"Concerto for Light Rail and Orchestra"

Railway Age, August, 2006 by William C. Vantuono

NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington is not conducting the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, but he might as well be.

If you want to take in a concert at the orchestra's home, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in downtown Newark, you can get to the center in about five minutes by hopping on a Newark Light Rail LRV at Penn Station Newark (on the Northeast Corridor) or NJT's Broad Street Station on the Morris & Essex Lines. NJPAC is one stop on this new, $207 million, one-mile surface/subway light rail line that connects with what was known for a long time as the Newark City Subway, for years the only surviving portion of a formerly massive network of streetcars serving the greater Newark area.

Once you're inside the concert hall, don't expect to be entertained by, as NJPAC CEO Lawrence Goldman put it, "a concerto for light rail and orchestra." That's because the project managers at NJT and the civil engineers at Parsons Brinckerhoff took great pains to design an 840-foot "double-track floating slab with Belgian blocks or pavers" for the NJPAC LRT stop.

It almost sounds like a symphonic movement.

Actually, PB's noise-insulating design consists of precast concrete slabs with imbedded rails that rest on top of closely-spaced, 12-inch, vibration-absorbing rubber disks ("pucks") inside a precast concrete tub substructure. Without it, concertgoers might expect to hear rumbles instead of rhumbas, or steel wheels instead of steel drums, &pending upon what's playing. It's all part of blending into the environment and becoming an enhancement, rather than a noisy eyesore--which is something light rail does beautifully time and time again.

Living in the shadow of New York City Newark has unfortunately and unfairly been portrayed as a dirty suburb of its East-of-Hudson neighbor. Since the crippling riots of 1967, the city has struggled to rebound. There's been progress in recent years--besides NJPAC, there's Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium (a minor league baseball park) and a host of planned office, residential, and recreational development. As in numerous other U.S. cities, light rail is reshaping Newark's (where I grew up) downtown business district, injecting new life.

So, in more ways than one, Newark Light Rail is indeed a "Concerto for Light Rail and Orchestra."

Passenger rail PAC. Until now, there has never been a PAC (political action committee) set up specifically for passenger rail interests. Bennett Levin, President of Juniata Terminal Co. (who equipped our Sesquicentennial Limited inspection train) has joined threes with government affairs consultant Tim Gillespie to create "Passenger Rail Today," described as "the first PAC ever to be established with the sole objective of supporting candidates for federal office who have made the preservation and expansion of a national rail passenger system a priority" Among the board members are former Congressman and House Railroad Subcommittee Chairman Jack Quinn, and PB Consult Chairman Mort Downey.

The PAC is now in its formative stages. For more-detailed information, see www.passengerrailtoday.com.