Sandy Campbell photo. Click to enlarge.
The ERA New York Division conducted a bus trip to several rail-related facilities in New Jersey and one in Staten Island. A record number attended and the trip was sold out in advance. We rode in a chartered state-of-the-art New-Flyer low-floor articulated bus from Academy that left New York at 9:10 am.
Our first stop was an extensive tour of NJ Transit’s Meadowlands Maintenance Complex (MMC). This stop afforded excellent photo opportunities and a chance to view the interior of one of the new bi-level cars now entering service on the Northeast Corridor. Following a lunch stop at the Newport Center mall, we boarded a Bayonne-bound Hudson-Bergen Light Rail train at 1:14 pm for a passing view of nine former Newark PCCs that are under wraps behind the HBLR maintenance facility. These are being preserved for the future Bayonne Harbor streetcar loop.
At the 34th Street station in Bayonne we re-boarded our bus and drove across Route 440 to the former US Army Military Ocean Terminal that will be become the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, site of the aforementioned streetcar loop. A staff member of the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority walked us around Harbor View Park, whose centerpiece is the 9/11 monument “Tear of Grief”, a gift from Russia. Visible nearby is the spectacular Bayonne Golf Club, a “wild links" course built on construction debris (the initiation fee is a cool $500,000, by invitation only).
We returned to Route 440 and drove across the Bayonne Bridge to Staten Island. After a brief drive along the back roads of Clifton, we soon arrived at the Staten Island Railway Clifton Shops. Our guided tour included viewing some interesting diesels and work equipment. The excursion ended at 4:30 pm. Many of us took the Staten Island Railway to St. George and boarded the 5:00 pm ferry back to Manhattan.