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NJ Transit Atlantic City Line Trip Report

We rode the Atlantic City Line from Atlantic City to Philadelphia on 30 January 2010. On this day a major snowstorm was forecast for the Washington DC area. Atlantic City was just above this snow-belt though, with forecasts predicting an inch of snow at most. Still on the drive to Atlantic City we kept a watchful eye on the weather, figuring at the first sign of a flurry we’d opt for a ride on the North Jersey Coast Line instead. We made it to Atlantic City with no problem and found the station. I had read that free parking was available at the station but was not able to find it, so instead we parked on the street a few blocks away. We looked for someplace nearby to get a quick bite to eat, but not finding anything eventually got some food in the station. After buying our tickets we planned to go look around the platforms, but unlike most NJ Transit stations, passengers weren’t allowed on the platforms until the train was called for boarding. As we waited for our train to begin boarding, snow began to fall.

We decided to still take our trip since we had the tickets, the train was about to board, and still not much snow was predicted. The train had older single level cars with reversible seats so we put the seats so we were facing each other as did some other passengers. Soon there was an announcement saying not to flip the seats, so we put the seat back but were now split across two rows. Other people didn’t comply as quickly and people who were just boarded continued to flip the seats so the announcements continued as well as a follow-up from the conductor. After the first stop the conductor came by and said we could flip the seat if we wanted to. He explained that the problem was that sometimes they got a large crowd boarding at that first station, and that if the seats were flipped there often wasn’t enough room for those boarding.

The ride to Philadelphia was very bumpy. Apparently the suspension in our car was in pretty bad shape. The snow continued for about half of the ride until tapering off and leaving us with just a cloudy day. This was our first visit to the 30th Street Station. Arriving on the lower level normally used by Amtrak allowed us to experience the grandeur of entering the station for the first time on the main concourse. We looked around the station for a bit, had pretzels for a snack, and then boarded our train back to Atlantic City. This time we sat in one of the center cars which offered a much smoother ride. The train was quite crowded for the ride back and before long the snow was falling again. By the time we arrived back in Atlantic City only a few hours after we had left, over 6 inches of snow had fallen. We dug the car out of the snow and spent more than an hour driving through heavy snow before finally escaping the storm.

We took a second trip on the Atlantic City Line on 27 December 2014, this time to visit the Pennsauken Transit Center station that had opened about a year earlier. We began our trip in Pennsauken, purchased both a train and light rail ticket, and rode the train to Lindenwold. At Lindenwold we switched to PATCO and rode that back to Camden. In Camden we went up to street level to transfer to the River LINE. It took us a few minutes to find the light rail station, and while we were still down the block, our train arrived. Not wanting to wait for another train, we ran and made it to the platform just in time, though realized after we boarded that we hadn't validated the ticket. Luckily no one checked as we rode the two stops back to the Pennsauken Transit Center. After completing our journey we headed out for some bagel sandwiches, and then headed home.

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