Riding Shotgun on the PATH Train
Usually my commutes to and from work every day occur during rush hour, which means struggling to squeeze into a train not really caring where you end up as long as you’re on board. Today, however, I got out of work a little bit early and was able to do something I have always wanted to: sit at the very front of the train looking out the “windshield” if you will.
For my non-NJ/NY readers, the PATH is an underground rail system that connects New Jersey and New York at multiple points. The main areas it services are Hoboken, Jersey City and Newark in New Jersey, and Midtown and Wall Street in New York City.
It was pretty exciting to actually see the tracks and the tunnel and how the PATH train navigates through it. Every 50 or so yards there are two light bulbs, and they are colored in typical traffic fashion, red, yellow and green. All the lights are set to red but when the train approaches them they switch to yellow. Thus, the train moves cautiously along but is able to stop at the next light if need be. There is one long stretch where the tunnel protrudes out into the distance as far as the eye can see, and this was the only time when the lights were actually green (train gets up to 45+ mph).
The tunnel was pretty well lit for the most part, with faint white overhead lights throughout the entire tunnel. Except for the part of the tunnel that is under the Hudson River, there were escape shafts every few hundred yards or so. One thing that did surprise me as the train cruised along was the amount of trash that littered the tracks. I even saw a McDonald’s bag at one point, and if you think about it that could be months or years old; gross!
As we were approaching the station the train crept along slowly until finally we had a red light about 65 yards out of the station. After about 10 seconds of waiting another train pulled out of the station (this was the only other train sighting while in the tunnel), and after it had left sight we waited about 15 seconds and proceeded into the station. Just before pulling into the station there is a traffic light shaped box hanging from the wall that says “Track” at the bottom, and the 3 lights are all the same color but only light up as 1, 2 or 3, obviously whichever track the train is assigned to pull into.
All in all it was a pretty cool experience and I recommend it to anyone on a PATH train who notices the front of the train is vacant. It’s pretty neat to see how something that you use every day works. About halfway through the ride I thought “wow, I should be videoing this,” but the thought of arriving at my station and being greeted by Homeland Security doesn’t seem to enticing to me.






























