Saturday, January 24, 2009

When Three Ps Come Up Aces

I got an email from a friend of the blog with a link to the Aces Train. Apparently it is a public private partnership run through the Casinos in Atlantic City and New Jersey Transit in which there is direct service between New York and Atlantic City with a stop in Newark. Shuttle service would be provided between the casinos and the station and ticketing would be done through Amtrak. It does come with a steep price tag however. $100 round trip and $150 if you want to go first class.

What is most interesting is that this is a public private partnership (PPP) in which New Jersey provides the tracks and the casinos provided the railcars and operating costs. I wonder if they will get commuters as well? Though $50 might be a bit steep, the seats look comfortable. However it has been a long time coming. It has been in the works for a while and still hasn't started though this time its slated for Feb 6th.

3 comments:

Justin said...

From what I hear, the bus is still faster. Considering the economy, I am skeptical this service will be successful. The prices need to be more reasonable.

Alon Levy said...

One-way commute takes 20-40 minutes. Some people push an hour. ACES will take 2:40.

Anonymous said...

Well, for those of you that don't know, there isn't really a direct connection to Atlantic City from NYC.
You have to travel all the way down the North East Corridor to Philadelphia, and then east for about 40 miles to Atlantic City.

As for the price, you can get there by train now, you just have to take the NJTransit from NYC to Trenton, then a SEPTA from Trenton to Philadelphia, then get back on an NJTransit to Atlantic city.

$50 each way is pretty close to what you would pay just to get there by commuter train.
You could also take Amtrak from nyc to Philly, and then njtransit from philly to Atlantic city, but that would be even more expensive.

It may sound confusing, but check out a map.
http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/Rail_System_Map.pdf