question is this: Does Amtrak have final say over timetabling west of NYP? Can Amtrak say “here is the new schedule” and expect NJT and SEPTA to just adjust? I mean, it’s probably not that adversarial, but if negotiations didn’t go anywhere, could Amtrak put their foot down?
What about the CDOT section (and east of NYP to SHELL, which they own)? On the Commonwealth’s section they control the NEC as if they own it even though they don’t. Same question: does the National Railroad Passenger Corp have ultimate timetabling authority east of NYP regardless of ownership?
The rail operator authority really doesn’t matter when all passenger rail users of the Northeast Corridor live off of capital grants from the same entity, namely, the federal government.
Of course, but does Amtrak have the authority to make new timetables? If not, and it has to be done by committee, then it just won’t happen regardless of whether or not it’s a good idea.
The timetable for the entire country of Switzerland is created by humans in committees.
I’m sure that’s true … and yet it has no bearing on Amtrak, which owns most but not all of the NEC BOS-WAS, and the 5 or 6 state-level commuter authorities that run trains in addition to Amtrak.
Sure whatevs. It’s not about the committees then. It’s something else. Something ineffable. Something involving 5 or 6. Or perhaps something different when it turns out six isn’t a large cardinal. Something we can be sure the Adirondacker3k reply bot also has feels for but also can’t put into words that communicate any sense. There’s magic afoot in New Jersey.