End of the Line? (A historic Princeton, N.J., rail line faces an uncertain future)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2010/end-of-the-line.html

By Eric Wills | Online Only | May 24, 2010

The engineer of the train affectionately known as the Dinky, the shortest regularly scheduled passenger line in the nation, stands on the Princeton Junction, N.J., platform on a recent Friday evening in May, waiting for N.J. Transit train number 3965 to arrive from New York Penn Station. The double-decker train comes gliding to a halt shortly after 6 p.m., and dozens of commuters spill forth, a blur of briefcases, ties, skirts, and backpacks. Many stride down the short walkway to the Dinky, a two-car train that serves the 2.7-mile spur between Princeton Junction and Princeton, the final leg of the commute from New York. The engineer takes hold of the Dinky's controls after the masses have boarded, and eases the train away from the platform as the conductor, his dark blue suit neatly pressed, starts punching tickets.

It's a scene that's been repeated countless times since the Dinky made its inaugural run in 1865, and though some things have changed—the line no longer terminates at the steps of Princeton University's Blair Hall, for instance, but rather a few hundred yards farther south—it endures as a beloved institution among townspeople, university students, and rail enthusiasts. But the end may be nearing for this historic train, which has shuttled such 20th-century intellectual heavyweights as Albert Einstein, John Maynard Keynes, and Thomas Mann. N.J. Transit has proposed replacing the Dinky with an express bus system, called bus rapid transit (BRT), as part of a $600 million-plus initiative to build a regional BRT system in central New Jersey.

Marvin Reed, the chair of the master plan subcommittee of Princeton's regional planning board and the borough's former mayor, has championed the plan, which would require paving over the Dinky's tracks to create an express bus lane, as a necessary upgrade. With N.J. Transit recently cutting costs by raising fares on the Dinky (now $2.75 one way) and running the train less frequently, Reed says, it's anyone's guess when the line may be eliminated altogether. BRT, in his estimation, would provide more efficient and frequent service. And, because the bus system would continue beyond the current station terminus in Princeton into the town center, he says, it would attract more riders and help alleviate traffic congestion.

Opponents of the plan have congregated online at the Save the Princeton Dinky Facebook page, started by Anita Garoniak, a Princeton resident. "I cannot stand by and watch them do this, get rid of another great piece of history that is so functional and useful," she remembers thinking when she launched the page, now more than 5,600 members strong, in early April. With schedules and recaps of town hall meetings and postings by candidates running for Princeton Borough council, the site has highlighted the way citizens can use social media sites to influence civic debate.

The Facebook page includes its share of nostalgic odes to the Dinky: tales of meeting spouses and cutting classes, for instance. The train is a part of Ivy League lore, once shuttling Yale and Harvard students to campus when their football teams faced Princeton. It also brought women from nearby colleges to the university in the days before coeducation, as immortalized in a scene from This Side of Paradise, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald (himself a Dinky rider) not long after he left Princeton. Celebrated Dinky riders of a literary persuasion in recent years include Toni Morrison, John McPhee, and Joyce Carol Oates.

I count myself among those with a sentimental attachment to the Dinky, having taken the train during my undergraduate years to visit friends in Philadelphia and New York. Decidedly dated, with its '70s-era décor of brown vinyl seats and linoleum floors, the Dinky nevertheless exuded a certain charm, perhaps because it compressed all the joys of train travel into a perfect five-minute window, sort of like an amusement park ride, only better, because the Dinky was real. For me, it served as the symbolic and literal link between the cozy Gothic confines of the Ivy League and the harsher, messier reality of the wider world. When I spoke to Andrew Koontz, a Princeton Borough council member opposed to the BRT proposal, he seized on this idea, likening the Dinky to the Staten Island Ferry, both iconic points of entry tied to the identities of their communities.


FULL story and photos at link.

[pnwmom]

1. I've ridden the Dinky. How sad to see it go. Thanks, Steve. n/t

[monmouth]

2. As a former Jerseyan, this saddens me.....n/t