Last Friday, November 28th my family and I took the Boonton Line from Mountain View to Hoboken to visit Macys and Times Square. As we rode in I started to wonder if all the improvements were worth all that NJT talked about. We left Mountain View on train 1006 at 8:29. There was the extra stop at the transfer station east of Great Notch and then the 25 mph stretch between Walnut and Bay Street. After that there was a prolonged stop at the old Roseville Ave station waiting for clearance to enter the M&E line. After that we crossed the Passaic River at a walking pace to stop again at the old Harrison station site for signals to clear. After that there was an employee stop at the Kearny shops. The train arrived at Hoboken at 9:23 or some time close to that. Now let's go back to the EL in 1969. Train 1016 was a local making all stops but Denville between Netcong and Hoboken. It departed Mountain View 8:29 and arrived in Hoboken at 9:12. With the old Stillwells, Boonton cars, E's, RS's and Geeps the train was 13 minutes faster. Why is that. Looking at the return trip. We used train 1001 leaving Hoboken at 3:22PM arriving in Mountain View at 4:27. The same trip on an all stop local with the same number - 1001 in 1969 left Hoboken at 4:30PM and arrived at Mountain View at 5:19PM. 49 minutes in 1969; 1 hour and 5 minutes now. This is not an improvement. NJT should consider eliminating a number of stops east of Montclair Heights for trains heading west of Great Notch. I suggest stops only at Newark, Bay Street, and then stops west of Walnut Street to restore travel time to what it once was. The equipment is better but the travel time has become longer. To get more people on trains, the schedule needs to be speeded up. Ed Montgomery ------------------------------
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