Save Cornwells Heights
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
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The
New Amtrak Commuting Schedule Starts Monday, October 31st
Starting
Monday, there will no longer be trains to New York City from Cornwells Heights
at 6:55 and 8:11 in the morning. The
new times will be 6:15 and 7:43. Our
new trains will arrive in New York an average of 20 minutes faster than our old
trains.
From Cornwells
Heights to New York City
The
6:30 train returning to Cornwells Heights from New York City will remain on the
schedule. The 3:40, 5:30, 6:09, and
11:59 trains currently stopping at Cornwells Heights will no longer do so. A 5:39 train has been added, though, and
will arrive earlier than the 5:30 used to.
Our new pair of return trains will arrive at Cornwells Heights an
average of 10 minutes faster than the old 5:30-6:09-6:30 set.
From New York
City to Cornwells Heights
All
trains stop at Newark – 19 minutes before New York inbound, 17 minutes after
New York outbound. Direct trains 180
and 193 skip Trenton. None stop at
Princeton Junction. Train #630 is
expected to change its run to approximately a 6:30-leaving-to-7:32-arrival
schedule after track work on the Harrisburg line is completed some unknown
number of months down the line.
Overall, commuting to and from New York City should require about 30
fewer minutes of train time per day on the new schedule.
Stay
Tuned To www.savecornwellsheights.com For
Future Station News
Though
the Cornwells Heights station remains open for Amtrak commuting, the future of
commuting from this station remains murky.
We will soon have a much more expensive monthly ticket price, $870, than
Trenton’s New Jersey Transit price of $320.
That may drive former and future Amtrak riders to either take their cars
and themselves up to Trenton or take the SEPTA/NJT combo package at a cost of
about an extra hour and a half or more of commute time per day. Amtrak is in some of the worst funding
trouble in its entire 30-some-year life and is, itself, not a very stable
company. The Northeast Corridor may be
split off, initially as an Amtrak subsidiary, and it is not clear what that
might mean for the station. An
alternative, less expensive vendor of rail commuting could even show up on the
same tracks in a few years.
I
intend to keep the website going with periodic updates because we’re not
entirely out of the woods yet. I’ll try
to keep current schedules, commuting and general station usage tips, and
relevant news about Amtrak health, ticket costs, and even travel alternatives
on the site. I am hoping, with the help
of local politicians, to get a station name change put through so that the name
“Bensalem” is associated with the station, possibly in combination with the
name “Bucks.” Cornwells Heights was a
postal address until 1979 when it essentially vanished and became part of
Bensalem’s postal purview. Much of the
station’s low usage rate may be traced to its these-days-mysterious name which
can’t be found on maps. I’ve become
rather deeply invested in the station’s future success, and expect to keep
working to promote it indefinitely, in the hope that its usage will grow to the
point that they wouldn’t dare try to throw us off the Northeast Corridor again.
I’m
always appreciative of e-mail. Thoughts
on changing the name now are particularly welcome.
–
Rick
What
If I Want To Come Home Early Or Late?
Alternative
return trains for monthly pass holders are believed (subject to arcane
Amtrak restriction changes) to include the following:
From New York
City to Trenton (with SPETA Connection)
The
first three “early” trains make SEPTA connections, according to the current
online schedule, with 4, 8, and 33 minutes to change trains respectively,
giving scheduled arrivals at Cornwells Heights at 4:58, 5:25, and 6:13. The first two of these connections appear to
be tenuous, so an extra 28 to 48 minutes could occur there on connection miss.
Among
the evening trains, the first two give 14 and 10 minutes to change trains
respectively, arriving at Cornwells Heights at 8:58 and 9:58. The last two trains both connect with only
the last SEPTA train out of Trenton at 12:10, arriving at Cornwells Heights at
12:28. The 11:00 train gives 14 minutes
to make the connection, and could end up missing it at times. The 10:05 gives a 72-minute wait at Trenton,
but pretty much guarantees you won’t have to take a cab home.
Goodbye,
Clockers. Best Wishes, Old Friends.
With
the transfer of Amtrak’s Clocker service to New Jersey Transit, Amtrak will
nearly cease originating trains out of Philadelphia. Conductors, many our friends and acquaintances for years, will be
asked to report to work in other cities like Washington and New York, even
though many have homes in Philadelphia and Bucks County. Engineers, too. Other workers at Philadelphia’s Amtrak rail yards, the men and
women who have serviced our trains and kept them running well all these years,
will likely be less fortunate and will simply be laid off, many having served
Amtrak for nearly thirty years.
Philadelphia rail service will likely show the effects of these cutbacks
in the next few months as winter comes.
Let’s
hope we see some familiar faces again on the new trains we will be riding. And please take a moment to remember those
we never really knew who kept us on the rails on good days and on bad. They all have deserved to see the railroad
come to better than this.
Thanks,
best wishes, and goodbye, old friends.
–
Rick