(rshsdepot) Secaucus, NJ

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

Full speed ahead for Secaucus

   By Judy Rife
   Times Herald-Record
   jrife_@_th-record.com

   Newark, N.J. - The Secaucus transfer, a vision 20 years in the
realization, will open for daily commuter service on Dec. 15.
   The date, tentative for months, become official yesterday when NJ
Transit's executive director, George Warrington, told his board of directors
that the agency is ready to go.
   The announcement follows word from the Port Authority that PATH service
to the World Trade Center will resume Nov. 23. NJ Transit needs rush-hour
commuters to return to PATH to free seats on its Penn Station-bound trains
for new passengers boarding at Secaucus.
   "We're very excited to fully open Secaucus,'' said Ken Hitchner, a
spokesman for NJ Transit. "It will improve interstate travel as well as
intrastate travel. It's a regional benefit, not just a New Jersey one."
   The $450 million station, open for weekend service since Sept. 6, is a
bold effort to make traveling easier for both work and play on this side of
the Hudson River. It connects 10 of the state's 11 rail lines and gives
millions of New York and New Jersey residents an alternative to driving to
such diverse destinations as Newark International Airport, Philadelphia,
Manhattan and the Jersey Shore.
   Metro-North Railroad, which contributed $50 million to Secaucus, and NJ
Transit estimate the transfer could attract 50 percent more commuters,
roughly 1,000 people, to the Port Jervis line over the next two years.
   Metro-North contracts with NJ Transit to operate the west-of-Hudson
service. And in addition to adding Midtown Manhattan as a destination, NJ
Transit projects the transfer will slice up to 15 minutes from each one-way
ride for local commuters.
   In fact, enough jobs have relocated to Midtown since the Sept. 11 attacks
that lower Manhattan has been displaced as the city's employment center.
   Many of these commuters, who now take PATH to 33rd Street after they get
off the train at Hoboken Terminal, will be among Secaucus's first
passengers. Others will be abandoning their cars or the bus - and being
stuck in traffic.
   "The first Monday Secaucus is open, I plan to switch - no looking back to
the bus,'' said Al Fasano of Central Valley, a Short Line rider for a
decade, when he thought of the gridlock Friday at the Lincoln Tunnel.
   Maggie Bergara of Salisbury Mills will stick with the bus until next
year, when her employer moves to new offices near Penn Station. Herma Chapel
of Chester will stay on the train to Hoboken - and hope the stops in
Secaucus don't add 10 minutes more to the trip. But she has theater tickets
for Saturday and will use Secaucus rather than drive to the city.
   And people like Matt Segota of Warwick, a bus commuter, and Jim McKenna
of Harriman, a train commuter, are adopting a not-so-fast attitude.
   "I will definitely try the train,'' said Segota. "[But] I will give it
about two weeks before [I do]. This will be ample time to work out the
kinks."
   McKenna first points to the still-infrequent service, the old cars and
the routine 10- and 20-minute delays of recent weeks, and then says of
Secaucus:
   "I'll believe it when I see it, and then I'll wait to see if it works."

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

------------------------------