The PSE&G Easement? The Trolley Line Trail? West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh believes the town’s residents can come up with the best name for the recently paved bicycle/pedestrian pathway that runs from Rabbit Hill Road to Community Park.##M:[more]##
The path was paved this summer, and the contest will run through September. Entries should be submitted to Ken Jacobs, the township’s manager of recreation. The path includes two bridges, including one that was installed this summer over the Big Bear Brook. Contestants are also invited to provide a new name for the bridge. According to the Mayor, the township’s website will soon include a contest entry form.
While the path is the newest way to go from one side of town to the other, it is not new for this corridor to be used by area residents to get around. The path was once used for transportation of a different kind. The Fast Line Trolley was instrumental in shaping the area we now know as West Windsor and Plainsboro.
The trolley’s inaugural trip between New Brunswick and Trenton was on November 3, 1902. The entire 27 1/2 mile trip took one hour and fifteen minutes, and a one-way ticket cost $0.45.
At the time, the train tracks that still serve the area’s commuters were already in operation. “The Fast Line Trolley wasn’t very fast. It was cheaper, slower, and more mundane than the train,” says Bob Yuell of the Plainsboro Historical Society.
Throughout what is now West Winsdor and Plainsboro, the trolley stopped in seven places, and ran on a single track. Each time trolleys were headed towards each other, one of them had to exit the main line at one of many pull-off spots and let the other one pass. In 1913, the line was extended to run from Trenton to Newark when The Fast Line was absorbed by the Public Service Railroad. With a rise in the production of affordable automobiles, trolley traffic declined steadily after WWI. The line ran fewer and fewer trips. In 1930, the electric trolley cars were replaced with gasoline-electic cars that ran one trip daily. The electric wires were removed, and eventually rail-busses, which could run on roads or rails, replaced the trolley cars. The Fast Line stopped operating altogether in 1937.
