The benefit of ending daylight savings time this weekend means I wake up much earlier than normal. I’m awake at 7:00 on the new time, a day without anything real on my agenda. I decide its finally time to get more of the Morristown Line and it’s waiting rooms that close ridiculously early, nearly all by 1:00pm. My first goal of the day is to finally get inside Orange Station, its closing time 9:30am. My goal is the 8:18 Midtown Direct train from Penn Station that will get me there at 8:45. I know I’m cutting it very close and see the A train leaving at 181 Street as I get off the elevator, this means I’m stuck waiting six minutes for the next one. I get off at Penn Station at 8:18 and by the time I get to the main Amtrak lobby the train is fully off the boards clearly departed. I stop at a TVM to buy my $6.25 ticket to Orange. Then it’s a quick stop in the ClubAcela for some coffee and a cinnamon roll (all they have, stamped all the way from the New Orleans commissary). I then have to push my way down a thrash of arriving commuters (without spilling my coffee that lacks a lid) down to track 2 for the 8:32 Montclair train to Newark Broad Street where I’ll switch to a Hackettstown Local to Orange arriving at 9:22 (Orange, please don’t close early!)
The train leaves on time at 8:32 and very chipper conductor simply says “Montclair Service” to everyone collecting my ticket as we pass a bumper to bumper jam Newark-bound on I-280. I get off at Newark-Broad Street–(7 Photos) at 8:50 for about a 20 minute stop getting some photos of the trains during the morning rush. The most interesting train that comes in is a Morristown Line diesel train from Lake Hopatcong. It has a dual-mode ALP-45DP in electric mode (the pantograph clearly went up in Dover) but it lowers its pantograph to run using diesel the rest of the way under wire into Hoboken during its station stop, I wonder why?
The 3 car Arrow-III train of my Gladstone Local that originated in Hoboken arrives on time at 9:12 and its a quick 10 minute ride to Orange–(12 Photos) where I get off at 9:22 dashing through the underpass to get the photos I’m desperate for of the interior of the station house. It’s still open, another person waiting inside and I see the ticket agent absorbed in doing his end of shift accounting but the window not yet closed.
I also got to Brick Church–(33 Photos) too late to get interior photos of its station house on my previous photo essay visit. I walk the short distance that’s under a mile through the Oranges to get back there (their the same fare zone, so no differences in price for my next ticket). There ticketing is a total mess. The ticket office has a sign on it saying that its computer is down and unable to ticket anyone. To make matters worse the TVMs on the platform both have No Cash error messages (I buy my $4.00 ticket to Chatham fine by the way using a prepaid credit card I got through a mail in rebate). A couple passengers ask the ticket agent who is sitting in the office (window shade half down) if they will be subject to the surcharge on board since the station fully lacks a way right now to buy a ticket with cash (I believe the answer is the surcharge will be waved judging from the conductor doing on board ticketing for a person who boarded here on my earlier outbound train just with cash). I hear one passenger yell at the agent “You Don’t Have to Have an attitude!”
My next stop of the day of Chatham but the next train there isn’t until 10:29 so I have a longer revisit to Brick Church (spending some of it sitting in the waiting room) than I really desire. It is soon an uneventful ride there where I spend nearly half an hour photographing the platform with a nice historic station house (closing at 1:00pm, ticket office closed at 9:00am) and similar historic shelter on the outbound side.
I then walk the 2 miles to Madison where I’m totally blown away by the stone structure with a grand but small on platform waiting room complete with lighting above the various benches. It also has an underpass and still open shelter on the outbound platform (the outbound platform is now forced to be open at all times because a new elevator is inside of it). I can’t believe that this grand station is only open to the public until 1:30pm on weekdays, it’s up there as the gradest intermediate stop in New Jersey I’ve every visited.
I stop for lunch at C J’s an extremely local New Jersey deli where my panini is absolutely perfect. I then hit the road again to the simple Convent Station that is at the first grade crossing on the Morristown Line that provides access to an actual convent. This station also has a still open outbound platform shelter and station house on the inbound platform that seems to be the only Morristown Line Station (except for Summit and South Orange) to stay open after midday, with both having signs calming their open until 8:00pm on all days.
I buy my next ticket for a whopping $2.25 from Convent Station all the way to Gillette on the Gladstone Branch that will give me a free stopover at Summit. I take the 2:22pm train to Summit, noticing people still inside the waiting room at Chatham that has signs saying it closes at 1:00pm. I arrive in Summit at 2:35 where I have nearly an hour before the next outbound Gladstone Branch Train.
This trip was so spontaneous that I’ve forgotten to charge my camera and iPhone, both are on their death beds. I get some photos of Summit (its a station I’ll bet I’ll be back at on my next Morristown Line trip to finish off Morristown and Mount Tabor and get some more Gladstone Branch Stations using that great deal) and end up in a Starbucks across the street where I try and read but get distracted by all the school children getting out and going there to chat with their friends. I return to the station a bit before the next Gladstone Branch train at 3:29.
My Gladstone Branch train comes in right on time and I can’t believe the number of teenage school children that are getting on in Summit and using it commute. I decide I might as well get off in Gillette. I do and spend a little bit more time than I should and don’t walk fast enough to Berkeley Heights where the next inbound train at 4:16. I get my photo essay of Berkeley Heights and then decide that walking the 2 miles to Murray Hill is better than spending over an hour on the freezing platform. It ends up being a walk into the dusk past a bunch of suburbian office parks who’s locations I wasn’t aware of, dusk and darkness with the resumption of Standard Time and I get to Murray Hill with too little light to get photos of any significance.
The warm station house is to my surprise open and quite a few people are waiting with me for the 5:31 train that is the last on the Gladstone Branch (except for one train that originates here at 7:22) until the late evening (leaving Peapack at 8:08) because of the single track nature of the line that sends trains only running in the peak direction to provide the best service to the most number of customers.
The 5:31 train is an uneventful ride on a local train with an odd stopping pattern skipping Short Hills, Millburn, and Maplewood before making every local stop in the Oranges. I’m feeling cheep and have only bought a $5.25 ticket to Newark-Broad Street (instead of $9 to Hoboken or $10 ticket to Penn Station, in all situations you can get a better deal to these far off destinations with a second ticket from Newark-Broad Street).
From Newark-Broad I hit my tired feet again and have a nice walk through the evening to Harrison–(9 Photos) on the PATH, I miss the train fumbling for my SmartLink Card (I really need to take my various Clipper, TAP, SOLO, and OPUS cards out of my wallet, they keep counter acting the SmartLink Card and bring up error messages on PATH’s turnstiles).
PATH soon comes again and I get off at World Trade Center and walk through the crowds to Broadway-Nassau-Fulton Street where an A train is arriving as I walk down the stairs, no wait for once today as I head home happy a bit more of New Jersey Transit and its really interesting and historic Morristown Line is now in the books for the SubwayNut.