Secaucus Junction (known as Secaucus Transfer during planning stages and signed simply as Secaucus) is a NJ Transit Rail Operations

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

hub in

Secaucus, New Jersey Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,Frank Lautenberg, who died in 2013, was a transit advocate who had worked to allocate federal funds for the project. The station is on the

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, ...

(NEC) five miles west of

New York Penn Station Pennsylvania Station, also known as New York Penn Station or simply Penn Station, is the main intercity railroad station in New York City and the busiest transportation facility in the Western Hemisphere, serving more than 600,000 passengers ...

and five miles east of Newark Penn Station. At Secaucus, the NEC crosses above the Main Line, allowing passengers to transfer between trains to and from Hoboken Terminal. It serves trains from all lines operated by

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...

except the

Princeton Branch The Princeton Branch is a commuter rail line and service owned and operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The line is a short branch of the Northeast Corridor Line, running from Princeton Junction northwest to ...

and Atlantic City Line.

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

trains run through the station but do not stop. In March 2016, a new bus station with 14 bus berths opened; it is used for intermodal connections and was intended to add redundancy to the transportation network.

Purpose and history

NJ Transit's rail operations are split between two divisions, a legacy of their roots in separate railroads. The Hoboken Division consists of lines formerly part of the Erie Lackawanna Railway and its predecessors, while the Newark Division lines had once been part of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

and Central Railroad of New Jersey. The two divisions had never been previously integrated, even when

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do bus ...

ran both networks under contract to the

New Jersey Department of Transportation The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) is the agency responsible for transportation issues and policy in New Jersey, including maintaining and operating the state's highway and public road system, planning and developing transportat ...

from 1976 until handing them to NJ Transit in 1983. While the opening of the Kearny Connection and Waterfront Connection in 1996 allowed for the implementation of some interdivisional trains, including the "Midtown Direct" Service to

on the Hoboken Division's Morris & Essex Lines, direct transfers between the divisions were still not possible. Secaucus Junction was built to allow passengers to transfer between trains on each division. Before the station was built, passengers on lines to Hoboken Terminal had to use PATH trains or ferries to reach New York City. Conversely, with few exceptions, commuters whose trains terminated at New York Penn Station had to transfer to PATH trains at Newark Penn Station to reach Hoboken. Secaucus Junction lower level

The two-track

embankment was expanded to three tracks for a mile on each side of the station and to four tracks through the station itself, allowing Amtrak and nonstop NJT trains to pass stopped trains. The two-track Bergen County Line was re-aligned southwestward to join the two-track Main Line to pass through the station on the four-track lower level. The construction required the bodies from the

Hudson County Burial Grounds The Hudson County Burial Grounds are also known as the Secaucus Potter's Field and Snake Hill Cemetery and it is located in Secaucus, New Jersey. The cemetery was cleared of bodies to make room for the Secaucus Transfer Station and Exit 15X of t ...

to be disinterred and moved to another cemetery. The station was built with little public parking, as NJT believed few passenger trips would originate there. In 2005, exit 15X on the adjacent

New Jersey Turnpike The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP) is a system of controlled-access highways in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The turnpike is maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA).The Garden State Parkway, although maintained by NJTA, is not cons ...

opened to provide easier access to the station; two years later, it was the least-used interchange on the turnpike, possibly due in part to the lack of parking at the station. On June 1, 2009, Edison Parkfast, a private company, opened the first parking lot near the station, with space for 1,094 cars. Bicycle parking is also available. On July 26, 2009, NJ Transit began shuttle service to the Meadowlands station at the

Meadowlands Sports Complex The Meadowlands Sports Complex is a sports complex located in East Rutherford, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. The facility is owned and operated by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA). The complex currently con ...

, with Secaucus Junction being a transfer point for passengers from New York Penn and other stations. From 2009 to 2014, Secaucus Junction served trains coming from Metro-North's New Haven Line for

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

and

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The ...

football games at the Meadowlands with 1:00 p.m. kickoffs on Sundays. On June 5, 2013, a special Amtrak train stopped at the station to carry the coffin of Lautenberg to Washington, D.C. for his burial. On February 2, 2014, a limited number of Amtrak trains made stops at Secaucus for passengers going to Super Bowl XLVIII. In March 2016, a new bus station with 14 bus berths opened; it is used for intermodal connections and was intended to add redundancy to the transportation network. Local officials have indicated a desire to have regular Amtrak service stop at Secaucus Junction after

American Dream Meadowlands American Dream is a retail and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States. The first and second of four opening stages occurred on October 25, 2019, and on December 5, 2019. The remainin ...

opened in October 2019, however, as of 2022, this has not been implemented.

Station layout

Despite its name Secaucus Junction is not a true

junction Junction may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Junction'' (film), a 2012 American film * Jjunction, a 2002 Indian film * Junction (album), a 1976 album by Andrew Cyrille * Junction (EP), by Basement Jaxx, 2002 * Junction (manga), or ''Hot ...

, in which trains can switch between lines; there is no rail connection between the upper and lower levels. The station has two platform levels connected by a third level on top. Such a loop, however, is proposed as part of the Gateway Project to improve commuter access to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. * The bottom level lacks electrification and has four tracks and two island platforms serving the Bergen County Line, Main Line, Pascack Valley Line, Port Jervis Line, and Meadowlands Line trains, which originate and terminate at Hoboken Terminal. * The upper level tracks are electrified and carry trains to and from

(usually the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast, Montclair-Boonton, and Morristown Lines) with four tracks and three platforms: two side platforms serving Tracks 2 and 3 (where nonstop trains usually bypass) and one island platform between Tracks A and B. Amtrak trains pass through the upper-level tracks without stopping. * The upper concourse has a food court and snack bar, and serves passengers switching trains. To transfer between trains on different levels, passengers climb up to the concourse, pass through faregates (which only accept a ticket once), and descend to their destination platforms. At the center of this level is a

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...

glass Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...

, and

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion i ...

sculpture of a

cattail ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in ...

(abundant in the surrounding

New Jersey Meadowlands New Jersey Meadowlands, also known as the Hackensack Meadowlands after the primary river flowing through it, is a general name for the large ecosystem of wetlands in northeastern New Jersey in the United States, a few miles to the west of ...

) by

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

artist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi. The tops of the cattails are lit from within in the purple, blue, and orange colors of NJ Transit.

Proposed New York City Subway extension

On November 16, 2010, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reported that

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...

's administration was working on a plan to bring the of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October ...

under the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

to Secaucus Junction. An extension of that service from Times Square – 42nd Street to a new terminus at Eleventh Avenue and 34th Street, has already been built. The extension would take the subway outside the city's and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

's borders and under the Hudson River for the first time. The plan would alleviate pressure on the

route under the Hudson, after the cancellation of the

Access to the Region's Core Access to the Region's Core (ARC) was a proposed commuter-rail project to increase passenger service capacity on New Jersey Transit (NJT) between Secaucus Junction in New Jersey and Manhattan in New York City. New infrastructure would have i ...

tunnel project by New Jersey Governor

Chris Christie Christopher James Christie (born September 6, 1962) is an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, lobbyist, and former federal prosecutor who served as the 55th governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018. Christie, who was born in N ...

in October 2010. It would offer a direct route to

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

on the east side of

, while connecting with most other subway routes. New York City spent $250,000 for a consultant to conduct feasibility studies for the project. However, no design work commenced nor were financing arrangements made. On October 26, 2011, Bloomberg reiterated his support for the project, while Christie also expressed general concurrence. In April 2013, the

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area of the U.S. state of New York. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in th ...

rejected the proposed extension, citing lack of funding. However, it was reconsidered again in 2018.

Gateway Project

The Gateway Project, a series of infrastructure improvements along the NEC between Newark Penn Station and

, includes a proposal to build the so-called Secaucus Loop or Bergen Loop, tracks connecting the Main Line and the NEC at Secaucus, thus creating a true junction station. As part of the second phase of the Gateway Project, the loop is projected to be constructed between 2024 and 2030.

References

External links

Station Directory
{{NYC terminals NJ Transit Rail Operations stations NJ Transit bus stations Stations on the Northeast Corridor Stations on the Main Line (NJ Transit) New Jersey Meadowlands District Transit hubs serving New Jersey Secaucus, New Jersey Railway stations in Hudson County, New Jersey Railway stations in the United States opened in 2003 2003 establishments in New Jersey