posted
I was on vacation in NYC last week and finally got to do something I'd been meaning to do for over a year. The question was, would it be possible to ride every rail transit system between New York and Washington in one day? After doing the research online, I concluded that it was doable, as long as i could get to Camden Station in Baltimore in time to catch the last MARC train at 6:10pm. I actually got the idea when I was in Cologne, Germany last year. Cologne is on the edge of the Rhine-Ruhr cluster of small to medium sized cities. I took an Intercity train to Dortmund and gradually worked my way back to Cologne using the subways, trolleys and commuter trains in Dortmund, Herne, Bochum, Essen, Mulheim, Duisburg and Dusseldorf.
Monday, August 10th was a scorcher, just about the hottest day of the year and heading south only added to the challenge. Fortutately, the air conditioning on all the trains I rode worked just fine. I left my folks' house in Brooklyn Heights at 8:30 and headed for the subway. Normally, I would take the R train to Cortlandt St. to catch the PATH train at the World Trade Center but that station is closed due to the construction of the Fulton St. "Super Station". Instead I took the 5 to Fulton St. The 5 took awhile to show up and this was right at the height of rush hour, so it was really packed.
PATH is using a temorary terminal at the WTC until the new one (part of the new WTC and superstation) is built. It was a one stop ride to Exchange Place in Jersey City. I had to be there in time to catch the 9:15 Hudson-Bergen trolley to Hoboken, otherwise I'd be taking later trains all the way to Philly, which would reduce the "comfort zone" I had planned for that part of the trip. I made it by two minutes, which gave me just enough time to buy and validate my ticket. At Hoboken, I had ten whole minutes to catch the Morris & Essex line commuter train, so I made a point of buying tickets for both NJ Transit commuter trains; one for the next train to Newark Broad St. and one from Newark Penn to Trenton.
The M&E train was a "Jersey Arrow" MU and was scheduled for 18 minutes to Newark Broad St. but was about four minutes early. As a result I had time to get a couple pictures and video shots. The last time I was at Broad St., the station was still being renovated. It's finished now and has high level platforms on both sides. The new branch of the Newark subway (now called "light rail") opened a couple years ago. It's just a downtown shuttle that connects the two railroad stations. The connection at Newark Penn was the tightest of the trip. I had three minutes to catch the express commuter train to Trenton and had to go from the underground subway station to the elevated mainline one. The escalators worked fine and I actually made it to the platform before the train arrived. Buying the ticket for that train in Hoboken had paid off.
Once I was aboard the Northeast Corridor train I could finally relax. The most hectic part of the trip was over. The train was mostly Bombardier "Comet" coaches pulled by an ALP44. We were running about five minutes late for most of the trip but arrived in Trenton six minutes early due to schedule padding.
NJ Transit's River Line is is a really interesting ride. It used self-propelled Diesel units along an ex-PRR line along the Jersey side of the Delaware between Trenton and Camden. I've heard that its only reason for existance is that people in South Jersey were jealous of the new Hudson-Bergen line and improvements to the Newark subway. It also happens to be the biggest transit bargain in America, only $1.25 for a 34 mile ride. I would discribe it as a Diesel interurban. It alternates between private right-of-way and street medians until it gets to Camden, where it runs on city streets. The cars have three sections; two passenger sections with a power unit in the middle. Passengers aren't allowed to use the passage through the power unit to pass between sections.
From Camden, it was a quick ride on the PATCO train over the Ben Franklin bridge to Philadelphia. I arrived at 8th & Market at 12:46pm, which meant I had 2:55 to kill before catching my Amtrak Regional train to Baltimore. The heat hardly affected me at all because I was able to walk the three blocks to Reading Terminal Market through the Gallery Mall. When I got there I found that the cheese steak place where I had planned to have lunch was gone. Forunately, there were two other similar types of places in the market and the one I tried was decent. After lunch I went to the SEPTA store, which always has a good selection of railroad books. I picked up a magazine-sized paperback about the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin interurban trains operation on the Garfield Park El.
Next, it was the Market St. subway to 30th St. station. I would have liked to take it onto the el out to 69 St. and back. I probably had enough time but I'd promised myself NO BACKTRACKING! When I got to the platform at 11 St., the westbound train was coming into the station on the eastbound track. My first thought was that I was on the wrong platform. It turned out that service was just getting "back to normal" after someone had fallen on the track. Another westbound train came in on the correct track and we paced the other one for the next couple stops to 15 St., where I assume it turned around.
Now, if I were really a purist about this trip, I would have had to take SEPTA's R2 commuter line from Philly to Wilmington. It was possible but I'd have had to catch it at 1:29 from 30th St. and made a reservation for an earlier Amtrak train. It also wouldn't work if I had missed that express train from Newark to Trenton, so I didn't want to risk it. Instead, I had plenty of time to hang out at 30th to take pictures and shoot video. At least I went on one, SEPTA train, the subway.
Another reason I didn't want to pick up the Amtrak train in Wilmington was that I'd have a better chance of getting a window seat at Phila. The train was pretty crowded and I had to settle for an aisle seat anyway. If my train had been right on time into Baltimore, I'd have had just enough time to catch the 4:46 trolley, which would have gotten me to Camden Station just in time to catch the 5:15 MARC train. But we got there about four minutes late and the trolley from Penn Station only runs every half hour. There were a few Amtrak and MARC trains passing through Penn Station to keep me occupied while I waited for the next trolley.
It's only about a mile from Penn to Camden stations in Baltimore but the trolley takes 17 minutes. This is because it has to wait forever at several traffic lights. I still had time to get ice cream before catching the last MARC Camden line train at 6:10. The Camden line train wasn't very crowded and seemed pretty laid back for a "rush hour" train. Just outside of Baltimore, we passed a really long CSX freight and I also kept my eye out for the Thomas Viaduct.
I got off at Greenbelt, which is the end of the Green line of the Washington Metro.I got there just before 7pm but I waited until after 7 to go through the turnstile because that's when the off-peak fares go into effect. This way it cost me $2.35 instead of $4.05 for the trip to Van Ness. Don't think I could have afforded this whole trip if I'd have to pay peak fare. There were two places I could change to the Red line; either Fort Totten, the first stop in DC or Metro Center, which is downtown. I decided to change at Ft. Totten because the Red stays outside for a few more stops and passes the train yards and the approach to Union Station, while the Green goes underground the rest of the way. It was a good thing because the train really filled up once it got downtown. Even though it was after 7, it felt like it was still rush hour, so the trip began and ended with trains that were totally packed.
I arrived at the Days Inn Conn. Ave., two blocks from Van Ness station, at 8:19; 11:49 after leaving the house in Brooklyn. Is anybody else insane enough to try this? I dare ya.
Posts: 49 | From: Brookline, MA | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
Very interesting! I wonder if the same sort of thing could be done between LA and San Diego.
-------------------- Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I'll take the train! Posts: 230 | From: Ithaca, New York | Registered: May 2009
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After that "Masochist Express" experience, I hope you treated yourself to an Acela for your return to NY.
BTW, speaking of Brooklyn, I've new learned a new "Brooklynese' acronym DUMBO or Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. I'm going to a family wedding reception at a restaurant there during October (ceremony at Fulton Ferry Park).
Other acronyms more widely used relating to Lower Manhattan:
TRIBECA Triangle Below Canal SOHO: South of Hudson
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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SoHo means South of Houston [street], not Hudson. As that river runs vaguely north-south at that point, south of Hudson would be nigh on impossible - or wet.
Interesting story, MetSox.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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I'm exhausted just from reading your trip report! Amazing amount of planning and an awesome day!
Mr. Norman--
Samantha Brown on the travel channel had a great show on DUMBO this week.
Frank in overcast and humid SBA. (I actually felt a few drops of rain on my morning walk.)
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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My Nephew tells me parts of Brooklyn have become quite trendy (he 41 a Manhattan attorney, she 38, city planner with NYC). Last time I set foot in the Borough was maybe fifty years ago to ride a Subway out to Coney Island and back to Manhattan.
Mr. Mayo, concur and stand corrected. I never knew what SoHo stood for until Nephew's finance told me a year ago.
Nevertheless all my Sister's three kids live over in Brooklyn. Niece was a "refugee" from Tribeca high rents (and, before she married, roommates with "always a sob story' come rent time).
Oh, and I'll be gone for a few days; will see my Little Niece, Sister and Brother in Law tomorrow on Nantucket (assuming the little puddle jumper will fly from KBOS with the threat, however unlikely, of a hurricane).
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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There was an article in the Washington Post a few months ago by a reporter with lots of time to kill who decided to try to travel from WAS to NYP without using Amtrak. Not hard to do, from WAS to Perryville and from Wlimington north. But from Perryville to Wilmington meant travel on two local bus services that appeared to cater mostly to welfare recipients, homeless folks, and those in retirement homes. The whole trip took something over nine hours.
Posts: 614 | From: Merchantville, NJ. USA | Registered: Aug 2000
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dns8560: Yes it is possible to go from LA to San Diego using the Metrolink and Coaster commuter trains, changing at Oceanside. You could get off at Old Town, San Diego and take the trolley the rest of the way to the Santa Fe Depot, or wherever your destination might be. One thing I don't know is if the Metrolink Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs station is anywhere near the Norwalk station on MTA's Green Line. If so, you could take the Blue and Green lines from downtown LA (no buses please). I think I'll probably try that next time I'm in SoCal but of course I'd have to stop over in Oceanside to ride the Sprinter to Escondido and back.
Gil: I went to P.S.7 in DUMBO for the 5th & 6th grade, where Spike Lee was a classmate and friend. My theory is that DUMBO was able to become gentrified because they tore down P.S.7. My Hagstrom NYC atlas refers to the area as "Vinegar Hill".
Going back to NY, my reservation was for Regional #178 at 4:05pm but the train was backed into the station about an hour late due to an "equipment sustitution". They finally had the passengers going no further than NYP get on #196, 5:05 departure, at the last minute and everyone going beyond NY was directed to the "replacement" train. 196 actually got to NYP 3 minutes early.
The reason I took the Regional back was that I had a little over 19,000 AGR points. I used 16,000 to take the Acela both ways between BOS and NYP, so I still had 3000 left to take the Regional for free.
The 14 trains I took to DC cost ne a total of $67.38. If this seems a little strange, I had a 7 day NY Metrocard for $27. I used it 25 times, so each ride came out to $1.08. And to think I could have just taken the Regional for as little as $49 for a trip of 3 1/2 hours or less.
Posts: 49 | From: Brookline, MA | Registered: Sep 2007
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"Wouldn't you know we're riding on the Masochist Express"
By comparo, NE Regional 196 must have been pure comfort.
Of course, who knows what I am in for tomorrow - traveling by air into the face of a hurricane. Hope I find something to do other than get doused on overpriced Chardonnay (I'll have two books with me I want to read) while at KBOS waiting out an inevitable delay of the KBOS-KACK Cape Air puddle jumper (seems like the price of anything already jacked up anywhere at an airport is jacked up another 50% if on the other side of security).
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Rest assured, BOS is one of the many airports that now has a "street pricing" policy once on the other side of security.
As an added bonus, Boston Logan Airport's Street Pricing Policy requires all airport food and retail merchants offer goods and service at prices similar to prices found at comparable locations in the Boston and Cambridge area, so grabbing a "Meal to Fly" is not only quick and convenient, but affordable too!
(That's taken from their website. It's been a couple of years since I was at BOS and the only imbibing I did was inside the Presidents Club where all drinks (except for "Premium" wines) are complimentary.)
Frank in still overcast and humid SBA
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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Well Frank, I think KPBI could use a little lesson on the point you note.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Mr Norman, be sure also to remember that Houston Street in NYC is pronounce House-ton, not Yew-ston like the Texas city, even though it's the same family's name. Somehow the pronunciation changed as that family moved west. . ..
SoHo as a term for a neighborhood is relatively new, dating I'd say only to the 1970s but maybe a little before. It was known mainly as the Cast Iron District before it was called SoHo, although a few streets in it are part of what is and was called Little Italy, and a few in the northern part--north of Spring Street--were considered part of Greenwich Village back then.
Today, Greenwich Village is generally defined as north of Houston, where the numbered streets begin (1st St, 2nd St, and so on). The true Village became the "West Village" when the eastern area north of Houston came to be called the East Village, again fairly recently; before that a lot of people considered this area part of the (definitely less prestigious seeming) Lower East Side. The part of the East Village just north of Houston is now quite recently--I'd say since the '90s at most--known as NoHo (north of Houston). The area further east, around Avenues A, B, C (i.e., east of 1st Avenue), including Tomkins Square Park, is often called Alphabet City.
The part of SoHo or Greenwich Village just north of Little Italy is now often called NoLita--well, I'm not sure how they do the capital letters--it should technically be NoLIta, I suppose.
Re trendiness in Brooklyn: Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope have been trendy--or, in their case, maybe I should say, fashionable--for quite some time, but other areas close to Manhattan, such as Williamsburg, have grown trendier more recently. I believe even Red Hook, once quite industrial, is becoming pretty trendy with young people . . .
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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Wow, Williamsburg is getting trendy! I was born in Williamsburg, and lived there in the 40's; I can assure you "trendy" was not the word for it then. Working class Brooklyn neighborhood is all I remember. Things change!
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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Well, we're rather off the rail topic, but since I lived in Brooklyn for five years in the 1980s...the working-class, mostly white Brooklyn of the 1940s and 1950s is so far gone, I'm surprised anyone remembers it. Even in the 1980s, Brooklyn was 65% nonwhite with a majority foreign-born. I lived in Bay Ridge (then just beginning to gentrify -- but it had always been respectable), renting from a Lebanese family before buying a rowhouse. Park Slope was thoroughly gentrified even then, while areas such as Clinton and Greenpoint were just beginning. Williamsburg hadn't even begun yet.
Brooklyn Heights, as far as I can tell, was always a nice area. Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardnes (south of the end of the Promenade) were gentrifying then, and some brave souls had established beacheads in Red Hook.
There were still decent family neighborhoods with big houses south of Prospect Park along the Brighton Line, but they were struggling. B
Bourough Park and Crown Heights were heavily Hasidic, and Bensonhurst was, well, Bensonhurst.
You did NOT go to Bushwick, East New York, or Brownsville. Now I understand even these have begun to gentrify.
Interesting place, Brooklyn. I miss it sometimes.
Posts: 614 | From: Merchantville, NJ. USA | Registered: Aug 2000
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LAX-SAN or SAN-LAX is a little more difficult because at least half the journey is against the normal commute flow and both Metrolink and Coaster offer very limited service against the normal commute.
That said, you can leave LAUS at 8:00 am and connect in Oceasnside to an 11:02 Coaster which would put you in San Diego in time for lunch, then return on a 2:15 Coaster to Oceanside to connect to a 3:35 Metrolink that would put you back at LAUS at 5:30.
Cost would be $41.00, half that for seniors 65+. A comparable Amtrak trip would be $68.00, $57.80 for seniors 62+.
-------------------- Railrev Escondido, CA Posts: 99 | From: Escondido, California | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by sbalax: Mr. Norman-- Rest assured, BOS is one of the many airports that now has a "street pricing" policy once on the other side of security.
Frank, even in the latrine there were recorded announcements that "airport prices are street prices'.
Nevertheless, the house Chardonnay between arrival of JetBlue (Embrarer 190) and leaving on Cape Air (Cessna 421) was still with tip $13. Oh well, guess you could walk into the bar of a five star in Back Bay and pay that.
Oh, wAAAAAAAAy OT, my KBOS to KACK flight was concurrent with POTUS arriving at KVNY. Cape Air and I presume anyone else as well had cancelled all flights into there. Mine operated, however departing KBOS, instead of maybe a 160 heading direct to VOR ACK (116.20), the FP was Direct (heading 120) to VOR LFV (Provincetown 114.70) then Direct(heading 195) to ACK and intercept with LOC IACK (109.1) and a 241 heading to land.
How do I know all this, I was in the seat of this six place aircraft immediately behind the co-pilot seat (occupied by a passenger - a 20 something girl who holds a private pilot license - and both she and/or I could see all the flight instruments). Never flew higher than FL5 and the "flightseeing" weather was perfect after Bill had past the region.
It was quite an experience, Frank (and Mr. Kisor).
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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