History UsefulNotes / NewJerseyTransit

* The '''Main Line''' runs on the former Erie Railroad [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Main Line]] from Suffern on the border with UsefulNotes/{{New York|State}} in Bergen County through Bergen and Passaic Counties before going to Hoboken. Some services extend into New York's Rockland and Orange Counties to Port Jervis (on the Delaware River at the tripoint of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania); these services are called the "Port Jervis Line" when in New York and are operated by NJT under contract with the Metro-North Railroad.

* The '''Pascack Valley Line''' runs up the Pascack Valley in eastern Bergen County to Spring Valley in Rockland County, NY. The last three stations out from New York are, being in New York State, under the control of the Metro-North Railroad (itself under the control of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, i.e. the people who run the UsefulNotes/NewYorkSubway and UsefulNotes/LongIslandRailRoad) but let the NJT trains run under contract. This is how you get to your [[Music/BillyJoel house in Hackensack]].

-->''[[https://youtu.be/_MiQvQLveEg?t=1463 This station stop is New Brunswick. When leaving the train, please watch the gap]].''

The bus network is a complicated mess of local transit routes within the states urban areas, and interstate commuter routes, running from suburban areas to New York City or Philadelphia. And there's definite overlap between the areas served by both types. NYC-bound buses mostly use the Port Authority Bus Terminal near Times Square, an infamously crowded and shabby bus station that is still the busiest bus station in the world, while Philly-bound buses generally stop at several points along East Market Street until they reach City Hall and end up (somehow) at the rather less impressive Philadelphia long-distance bus staton. Some commuter routes are run by private companies, using charters (and even buses) supplied by NJT. A few counties run supplemental bus services, as do a few other institutions (perhaps the most famous being Rutgers University's system of campus buses in New Brunswick/Piscataway).[[note]]Incidentally, since Middlesex County is one of the counties that runs its own supplemental system, also centered on New Brunswick (the county seat), this means New Brunswick is served by three separate bus systems--none of which seem to be coordinated with each other or able to get you where you want to go when you want to get there.[[/note]] Altogether, it's a very busy bus network, but good luck figuring it out.

NJ Transit Rail Operations itself has a twofold division: it is divided into the Hoboken Division and the Newark Division. This separation is based on the historical antecedents of the modern lines. The Hoboken Division consists of trains that run to Hoboken Terminal, which was originally built in 1908 by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which in 1960 merged with the Erie Railroad as the Erie-Lackawanna (the Erie having already moved their operations to Hoboken a few years prior). Passengers on those lines traditionally had to transfer at Hoboken to PATH trains or ferries to reach New York City (such waterfront train-to-ferry terminals were once more common; there were once five separate terminals each serving different railroads). The Newark Division is composed mostly of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin trains that run through Newark Penn Station]] on former Pennsylvania Railroad track directly to Penn Station in Midtown, and also includes the former Central Railroad of New Jersey, which was rerouted in 1968. Today, the distinction is somewhat blurred, especially considering that the Atlantic City Line (which goes to New York not at all) is considered part of the Newark Division (it was part-owned by the Pennsylvania RR), some Hoboken Division trains on the ex-Lackawanna lines run "Midtown Direct" to New York Penn via a track connection in Kearny (along with the inverse of a few Newark Division trains running to Hoboken), and the construction of the massive [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secaucus_Junction Secaucus Junction]] station[[note]]Which [[NonIndicativeName is not, technically speaking, an actual junction]], as trains can't switch between the intersecting lines; the Newark Division track runs ''over'' the Hoboken Division track, with no direct communication between the two. That said, it ''is'' a "junction" in the sense that matters to commuters: nearly all the lines meet here.[[/note]] allowing easy transfers between Hoboken and Newark Division trains, but as an operational matter the separation is still important.

NJ Transit also operates three light rail systems, a mode of local transit that's lower capacity than a subway, and runs mostly at street level, but unlike streetcars (trams), runs mostly in its own right-of-way, not sharing lanes with cars and trucks.

-->''This station stop is New Brunswick. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.''

* The '''Atlantic City Line''' runs between Philadelphia's 30th Street Station and Atlantic City on former Pennsylvania Railroad track. It is the only full commuter rail service in South Jersey; it finds its heaviest regular use among casino workers traveling from the last few stops along the line, albeit with gamblers coming from pretty much everywhere as a close second (the line descends from a former Amtrak service informally called the "Gambler's Express"). Mostly single-tracked today, there's talk of increasing the amount of double-tracking. The line was closed from September 2018 through May 2019 to install Positive Train Control technology and finish some other much-needed repairs. It has important connections to the PATCO at Lindenwold and to the River Line at Pennsauken.

* The '''Bergen County Line''' runs as a loop to the east of the Main Line, staying more or less entirely within Bergen County: going out from New York, it separates from the Main Line after Secaucus Junction and rejoins between Glen Rock and Ridgewood.
* The '''Pascack Valley Line''' runs down the Pascack Valley in eastern Bergen County up to Spring Valley in Rockland County, NY. The last three stations out from New York are, being in New York State, under the control of the Metro-North Railroad (itself under the control of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, i.e. the people who run the UsefulNotes/NewYorkSubway and UsefulNotes/LongIslandRailroad) but let the NJT trains run under contract. This is how you get to your [[Music/BillyJoel house in Hackensack]].

* The '''Montclair-Boonton Line''' is a northwesterly service, serving northwestern Essex County (including where Series/TheSopranos lived, and Montclair, home of Montclair State University). The terminus is in Hackettstown, in Warren County, where the M&M/Mars factory is. It was pieced together from three different lines[[note]]The Montclair Branch and the Boonton Line, which were connected in 2002, as well as the Greenwood Lake Division of the former Erie Railroad[[/note]], and only took its current form in 2002. There is talk of extending a branch of it from Lake Hopatcong via the "Lackawanna Cut-Off" up across Sussex and Warren Counties and into UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}, going to Stroudsburg and possibly going as far as Scranton; work has already begun on this project, but only as far as Andover in Sussex County (expected to be complete in 2016).

* The '''Raritan Valley Line''' follows old Central Railroad of New Jersey track down the valley of the Raritan River in Essex, Union, Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon Counties. Stereotypically, Raritan Valley Line commuters are comfortable, wealthy professionals, although this isn't always exactly true. There are two proposals to extend it; under one proposal, the line would extend west from its current terminus at High Bridge and cross into Warren County to terminate either in Phillipsburg[[note]]which would reverse a decision made at the end of 1983 to truncate service from Phillipsburg back to High Bridge; six years later, the line between Phillipsburg and Bloomsbury would be severed during construction of Interstate 78 to avoid having to build over disused trackage.[[/note]], or across the river in Pennsylvania (with Easton being the likely choice, although nearby Allentown is possible). Under the other proposal, a branch of the line would turn southwest at Bound Brook and cross Somerset and Mercer Counties to meet [[UsefulNotes/PhiladelphiaSubways SEPTA's]] West Trenton Line at West Trenton in Ewing Township, providing a second route between New York and Philadelphia, albeit one significantly less direct than the Northeast Corridor Line/Trenton Line path.

** The '''Princeton Branch''', also known as the Princeton Dinky, is a very short line operated by a single pair of cars running between Princeton Junction on the Northeast Corridor Line and Princeton Station in the town of Princeton itself. Naturally used by [[UsefulNotes/IvyLeague Princeton]] students and profs; also used by ordinary middle-class folks from Central Jersey visiting Princeton to splurge on the fancy restaurants, bars, and shopping and Rutgers students coming to gawp and toss insults at the Princeton preps.

NJ Transit also operates three light rail lines. Light rail, of course, is what might elsewhere be called a tram or a trolley, except not really; these vehicles go on journeys of over 20 miles on dedicated track. What really differentiates them is their smaller size that allows them to engage in street running.

* '''Newark Light Rail''': Also called the Newark City Subway, it is not a true "subway" but rather a two-line light rail system with some underground elements. The route was noteworthy in railfan circles for its use of 1940s-vintage Presidents Conference Committee (PCC) streetcars from 1954 until their retirement in 2001. There's talk of extending it down Broad Street to serve southern parts of Newark, and then further parallel to the Northeast Corridor tracks to serve Elizabeth, but nothing has come of this. A formerly independent system, operations were taken over by NJT in 1980. There's been a lot of talk about expansion, but nothing's come of it. As it's an extension of Newark's old streetcar network, which in its heyday was run by Transport of New Jersey, Newark Light rail is run by NJT Bus Operations.
* '''Hudson-Bergen Light Rail''': An extremely misleading name: it only operates in Hudson County (the only Bergen it goes to is North Bergen, which is in Hudson County immediately south of the Bergen County line. Don't ask.). A light rail system running mostly on old railroad track, plus some new track in downtown Jersey City and elsewhere, this is the transportation backbone of Hudson County. Expansion plans are constantly under discussion but never in the clear. Unlike most other NJ Transit operations, this is run under contract by URS.

NJ Transit Rail Operations itself has a twofold division: it is divided into the Hoboken Division and the Newark Division. The historical reasons for their separation is slightly complicated, but it boils down to this: the way the tracks were laid, some trains (those descended from the services of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Reading Railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and the Lehigh Valley/Delaware, Susquehanna, & Lackawanna/Erie Railroad) have historically had to terminate either in Hoboken or at the now-museumified Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City, and you had to take either a ferry or the PATH to get to Manhattan if that was your destination. These train lines form the Hoboken Division; they now all nominally run to Hoboken, except for some Morristown Line and Gladstone Branch trains that run "Midtown Direct" to New York Penn through a connector in Kearny. The Newark Division is composed mostly of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin trains that ran through Newark Penn Station]] on former Pennsylvania Railroad track, and ran directly to Penn Station in Midtown. Today, the distinction is somewhat blurred, especially considering that the Atlantic City Line (which goes to New York not at all) is considered part of the Newark Division, some Hoboken Division trains run as "Midtown Direct" services to Penn Station as said before along with the inverse of a few Newark Division trains running to Hoboken, and the construction of the massive [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secaucus_Junction Secaucus Junction]] station[[note]]Which [[NonIndicativeName is not, technically speaking, an actual junction]], as trains can't switch between the intersecting lines; the Newark Division track runs ''over'' the Hoboken Division track, with no direct communication between the two. That said, it ''is'' a "junction" in the sense that matters to commuters: nearly all the lines meet here.[[/note]] allowing easy transfers between Hoboken and Newark Division trains, but as an operational matter the separation is still important.

* '''Newark Light Rail''': Also called the Newark City Subway, it is not a true "subway" but rather a two-line light rail system with some underground elements. There's talk of extending it down Broad Street to serve southern parts of Newark, and then further parallel to the Northeast Corridor tracks to serve Elizabeth, but nothing has come of this. A formerly independent system, operations were taken over by NJT in 1980. There's been a lot of talk about expansion, but nothing's come of it. As it's an extension of Newark's old streetcar network, which in its heyday was run by Transport of New Jersey, Newark Light rail is run by NJT Bus Operations.