Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2015-05-05 17:27:33 - Graham Ellis
We get used to - and familiar with - our own systems and their rules. Be that behaviour and politeness, shop arrangements or transport. And travelling the world (as I'm doing for a couple of weeks) gives an opportunity to see other people's systems, learn about them - at times with a degree of discomfort for both myself and for the other people.
Much of what I post about is transport related, and I get opportunities to make suggestions and push forward ideas - some of which have been taken up (or I have taken up) with good results. And I'm not afraid to learn the good and the bad, and learn what should be questioned about what I've accepted as the standard way of doing things. And on that basis, I enjoyed my day out from Newark, New Jersey into Downtown New York on Friday.
Newark City Centre is a high rise US Commercial City - with modern and old buildings, parks for people and parks for cars and wide street with potholes which make the UK's roads look near-perfect. The trucks are heavier, the number of lanes in even an urban street would be over-provision in the UK, and cars honk their horns at 3 in the morning - at least they did at the base of our 15 story hotel, and their sound reached up to the fifth floor. A tour coach checking in the previous evening had caused long lines at the elevator (sorry - let me translate - a long queue for the lifts and - first big shock - I had asked about the altenative staircase and been told there wasn't one - only the emergency escape on the outside of the building.
Anyway ... Newark's Penn Central station is just "two long blocks" from the hotel we're in. I've asked (and failed) to find a conversion factor from "long blocks" into yards or metres, but it's not very far. And just one block from the hotel is a tram stop - looks new and modern, but on walking that block the service looked like it was a 20 to 30 minute wait, and the TVM looked like it was out of order; the price wasn't obvious for our short journey had we taken in, and (as ususal) the posters saying what could happen if we failed to follow the rules were threatening. So we walked and I can't tell you about the tram ride, nor whether the fare should have been %body%.70 or .50, nor how we could pay.
Newark's Penn Central is served by buses - LOTS of buses. By Amtrak trains. By NJ Transit trains. By the trams (on two routes), and by PATH - that's Port Authority Trans-Hudson, owned and operated by the Port Authtority of New Jersey and New York. Arriving on foot into the grand old station - it's a wow of old architecture. There are ticket and information desks for various lines, shops and cafes, and an information booth. Signs point to platforms (sorry - tracks) 1 to 5, and there's a sign that says "PATH" also pointing up to a platform.
How to get a ticket? On look around for a booking office, and scratching one's head, one asks at the information. Looked at as if I'm an idiot tourist, I'm told that PATH tickets are bought up on the platform. Obvious really (??) and up we trot to find turnstile gates and a serices of ticket macshones. The ticket machines, though, seem to sell different tickets to the one they're advertising - and having found a vaguely suitable product we set about getting a couple on our credit card. Furstrating, it's going to have to be one at a time - but never mind, that can be done ... except that we're asked to enter the Zip code the card is registered to as our security check ... and "SN...." isn't accepted. Fortunatley, there's a helpful team member who's there to pick up confused users and she approaches us; it appears that the easiest way to get a ticket is a preloaded card from the the snack bar, which we duly did - with the price, mind you, bearing no resemblance I could see to the options on the machines.
But - there are two of us. We need two tickets. "No - just swipe to get one of you in, pass the card back and the second person swipes in". And so we did, with the smiling approval of the team helper. Goodness - if we tried that in London with an Oyster card, alarms would sound and we would be in trouble - and seeing how different the US system is, I begin to appreciate even more the problems UK visitors must have.
PATH runs 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Don't know how they do maintenance. Trains are every few minutes at peak times, down to a couple an hour during the early hurs. The red line runs from the PATH "Manhattan bound" track at Newark, via four or five intermediate stations, to the World Trade Centre. But we changed at Journal Square onto the 33rd Street service. It was midmorning, trains were long and busy. Fairly old, and with features like a conductor's panel that I remember from old undergrounds but are long gone in London. Fast running from Harrison to Journal Square ... much more slower as we wisted and turned after changing. The majority of the network is in New Jersey, but both branches reach out under the Hudson River, feeding New Jersey commuter into Manhattan, New York. A third rail tunnel - that of the Penn Central - runs in to the New York Penn Central station, and that's shared by the NJ transit trains. Using them would have been quicker, but offered us less of the local flavour.
A selection of pictures follows ... of the journey into New York (33rd) and back out from World Trade Centre. There are so many difference to note - the banning of food and drinkconsption on the train, the platforms with roof supports very close to the track, yellow lines at the edge and not a metre back. And so many similarities too. Enjoy the pictures.
