EWR arrival - which train to pick?

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Barciur

Barciur

OBS Chief
Joined
Aug 13, 2012
Messages
599
Location
Lancaster, PA
Hello

Wasn't sure where to put this as this might seem like a bit of a railroad question, but it's mostly got to do with Newark airport and flying as a whole, so anyway.

I am flying out of Newark at 5:40 PM on June 15th to Europe using SAS (Scandinavian). I am getting to Newark by train. My options are: 12:31 PM arrival at Newark Penn Station (since Airtrain doesn't run) or 2:40 PM arrival at Penn Station. Is the 2:40 at Penn cutting it close? How long would the shuttle take me to get there and find everything?

Of course, I would prefer to leave home later for the 11:55 departure rather than 10:05 departure and then ~4 hrs at the airport, but I'm not sure if arriving to Newark itself 3 hrs prior to departure is not too risky given that I have never flown out of Newark and Airtrain is bustituted.
 
You should be OK arriving Newark Penn at 2:40, but I see you are coming from Lancaster. If the train messed up, then you would have a problem. The buses are supposed to be running on a load and go basis, taking 20-30 minutes to get to the airport. You might have more peace of mind taking the earlier train. Do you have the use of an airline lounge? I will be using United lounges next week.
 
Barciur, it appears that you are flying on a Sunday and EWR could be a madhouse; even worse if there is a weather issue or air traffic delaying aircraft. If your flight departs at 5:40pm, it is best to get to EWR as soon as it is possible.

The train arriving at Newark Amtrak at 12:31pm is a better bet because it gives you some cushion for the ride to the airport (allow for 30 minutes) the airport drop-off, SAS check-in and TSA greeting could be over an hour or more.

To get an idea of how SAS is operating on that day; you can also check the status of the inbound flight (the flight that will likely be your departure aircraft at 5:40pm and in this case it seems to be SK909 CPH-EWR) to see if that flight is running late. You can do that by double-checking the SAS schedule for the inbound flights for that day and then go to: http://Flightaware.com/live/airport/KEWR and look at the "Arrivals" for SK909 or another SAS inbound flight which could be determined to arrive in the afternoon and turn back to Europe at 5:40pm.

Let us know how you do and send some pictures!
 
When I flew out to Israel it was on the second day of single runway operation. It took us over two hours to get from the gate to takeoff at around 5pm. Return departures from Ben Gurion were regularly getting delayed by upto an hour those days due to late arrival of equipment from Newark!. Things have improved considerably since then. Last week's trip to Florida involved delays that were no more than half hour in Newark. But then again the flights I picked were not in the morning or evening commission hours (to use a Penn Station term).

On the whole Newark International this summer is an even messier mess than it usually is.
 
Thanks for your help. I guess the one runway thing shouldn't matter on June 16th - hopefully no delays, because I have just 1 hour for a connecting flight in Copenhagen!

I'll just take the early train and have a peace of mind. Thanks.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
When you are dealing with EWR you should always expect some delays, even with both runways operating. However, you are flying east with the jet stream. Usually those legs have block times that are way longer than what is needed in typical jet stream flows, and the flights take considerably less time than scheduled for the segment. So even if you leave late you are likely to arrive close to on time.
 
I read that the Airtrain to the NJT/Amtrak station is out of service for several weeks. Has that service interruption begun?
 
PRR 60 said:
Palmetto said:
I read that the Airtrain to the NJT/Amtrak station is out of service for several weeks. Has that service interruption begun?
Click to expand...
Yes. It is scheduled to run through July 15. More info is HERE.
Click to expand...
The bypass bus shuttle to other terminals and to the parking lots is not too bad. Actually at night it is better and more frequent than the godforsaken Airtrain, which inevitably operates in single track mode and in multiple segments at night involving a cross platform or same platform connection to get from almost anywhere to anywhere. Together with lower frequencies it means that it can take you upto 30 mins to get from Terminal B to P4, a distance you could walk in half the time if your were not weighed down with luggage. I hope they actually tear the whole thing down and build a real working system some day.
 

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