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Old 10-22-2011, 01:02 AM
 
24,488 posts, read 40,988,056 times
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With the exception of one ass-hole train conductor on the Northeast Corridor (an older possibly indian [total guess] with white/gray mustache)....... all the train conductors have been extremely professional, accommodating, and professional.

The particular guy I mentioned above is an ass-hole based on how I've witnessed him treat other passengers. I have not had a conflict with him personally.
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Old 10-22-2011, 01:07 AM
 
24,488 posts, read 40,988,056 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey View Post
Actually there are rules on the train , there common courtesy rules and if you violate them you can be thrown off the train or arrested. The other passengers complained to the conductor and she took action. It was probably getting to the point of where a fight was about to occur which often happens. Cursing and causing a scene in a close space such as a train is called Disorderly conduct....
Just to be clear, cursing alone, no matter how much, cannot be considered disorderly conduct.
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Old 10-22-2011, 01:11 AM
 
Location: On the Rails in Northern NJ
12,380 posts, read 26,751,821 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest View Post
Just to be clear, cursing alone, no matter how much, cannot be considered disorderly conduct.
From what I know there were a few threats and alot of people complained....some before anything erupting into fighting the conductor stepped in.
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Old 10-22-2011, 01:13 AM
 
Location: On the Rails in Northern NJ
12,380 posts, read 26,751,821 times
Reputation: 4580
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanuttree View Post
if these things as the OP has described have happened, then they are an issue. Our tax money goes to these systems, and the systems are public property. The various authorities may own titles on the locomotives and cars and other stuff, but the lines are public property, and anyway our tax money goes to them. The transit systems are a public service, and so we should get some service out of them.

You wouldn't see crappy treatment of customers if the trains were private carriers, on top of them being cheaper, and there'd be many more lines going all over the place, Freehold, Hackensack to Hawthorne, etc. But for no good reason our governments turned them into government-run things and started sucking our tax money, so those SOB's better give us some damned service.
All the projects that will be completed by 2020 / 2025 in the NE Megapolis , some have been placed into budgets for engineering and construction preps later this decade , a few have started and some are almost finished.

Streetcar / Trolley , Light Rail or Subway
Electrified Commuter Rail
Diesel Commuter Rail

Line Name - State Served - Length - stations - Ridership estimates

New Haven - Springfield line - CT/MA - 60.5 miles - 12 stations - 45,000
Gateway Access - NJ/NY - 4 miles - 3 stations - 140,000
Phase 1 Lackawanna line - NJ/PA - 195 miles - 25 stations - 15,000
Penn Station New Haven line Access - NY - 19 Miles - 5 stations - 30,000
Penn Station Hudson line Access - NY - 12 miles - 3 stations - 15,000
Danbury line extension to New Milford - CT - 15 miles - 2 stations - 5,000
Bayfront Light Rail Extension - NJ - 0.4 mile - 1 station - 25,000
Newport / Fall River line - 80 miles - MA - 20 stations - 35,000
Stoughton / New Bedford line - MA - 55 miles - 15 stations - 20,000

Cape Cod line - MA - 90 miles - 22 stations - 25,000
Wickford JCT / Kingston line - RI - 20 miles - 10 stations - 15,000
Quonset line - RI - 5 miles - 2 stations - 4,500

Woonsocket line - RI/MA - 43 miles - 12 stations - 15,000
Northampton / Brattleboro line - MA/VT - 60 miles - 10 stations - 15,000
East Side Access - NY - 3 miles - 1 station - 150,000
Penn line extension to Wilmington - MD/DE - 20 miles - 5 stations - 8,500
Millville / Glassboro light Rail line - NJ - 42 miles - 21 stations - 30,000
MOM Rail Network - NJ - 85 miles - 35 stations - 140,000
56 Trolley - PA - 8 miles - 20 stations - 50,000
23 Trolley - PA - 10 miles - 25 stations - 65,000
Baltimore Red line - MD - 25 miles - 20 stations - 65,000
Purple line Light Rail - MD - 19 miles - 21 stations - 50,000
Metro Silver line - DC/VA - 30 miles - 11 stations - 90,000
DC Streetcar network - DC - 45 miles - 60 stations - 120,000
Phase 1 Second Avenue Subway - NY - 3 miles - 3 stations - 140,000
7 line Extension to Westside - NY - 3 miles - 3 stations - 55,000
Arlington / Alexandria Streetcars - VA - 20 miles - 30 stations - 60,000
PATH EWR - NJ - 3 miles - 2 stations - 12,000
Green line extension to Somerville - MA - 4 miles - 8 stations - 40,000
Northern Branch Light Rail - NJ - 12 miles - 9 stations - 25,000
Providence Streetcar - RI - 6 miles - 7 stations - 15,000
New Haven Streetcar - CT - 5 miles - 10 stations - 40,000
Stamford Streetcar - CT - 7 miles - 7 stations - 28,000

Last edited by DarkWolf; 10-22-2011 at 01:22 AM..
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Old 10-22-2011, 07:56 AM
 
19,038 posts, read 25,119,442 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanuttree View Post
But for no good reason our governments turned them into government-run things and started sucking our tax money.




As the philosopher, Santayana said, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In this case, the "no good reason" why NJ Transit is a government-run operation is because of the incredibly sorry state of privately-run passenger rail companies in the NY/NJ area that began in the 1950s, and culminated with the bankruptcy of many private rail entities by the '70s.

As a child, I can recall riding in trains of The Jersey Central RR, in the mid-1950s, and to say that the interior of the cars was filthy is to understate the situation to an incredible extent. The window sills were--literally--black with grime, the floors were dirty and littered, and the windows were so filthy that they were essentially opaque. The seat upholstery was threadbare, and the lavatories were---unspeakably filthy. The stations were decaying, with unheated waiting rooms and leaking roofs, and they were frequently rat-infested.

Back in that same era, my rides on The Long Island RR were similar in ambiance and hygiene to the rides that I took on The Jersey Central RR. The one time that I rode on a train of The New Haven RR revealed essentially the same type of conditions. The New Haven RR was also notorious for late and absent trains, due to very frequent breakdowns of their decrepit rolling stock.

The only RR in this area that I can recall as not being extremely run-down was the Erie Lackawanna, but since I rode only on their premier Phoebe Snow train, I cannot comment about the condition of their "regular" trains.

And then, one by one, these privately-run entities declared bankruptcy. So--why do we have NJ Transit, Metro North, and other government-run rail facilities? Because without government intervention, there would be no commuter rail facilities in NJ and the NY Metro area!

Peanuttree--you have no clue about what you are commenting on and criticizing.

Last edited by Retriever; 10-22-2011 at 09:11 AM..
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Old 10-22-2011, 08:54 AM
 
Location: East Rutherford, NJ
1,202 posts, read 3,019,004 times
Reputation: 943
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanuttree View Post
But for no good reason our governments turned them into government-run things and started sucking our tax money, so those SOB's better give us some damned service.
Yeah they just decided back in the 70s and 80s "A gee this'll be a lot of fun!".

No.

Nearly every major railroad in the north east at the time was facing bankruptcy, largely due to influx of trucking and automobile travel. Freight and passenger service (which most railroads provided at the time) were both on the downfall. So to save the north east's rail industry, the government merged all the failing railroads and their track networks into the Consolidated Rail Corporation, better known as Conrail (or Big Blue to railfans).

Conrail took over all the freight and passenger operations from the Jersey Central, Erie Lackawanna, Penn Central, Lehigh Valley, and more. It lost money for years and years, but eventually started to turn a profit.

In the 1983, Conrail handed off their NJ regional commuter rail operations to the NJDOT's newly formed NJ Transit.

So no actually, the government doesn't have these in place to suck money from us. These rail operations would possibly not even exist today if there wasn't a government intervention.
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Old 10-22-2011, 01:57 PM
 
1,392 posts, read 2,091,392 times
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doubtless the crappy state of the trains back then had more to do with taxes, the unions, and crappy rail right-of-way policies and regulations than anything else. Of course they won't have any money to clean things if you tax them to death. If you make it impossible to profit then of course the things are going to go bankrupt

All the railroads are already there. There's barely an investment needed. Just put the freggin trains on the freggin tracks. But no, a whole slew of ridiculous FRA regulations makes it so that they "need" to spend like $100 million doing "research" on opening the line and "environmental impact". What environmental impact? It's a freggin train, you just put it on the tracks and it goes. And it's better for the environment because it uses less fuel.

There is plenty of private sector money to go around that could be invested in doing what little actual improvements need to be made with switching and signaling infrastructure if there were some hope of a profit. The NYC subways were built to a large extent with 30 or 40 year leases and investments by private companies.
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Old 10-22-2011, 02:08 PM
 
1,392 posts, read 2,091,392 times
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History of How the Government ruined Amtrak and the Railroad industry

Let's see, forcing NY Central to incorporate a bankrupt rail company.
Endless regulations enforcing more employees, ridiculous schedule scriptures, etc.

There's a place for regulations but if they suck they're going to choke an industry.

You don't need to be a big-L Libertarian to see that, or even a little libertarian. It's just common sense.

Reading about the propsed Tenafly-Hudson-Begrn-Lightrail line, I read apparently FRA has a regulation that says that if a freight line is going to also carry passengers, there has to be a 6-hour difference in the schedule, for "safety" to avoid collisions. Something like that. There is a safety issue but come on.
Just one example of dumb regulations can pile on to kill an industry.
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Old 10-22-2011, 04:52 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,007 posts, read 83,827,560 times
Reputation: 114231
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanuttree View Post
doubtless the crappy state of the trains back then had more to do with taxes, the unions, and crappy rail right-of-way policies and regulations than anything else. Of course they won't have any money to clean things if you tax them to death. If you make it impossible to profit then of course the things are going to go bankrupt

All the railroads are already there. There's barely an investment needed. Just put the freggin trains on the freggin tracks. But no, a whole slew of ridiculous FRA regulations makes it so that they "need" to spend like $100 million doing "research" on opening the line and "environmental impact". What environmental impact? It's a freggin train, you just put it on the tracks and it goes. And it's better for the environment because it uses less fuel.

There is plenty of private sector money to go around that could be invested in doing what little actual improvements need to be made with switching and signaling infrastructure if there were some hope of a profit. The NYC subways were built to a large extent with 30 or 40 year leases and investments by private companies.
There's a lot more to an environmental impact study than how much fuel is used.
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Old 10-22-2011, 06:26 PM
 
181 posts, read 302,604 times
Reputation: 77
Quote:
Originally Posted by sas0814 View Post
Are useless!

I've been experiencing nothing but trouble with these workers lately.

Either they don't care about their job and do nothing, or they take it too seriously like they're police officers.

Twice this month I had trouble.

I get on the train, sit there reading, notice nothing because I was reading and didn't hear any announcement, then suddenly I look up and we're in Hoboken instead of NY. This has happened to me numerous times so I know how to take the Path into NY, but I complained because they didn't tell anyone and when I asked the lady why they didn't announce the re-routing, she literally went bezerk like I was bothering her. They I play dumb and ask what to do, and she acts like she's off duty and walks away. I filed a complaint, but the next day the lady was working again and still treating customers poorly.

Then yesterday, I get on the train, reach for my monthly and realized I left my wallet in my car at the parking lot. I get off at the next stop and cross over to go back. Trains comes right away and I explain the situation and the conductors tries to argue with me. I had no money, ID or train pass, I was a single female and it was dark out. He made it seem like he was losing money personally to let me ride back one stop. I reported him, but today I saw him working again.

Also, since the quiet cars have been in operation, they never do anything to stop the ignorant people, I see passengers approach loud mouths instead of the conductors.

They also almost always let people put their feet on the seats, which makes them dirty for everyone. One lady today had smelly bare feet all over the seats and the conductor just walked by. The whole car smelled like her feet and some poor person had to sit in that seat after she got off. Gross.

My train pass is $193/mo for this service?!
That's union people for ya, you want them to do what?
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