Denville commuters who ride Midtown Direct trains into Manhattan will have to go through Hoboken on weekdays for about five weeks starting Sunday, Oct. 11, as Amtrak and NJ Transit move the last track onto the new Portal North Bridge over the Hackensack River.
According to NJ Transit, weekday Midtown Direct trains on the Morris & Essex Lines, the Gladstone Branch and the Montclair-Boonton Line will run to Hoboken Terminal instead of Penn Station New York. Weekend Midtown Direct trains will keep running to and from Penn Station. The temporary timetables are valid Oct. 11 through Nov. 14, and regular schedules are expected to return Sunday, Nov. 15, once safety testing is complete.
Expect some trains to be combined or canceled and others to leave at different times or make different stops. Check the temporary weekday Morris & Essex timetable and the weekend timetable before your first commute under the new plan.
For weekday trips, NJ Transit is telling Midtown Direct customers to buy tickets or passes to Hoboken rather than New York. A Hoboken ticket will be honored on PATH between Hoboken and 33rd Street, on NY Waterway ferries between Hoboken Terminal and West 39th Street, and on the NJ Transit 126 bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. NJ Transit says that can save riders up to 25% per trip, depending on their starting station.
On weekends, riders holding Hoboken monthly or weekly passes or a FlexPass can use them to reach Penn Station, but one-way riders will need a ticket to Penn Station New York, since Hoboken one-way tickets will not be accepted there on weekends.
“Five weeks of adjusted schedules will deliver a modern, high-level bridge that ends a century of swing-bridge delays for customers traveling the Northeast Corridor to and from New York,” NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri said in the agency’s Sept. 17 announcement.
Once the work is done, the 116-year-old Portal swing bridge will be retired. Schedules for every line are on NJ Transit’s Portal Bridge Cutover page. For parking and permit details at the station, see our Denville train station guide.
Featured image: Denville station and the historic Denville Tower. Photo by 4300streetcar, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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