Except for those who used the Dinky from Princeton, there were very few commuters who boarded the New York or Philadelphia trains at Princeton Junction in the 1950s to go to work. Some people went to those places by train for other reasons, of course, such as simply to go to the city for a long list of things you can do there besides going to work — maybe just to have a train ride and do some sight-seeing, or do some shopping, or go to the theater or a museum.
And the Dinky itself was different then. Although it followed the same route that it does now, it actually had a stop at Penns Neck. Yes, there was a real station there, with a platform and a long flight of stairs down to the east side of Route 1. Stopping there was done only by request, since very few actually used that stop. But it was certainly handy if you lived in Penns Neck and worked, say, at Princeton University or elsewhere in town — and didn’t have access to a car.
But there was another — very special — train that left Princeton Junction, just twice a day — once in each direction. And it did not go to New York or Philadelphia; it went to the shore. Yes, the Jersey shore, but only on weekdays. It was the train that started in Long Branch (on the shore north of Asbury Park) and made its way across the state to Trenton every morning — early. It remained in Trenton all day and returned to Long Branch late in the afternoon.
It had a steam locomotive, a tender, a combined freight and passenger car, and another passenger car that also served the crew as a caboose. Its crew consisted of an engineer, a fireman, a trainman, and a conductor. One day, we decided to take the train in the afternoon all the way to the shore, since it stopped at Sea Girt, my wife’s home town, where we would spend the weekend. We had not moved to West Windsor by then, so we took the Dinky from Princeton to the Junction. That was to be some trip.
When the train arrived at Princeton Junction, the conductor came down the stairs and announced that this was the “Sunshine Special to Long Branch.” We guessed he was trying to amuse us, since we were the only passengers who got on then. There were already a few teenage girls on board, however. We climbed aboard, found two empty seats, and gave the conductor our tickets, which we had bought at the Dinky station in Princeton. We soon found out about the train’s peculiar schedule. It turned out that the train crew all had regular day jobs — we think with the railroad — in Trenton, and were actually using the train to commute to work from towns near Long Branch. The girls all attended a parochial high school in Trenton, and this was how they went to school from towns at the shore — every weekday.
We then proceeded to wend our way to Sea Girt. First stop: Monmouth Junction. We could have stopped at Plainsboro, but I don’t think we did because there weren’t any passengers waiting to get on. (In fact, I don’t remember anyone else getting on during the whole trip.)
At Monmouth Junction, we left the main line and headed east. Monmouth Junction was so named because it was the junction of the main north-south line and the east-west line — long since abandoned. Next stop: Jamesburg, then Englishtown, Tennent, Freehold, Howell Station, Farmingdale, Allaire, Allenwood, Manasquan, and Sea Girt. The train still had a few more stops before arriving home in Long Branch. But it was fun to do it — once. Of course, in a few days we took it back the other way. When the Garden State Parkway was completed later in the 1950s, the track from Farmingdale to Manasquan was removed, and the Sunshine Special was history.
Later on we found out that the train was able to make its “back-and-forth” trips because there were roundhouses with turntables in both Trenton and Long Branch where the cars and locomotive could be turned around to travel in the opposite direction on the same track. Roundhouses like those are a rarity these days.
But, speaking of old railroad tracks, there are still quite a few around the area, and some of them still have occasional freight trains on them. One is the track that runs from northeast to southwest a few miles north of Princeton. It still goes through Hopewell and passes by the Hopewell Station, which is now sometimes the site of art exhibitions. You cross the track if you go north on Province Line Road a little north of Route 518.
A few years ago we were out in that area returning from Hopewell one spring day and were surprised to see a couple of men in the road ahead of us signaling for us to stop. We did, and realized we were close to what we had always thought was an abandoned railroad track. We asked them why we had to stop, and they said there was a train coming. Sure enough, we looked up the track to the east and there indeed was a train heading our way.
As the train passed the crossing, the men started taking pictures of it. They told us the train was a special one used by the Barnum and Bailey Circus to carry special equipment for the circus, which was soon to open in New York. They didn’t explain why the train had to “store” the equipment so far from the city or just what the “equipment” was, though I believe they said it was involved with trained animal acts. A check of an old map later revealed that the track was originally owned by the Reading Railroad. We figured the picture takers were either old-train buffs or under-cover circus security men.
