NEC Trip BAL-NYP

[user 683]

Just a quick travelogue for a weekend trip to NY

May 5, Amtrak 170 from BAL-NYP

Nothing out of the ordinary for a early morning train ride up the corridor to NYP. The train generally ran on time and we pulled into NY at 8:16, about 6 minutes late. According to my GPS receiver: average speed 71 MPH, max speed 124 MPH. The train seemed to be nearly full and folks were, not surprisingly, mainly interested in reading the paper, making phone calls or catching some extra Z's.

Granted, this trip was a general run of the mill trip that I have made several times in the past. That is, I certainly did not expect to see anything that I had not seen before. However, at one point I was gazing out the window and thought I saw an old rusted out GG-1 locomotive. I don't remember where we were when I saw this since, like many others, I caught a few Z's here and there.

I decided to be a 100% tourist and take double decker bus tours of dowtown Manhattan, Brooklyn and uptown Manhattan. The weather was perfect for riding around on the open top deck of the bus. I then traveled to Suffern, by way of New Jersey Transit, to attend the Northeast Astronomy Forum.

May 6, Amtrak 167 NYP-BAL

After another wonderful day at the astronomy show, I traveled back to NYC via New Jersey Transit. I ventured around Times Square for a while, grabbed some dinner and then headed back to Penn Station.

167's ride was pretty uneventfull, as expected. The train ran on time, or perhaps slightly ahead of schedule. Average/max speed was 70/123 MPH.

Deimos

 

[MrFSS]

Thanks for the neat report. Any train ride is better than even a good day at work!

 

[user 683]

Thanks ! I know it was just a relatively short trip, but I thought folks may be interested in the general stats. I recently read Rafi's thread - where Mr. Hughes comments about the apparent 90% OTP in the NEC. My rides were certainly in that category

As for the apparent GG-1 sighting - I wish I could remember where I saw it. My first impression was that it was "rusted", but it could have been the distance, the dark paint scheme and the fact I didn't get the best look at the historic locomotive. Anyway, I did a little surfing to see if there was any information of the disposition of GG-1's. According to the GG-1 homepage, the United Historical Railroad Society of NJ has 4879 in open storage

GG-1 4879.

I don't know if this is the unit I spotted.

 

[AlanB]

Deimos,

Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I've had a very interesting/stressful weekend.

However, thanks for your trip report. It's too bad that I didn't know in advance about your trip to Port Jervis, as I would have directed you to a guide that our good friend Kevin Korell (aka. Superliner Diner) wrote for that line a few years back.

Just in case you'd still like to read it and relive part of the adventure, you can find his guide here.

 

[user 683]

Hi Alan -

Thanks for the very interesting link to Kevin's NJT page! I did not realize the Main and Bergen Lines had such an interesting history. I'm thinking about making another trip to NYC at some point this year, and perhaps then I'll make some time to ride all the way to Port Jervis.

Sorry to hear that you had a stressful weekend. Actually, I decided to venture off to NYC and the astronomy show since I really needed to break away from the day-to-day chaos.

Deimos