What are the best and worst commuter rails in the U.S.?

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I have been wondering about this for a while. I looked this up online, assuming that NJ Transit would of course be listed as the worst but not knowing which is the best. I didn't even come up with any reference to NJT as the worst!

So I'll just ask the experts--all of you!

Which has the reputation as the best commuter rail in the country? I don't mean by ridership numbers, but rather by quality of the commute, helpfulness of the staff, etc.

Where does my personal favorite, Virginia Railway Express, fit in?

And how come NJT doesn't get dozens of mentions and get ripped to shreds when I search for "worst commuter rail in the U.S.?"
 
Not able to compare but, I ride Southern California's Metrolink for my daily commute...about 50 minutes each way to LA Union Station.
Been a rider for more than 6 years and I'm satisfied with the service.
 
Thank you all for the replies. I see, except for the first one, that I made my question very broad and that it is, of course, not possible to compare different types.

I'd like to narrow the focus (as in FrensicPic's reply above).

What commuter rail would you look forward to taking because the commute would be one of the best parts of the day? (Clean, on-time trains, polite and helpful conductors, trains hardly ever cancelled, reason for any delays explained immediately.)

What commuter rail would make you think of retiring early, even if you love your job, because the commute is so unpredictable and unpleasant? (Dirty trains, trains cancelled on short notice for an assortment of excuses, trains coming to a halt and just sitting there with no announcements, arrogant management.) I am of course thinking of NJT, but there could be others. I did not put impolite conductors in here, because even the worst commuter rail can have polite and helpful conductors--I've found that on NJT.
 
Thank you all for the replies. I see, except for the first one, that I made my question very broad and that it is, of course, not possible to compare different types.

I'd like to narrow the focus (as in FrensicPic's reply above).

What commuter rail would you look forward to taking because the commute would be one of the best parts of the day? (Clean, on-time trains, polite and helpful conductors, trains hardly ever cancelled, reason for any delays explained immediately.)

What commuter rail would make you think of retiring early, even if you love your job, because the commute is so unpredictable and unpleasant? (Dirty trains, trains cancelled on short notice for an assortment of excuses, trains coming to a halt and just sitting there with no announcements, arrogant management.) I am of course thinking of NJT, but there could be others. I did not put impolite conductors in here, because even the worst commuter rail can have polite and helpful conductors--I've found that on NJT.

On the positive I'd put the Rail Runner in ABQ on top. Great on all levels.
 
Today, with public ownership, many, if not most commuter rail lines are pretty highly rated by their commuter's. So unless some expert company like JD Power conducts an objective survey, if that is possible, it would be hard to determine which one is 'best'.

Back in the waning days of private operation, I recall the C&NW as standing out as a progressive, and innovative carrier, that received many accolades for its service and operation. Especially in comparison to the PC...
 
Though Denver RTD is not what would be considered a real "commuter rail" though they do operate some heavy rail to some outlying areas. They are canceling 15-20 trips a day and running delays on about the same number on routes. They cannot get enough operators! They offer sign-on bonus but apparently they don't pay squat as a salary.
 
Don't know if it qualifies as best in any way, but I've always been pretty happy with Metra. They have lots of routes, even if some of them don't offer a mcuh frequency. The Rock Island line isn't all that exciting, but there are a lot of frequencies and the trains are usually pretty clean. It seems like there are more delays on the BNSF and UP routes, but they are also much busier.
 
When I commuted regularly on the MBTA, it was fairly horrible but much better driving. (That was in the early to mid 1970's! But things haven't changed much: the "new" equipment is still 30 years old and was bought used, but they do run many more lines with more frequent service and for longer periods each day. Used to be the last train left Boston about 7:30 PM. They now run to midnight.)

One time my train unaccountably stopped just short of Canton Junction. The crew said they had no idea what was going on and got off and were wandering around looking at things. Finally the conductor got back on and announced they thought they had run out of fuel. But there was no fuel gauge (or at least not a working one), so they weren't sure. After another hour, an engine arrived and pushed us the rest of the way. Fortunately, this was on a quiet summer Saturday afternoon and there wasn't much traffic for us to obstruct. Long before the line was electrified and before Amtrak NEC or Acellas were using the same line.

They still use diesels despite the fact the line was electrified 30 years ago, but they recently borrowed a couple of electric locos from Amtrak to "conduct tests" sometime this spring, maybe. I suppose they are waiting for Amtrak to buy a bunch of new electric locomotives and sell the current ones to other commuter railroads, so those railroads can sell their really old locomotives to the T.

Meanwhile, in the news today, they are planning to build a 700' office/condo tower in the middle of South Station, which requires closing 70% of the concourse and 50% of the access doors to the platforms for 5 to 6 years during construction. Meanwhile installing fare gates which are guaranteed to cause further bottlenecks.

The reason for the fare gates is because the trains are so crowded the crews can't get through the cars to scan all the tickets or passes before the train reaches its destination, so they have no idea how many people aren't paying their fares. (My guess is actually not that many since most of the commuters use monthly passes and have paid for the trip even if it hasn't been recorded.) Of course, the commuter rail passes are not compatible with the T's Charlie Card system used on the subways and buses. And they have waved their hands about making the gates accept Amtrak tickets, but who knows? They will have to have special gates and personnel to allow through wheelchairs and people with a lot of luggage, and porters and train servicing people with big carts full of luggage and food and supplies. My guess is whenever there are long lines (like every day during rush hour), they will just open the special wide gates and wave everyone through, defeating the whole purpose.

They claim this will only add 5-10 minutes to an average commute. Every day. Five days a week, 52 weeks per year. 87 hours, or over two work-weeks per year. Which is over $5000 per passenger at minimum wage for each and every passenger. And remember they always underestimate the inconvenience factor of any project like this. Because the real estate developers aren't paying the $5000, the customers are.

What they really need to do is increase the size, frequency and number of trains, but there aren't enough tracks. Next door, there is a very large surplus Post Office facility that they have been negotiation to acquire since the 1980's, but no one knows if that is ever going to happen.

Meanwhile, there is major construction going on at the other two main Boston stations, Back Bay and North Station. They are about to start a huge project that will take at least twenty years, to replace an elevated section of the Mass Turnpike (I-90) that runs next to/on top of the Framingham/Worcester/LSL branch. (This is the fastest growing branch of the commuter rail system.) The highway construction will involve re-aligning the train tracks through an abandoned rail yard, building the new highway through the existing ROW, building a new station (West Station) in the same location, and a lot of other construction. The bad part, from a rail standpoint, is they are planning to reduce the line to a single track for about 5 years. Will they electrify the line while all this is happening (or put up the catenary, even if they don't replace the equipment yet)? No sign of it.

Not to mention all the bad service, mechanical breakdowns, weather problems, ancient rolling stock, all made worse by the increased ridership due to Boston having the worst traffic in the country.

see: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/02/03/south-station-tower-construction, https://whdh.com/news/gridlock-expected-at-south-station-due-to-construction/ and https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/02...outh-station-riders-brace-serious-disruption/
 
Informative post, thanks for sharing!

I do question the part about Boston having the worst traffic, I'm very familiar with Washington DC( ever been on the Beltway during Rush Hours), Chicago,LA, Houston,Atlanta and Austin where I now live.

Boston can't be worse than those Hell on Wheels Places!
 
Informative post, thanks for sharing!

I do question the part about Boston having the worst traffic, I'm very familiar with Washington DC( ever been on the Beltway during Rush Hours), Chicago,LA, Houston,Atlanta and Austin where I now live.

Boston can't be worse than those Hell on Wheels Places!

It may not be worse, but it’s just as bad ;)
 
I have the impression that for sheer size, frequency of service, convenience, and generally good OTP, Metro North is right up there close to the best, if not the best.This would be "East of Hudson" MNRR.

West of Hudson service which is actually run by NJT for Metro North is a different matter and suffers from the same malady that afflicts NJT. MNRR has actually been withholding payments to NJT for failure to meet contract obligations. Kind of ironic considering Governor Christie tried to claim that Amtrak was not meeting its obligations to NJT and withheld payments for a while. One would suspect that it was a ruse to deflect incompetence from himself in that case.
 
Boston should rank right up there with the worst. There's hardly a day goes by that some operational irregularity doesn't occur. Methinks alot of cheating goes on there, as well. Early retirement with fat pensions does cause some wonderment for those of us who are watching.
 
I have been wondering about this for a while. I looked this up online, assuming that NJ Transit would of course be listed as the worst but not knowing which is the best. I didn't even come up with any reference to NJT as the worst!

So I'll just ask the experts--all of you!

Which has the reputation as the best commuter rail in the country? I don't mean by ridership numbers, but rather by quality of the commute, helpfulness of the staff, etc.

Where does my personal favorite, Virginia Railway Express, fit in?

And how come NJT doesn't get dozens of mentions and get ripped to shreds when I search for "worst commuter rail in the U.S.?"

I never had problems when I used NJ Transit before. I know they have had some issues but I doubt they are the worst. Can’t comment on the best as there are so many and most of them get you to where you need to go.
 

The dude literally said he's used NJ Transit and hasn't experienced any problems. That could easily be true.

Like any commuter rail system, NJT has had their bad days. You wouldn't have to look far to find equally incriminating articles about Metra, SEPTA, Metro-North, etc. People are far more familiar with the flaws in the system they use the most.

It could be that NJT is still subjectively "the worst" but your personal insult in uncalled for, IMO.
 
I live in Florida - in an area where there are no commuter trains at all.

I have ridden on NJT, PATH and MTA when visiting up there - from my perspective they all worked quite well ... they got me from where I was to where I wanted to go.

Guess it all depends on how you look at "good" and/or "bad" when it comes to the service.
 
I've never had any occasion to use Norfolk's light rail, The Tide. I live on the other side of the river in P-town which has nothing but infrequent buses.

Of the cities I have visited with commuter rail, Toronto's was quite efficient although my GPS got me lost trying to find the parking lot for the station. The DC Metro has been 50/50 with getting me there vs. bustitution. I have never had a good experience on MARC. And it's been over a decade since I rode MARTA so I'll withhold outdated judgment.
 
I can honestly say that in the last two years NJT has forced me to Uberstitute to make it to scheduled meetings on time due to their odd habit of canceling a train at the last moment with the next available scheduled an hour later but is also known to be running a half hour behind schedule. This has happened to me five times in the last two years, all on the Morris and Essex Line.

The excuse always was “equipment problem”, which frequent users of NJTRO tell me is often an euphemism for “could not find staff to run the train”.
 
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