NJ Transit HO Scale Models

New Jersey Transit Corporation was established on July 17, 1979, created by the New Jersey state government through the Public Transportation Act of 1979. The agency emerged from the New Jersey Department of Transportation with a mandate to acquire, operate, and contract for transportation services in the public interest. Its earliest work centered on absorbing private bus operations across the state, including routes that had long been run by Public Service Electric and Gas Company, one of New Jersey's largest utilities. Over time NJ Transit consolidated the overwhelming majority of bus services statewide into a coherent network, organizing northern New Jersey routes into an interconnected web while structuring southern New Jersey service around hub cities such as Trenton, Camden, and Atlantic City. Commuter rail operations came under NJ Transit's management in 1983, when the agency assumed direct control of lines that Conrail had been running under contract to the New Jersey Department of Transportation. Those rail corridors traced their origins to mid-nineteenth century predecessors, including components of the former Erie Lackawanna, Central Railroad of New Jersey, Pennsylvania Railroad, and other historic carriers that had been folded into Conrail in 1976. The transition gave NJ Transit stewardship over two extensive commuter rail networks in the northern part of the state, and rail ridership has grown substantially in the decades since, reportedly quadrupling from levels at the time of the agency's founding. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, NJ Transit undertook significant expansions of its rail network. The introduction of Midtown Direct service allowed passengers on certain Morris and Essex Line trains to reach New York Penn Station without transferring, a major operational improvement. The opening of Newark Liberty International Airport station in October 2001 provided direct rail access to the region's busiest airport. Perhaps most consequentially, the December 2003 opening of Secaucus Junction created a transfer point linking the agency's two northern New Jersey rail networks for the first time, saving passengers roughly fifteen minutes compared to connecting through Hoboken Terminal via the Port Authority Trans-Hudson system. In October 2005, NJ Transit also assumed operation of former Amtrak Clocker trains between New York and Trenton, adding frequency on the Northeast Corridor within the state. Today NJ Transit stands as the largest statewide public transit system in the United States and the third-largest provider of bus, rail, and light rail service by ridership in the country, covering a service area of approximately 5,325 square miles. Its commuter rail network encompasses thirteen lines, two of which are operated under contract with Metro-North Railroad for service into New York State via the Pascack Valley and Port Jervis corridors. Three light rail systems, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, Newark Light Rail, and the River Line between Trenton and Camden, supplement the bus and heavy rail network. The agency continues to pursue major capital investments, most notably participation in the Gateway Program, a multi-phase effort undertaken with Amtrak and state and federal partners to expand Northeast Corridor capacity through new tunneling beneath the Hudson River and replacement of aging infrastructure including the century-old Portal Bridge.