Clocker (train)
Clockers were regular passenger trains between Philadelphia and New York City on the Northeast Corridor. On the Pennsylvania Railroad they left each terminal on the hour until the 1950s and a less-regular schedule continued on Amtrak. The first train run by Amtrak was a Clocker that left Penn Station at 12:05 AM on May 1, 1971.[1] The last Clocker ran on October 28, 2005. To replace them, New Jersey Transit added four express trains between Trenton and New York City at times approximating the Clocker schedule.
 A GG1 pulling a Clocker leaving Philadelphia in 1976 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Service type | Inter-city rail |
| Status | Discontinued |
| Locale | Northeast Corridor |
| First service | May 1, 1971 |
| Last service | October 28, 2005 |
| Successor | New Jersey Transit |
| Former operator(s) | Amtrak |
| Route | |
| Start | Philadelphia |
| End | New York |
| Distance travelled | 91 miles (146 km) |
| Average journey time | 95-110 minutes |
| Service frequency | Multiple weekday round-trips |
| On-board services | |
| Class(es) | Unreserved coach |
| Technical | |
| Rolling stock | Amfleet coaches |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) |
| Electrification | Overhead catenary |
| Track owner(s) | Amtrak |
Route
Amtrak's Clockers were rush-hour trains serving the commuter and day-trip market to New York City. New Jersey Transit (NJT) passholders could ride Clockers, which were shown in NJT's timetable as well as Amtrak's. Amtrak received a $6 million subsidy to operate the trains.[2]
Clockers made all, or almost all, Amtrak stops between 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and Penn Station in New York, unlike Amtrak's Regional trains, which skip some stations. The trains were unreserved, coach class only, and used Amfleet rolling stock after the 1970s, although NJT stock was common in the last days of operation. Until 2002, The 7:59 AM Clocker from Princeton Junction included a private club car known as Club 200 that members paid up to $1,200 per year to join. This was the last private club car used in regular commuter service.[3]
Naming
A Clocker was originally a Pennsylvania Railroad express train between New York and Broad Street Station in Philadelphia;[4] the name was unofficial, and PRR timetables didn't use it. Soon after Penn Station opened in 1910 the Philadelphia expresses began leaving each terminal on the hour, giving rise to the name (which the railroad itself seems never to have used). Until electrification in 1933 most Clockers were scheduled to leave and arrive on each hour; on a weekday in 1929 trains left each terminal from 7 AM to 10 PM. Faster schedules after electrification eliminated the on-the-hour arrival. In 1951 weekday Clockers left Philadelphia and New York 7 AM to 7 PM.
Amtrak did not use the term "clocker" until the October 1981 timetable.[5] However, the first Amtrak operated train was a Clocker from Philadelphia to New York.[6] Between 1979 and 1981 the public timetable showed individual names for each Clocker. The Clockers briefly were called Acela Commuter when Amtrak decided in 1999 to use that moniker for most trains along the Northeast Corridor.[7] Following mass rider confusion between this service and the high-speed Acela Express service, the name reverted to Clocker in 2003.
Former names
| Name | Number | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New York-Philadelphia | ||
| Philadelphian | 237 | |
| Betsy Ross | 211 | Sunday-only service ran Springfield-Washington |
| Keystone | 219 | Also the name of a Keystone Service train 1980-1981; see Valley Forge |
| Garden State | 221 | |
| William Penn | 223 | |
| Quaker City | 225 | |
| Rittenhouse | 227,241 | |
| Schuylkill | 229 | Discontinued April 26, 1980 |
| Philadelphia-New York | ||
| Manhattan Limited | 252 | |
| Gotham | 254 | |
| Edison | 200 | |
| New Yorker | 202 | |
| Big Apple | 204 | Also the name of a Keystone Service train 1980-1994; see Valley Forge |
| Central Park | 210 | Discontinued April 26, 1980 |
| Murray Hill | 220 | |
| Herald Square | 222 | |
Notes
- Boye Sagert (2007), 218.
- "Multilevel Train Rolls Out, Changing Little for Riders". New York Times. 2007-07-08.
- New York Times. 2002-05-22 [Lots of Seats, but Sorry, This Car's Taken Lots of Seats, but Sorry, This Car's Taken] Check
|url=value (help). Missing or empty|title=(help) - Rung, Jr., A. M. (January 1948). "Philly's personality trains". Trains.; 15
- "National Train Timetables". Amtrak. October 25, 1981. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
- "Amtrak turns 47 years old". WTOP News. 2018-05-01.
- "Metroliner Name on Past Track". Chicago Tribune. 1999-03-28.
External links
Media related to Clocker (train) at Wikimedia Commons