Pennsylvania Station (Newark)


Pennsylvania Station is an intermodal passenger station in Newark, New Jersey. One of the New York metropolitan area's major transportation hubs, Newark Penn Station is served by multiple rail and bus carriers, making it the seventh-busiest rail station in North America, and the fourth-busiest in the New York area. Located at Raymond Plaza, between Market Street and Raymond Boulevard, it is served by the Newark Light Rail, three NJ Transit commuter rail lines, the PATH rapid transit system, and all 11 of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor services. The station is also Newark's main intercity bus terminal; it is served by carriers Greyhound, Peter Pan, and Trailways. Additionally, it is served by 33 local and regional bus lines operated by NJ Transit Bus Operations and ONE Bus.

History

Designed by the renowned architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, the station has Art Deco and Neo-Classical features. The main waiting room has medallions showing the history of transportation, from wagons to steamships to cars and airplanes, the eventual doom of the railroad age. Chandeliers are decorated with Zodiac signs. The building was dedicated on March 23, 1935; the first regular train to use it was a New York–Philadelphia express at 10:17 on March 24. The new station was built alongside the old station, which was then demolished and replaced by the southeast half of the present station, completed in 1937. Except for the separate, underground Newark Light Rail station, all tracks are above street level.
It was to be one of the centerpieces of Pennsylvania Railroad's train network, and to become a transfer point to the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, which was partially funded by the PRR, for travel to lower Manhattan. PRR then scheduled 232 weekday trains through Newark, about two-thirds of them to or from New York Penn Station and the rest to/from Jersey City.
The station itself, the adjacent 230-foot Dock Bridge over the Passaic River and the realignments of the Newark City Subway and H&M cost $42 million, borne almost evenly by the PRR and the City of Newark. The City Subway extension and H&M realignment opened on June 20, 1937, and the nearby Manhattan Transfer station was closed, along with the H&M's original Park Place station.
The Port of New York Authority bought the bankrupt H&M Railroad and reorganized it as Port Authority Trans-Hudson in 1962. New Jersey Department of Transportation's Aldene Plan redirected Central Railroad of New Jersey and Reading Railroad trains from Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City to Newark Penn Station in 1967. The Pennsylvania Railroad merged with longtime rival New York Central Railroad in 1968 to form Penn Central Railroad, but Newark kept the name "Penn Station." In 1970, Penn Station became the sole intercity station in Newark when the Erie Lackawanna ran its last intercity trains through Broad Street Station.
After Amtrak took over inter-city service in 1971, Penn Central continued to operate commuter service, despite being bankrupt. In 1976 the New Jersey Department of Transportation acquired Penn Central, Reading and Jersey Central passenger service, which included lines from as far away as Philadelphia's SEPTA diesel service along the West Trenton Line, with Conrail operating service under contract. New Jersey Transit acquired the rail line north of West Trenton in 1982, and established its rail operations division in 1983, acquiring almost all commuter rail service from Conrail within the state.
Newark Penn Station was extensively renovated in 2007, with restoration of the facade and historic interior materials, as well as train platform and equipment improvements.
In August 2019 the United States Department of Transportation awarded $18.4 million to NJ Transit to rehabilitate and repair Platform "D" that serves Tracks 3 & 4 and is a major transfer point for Amtrak and NJ Transit.

Current operations

Despite being from New York Penn, the busiest train station in North America, Newark Penn is a major station in its own right. In 2014 it was the 14th busiest station in the Amtrak system, the eighth busiest in the Mid-Atlantic region and by far the busiest of the six Amtrak stations in New Jersey. This is mainly because since the 1970s, it has been the only intercity rail station in heavily populated northeastern New Jersey.
It is served by all 11 services running along the Northeast Corridor, providing a second option for Amtrak riders traveling through the New York area.
Due to the wide availability of these routes, as well as the Northeast Regional and Acela Express, passengers on most of Amtrak's southbound medium and long-distance routes are not allowed to detrain in Newark, nor are they allowed to entrain on Amtrak's nouthbound medium and long-distance routes.
Newark Penn Station carries the IATA airport code of ZRP.

New Jersey Transit

Three NJ Transit commuter rail lines converge here: the Northeast Corridor Line, North Jersey Coast Line and the Raritan Valley Line. The former two continue to New York via Secaucus Junction, with the Coast Line offering limited service to Hoboken. The Raritan Valley Line generally terminates here, with the exception of select trains that continue to New York and one inbound weekday train that continues to Hoboken. However, all Raritan Valley Line trains presently terminate at Newark to allow for the installation of positive train control.

PATH

Newark Penn is the western terminus of the Newark–World Trade Center line of the PATH train, operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Trains terminate on the upper level and return to service on the lower level. Until the opening of Secaucus Junction, NJ Transit commuter rail passengers had to transfer to PATH here in order to reach Jersey City or Hoboken.

Newark Light Rail

On the lower level is the southern terminus of the Newark Light Rail, with three outbound tracks and two inbound tracks. Passengers on this light rail system from Newark and its nearby suburbs can transfer to Amtrak, NJ Transit or PATH trains, or travel to Newark Broad Street or downtown Newark. The Broad Street extension, opened in 2006, was intended to ease transfers between the former Erie Lackawanna commuter routes that call at Broad Street and the Amtrak and former PRR commuter routes that call at Newark Penn. Previously, passengers had to make their own way between the two stations.

Tracks and platforms

Newark Penn has 8 tracks and 6 platforms for both NJT and PATH, but PATH trains from NYC arrive on the upper level and ones from South Street arrive on the lower level.
Note: Shows platform layouts only, not the actual station layout.

Gallery

In popular culture