Inspired in part by posts by Classy Whale and Trains Are Awesome, I drove up to the Philadelphia metro to ride some transit services that were new to me.
On Friday, starting from Trenton, I rode the River Line light rail to Camden to connect to PATCO for a short hop to Philadelphia. Hmm, the heat in my River Line car didn’t seem to be working. While there are plans to renovate/redevelop it, the Walter Rand Transportation Center in Camden is, right now, nothing short of a dump.
I closed the loop with a SEPTA train back to Trenton. The tile mosaic in Jefferson Station is stunning.
Saturday was a bit more enjoyable. Starting from Trenton again, I rode New Jersey Transit’s (NJT) Trenton line to Newark Penn Station, switched to a PATH train and rode it as far as Exchange Place.
A quick snap of the New York Financial District in some light snow that followed the overnight wintry mix, and then I was off to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail station.
During my 10-minute wait in the chilly weather, I glanced at the rather fine historical map built into the Exchange Place station platform. (I’m still looking for some information about this map.)
The HBLR took me to Hoboken Terminal, where I boarded an NJT train that ran all of two stops to Newark Broad Street. From there, the third of NJT’s light rail systems, the Newark Light Rail, took me back to Newark Penn Station. Completing my round trip on the Trenton line, I was back to Dr. Hardtacks and headed for home.
Hoboken Terminal is a place of drafty, broken grandeur. Flooding from Superstorm Sandy didn’t help the situation. Some stained glass remains, and the vintage benches are still serviceable, but a renovation (also planned) cries out to become reality.
Something the video bloggers don’t talk about much is how much time you spend waiting. Since I was traveling on Saturday, I had a bad connection at Hoboken Terminal and laid over for almost two hours. Fortunately there are two coffee and donut shops still operating there.
In Newark, my first return train was cancelled. There were lots of delays on Amtrak and elsewhere posted on the departure boards, no doubt due in part to the winter storm.