Full report: Commuter Train Service Explored.
As the story itself notes there are of course plans and actual material work being done to advance rail, however slowly, to the Poconos, with Scranton as an eventual terminus (to be replaced in title by Wilkes-Barre sometime thereafter if not immediately).
Honesdale is, as the Google Map crow flies, 53 minutes from Wilkes-Barre, so a comfortable slip into Manhattan on modern rail would include that overhead should such musings for Honesdale gain any traction.
Who Are These People
Tom Myles, an experienced manager of passenger rail systems, along with present day PA House of Representatives candidate Orlando Marrero, are the apparent personality drivers for the idea.
Giving significant muscle to the Honesdale version of the NYC/NEPA rail dream is Myle's current role as the Chief Executive Officer of the Delaware Lackawaxen & Stourbridge (DL&S), an excursion rail line; and, depending on the outcome of this Tuesday's elections, Marrero's place and voice in the State government.
Working together, they might get it done.
Scranton Problem Not Their Problem
But then again, the reason Pennsylvania's side of the current Lackawanna-Cutoff Restoration Project is not already barreling toward a connection to Scranton or just the Poconos of course is pure lack of money. Despite a bevy of support from such current political figures as Matt Cartwright, for example, there has been no serious action in putting forth the billions of dollars necessary to make that connection a reality.
Myles believes to the extent that money is the problem, it's because of the extra infrastructure necessary to bring the current plan of a line to Scranton.
And that's where Honesdale has a card to play.
Myles noted that an effort has been underway for at least 25 years to re-establish passenger services from Scranton to New York. That project would cost about ”$2 billion,” he said, due to the need to rebuild a railroad bridge over the Delaware and restore trackage that was removed in New Jersey. Unlike that project, Myles said, there is “continuous trackage” in place from Honesdale to New York City.Also notable in Myle's vision is the perhaps more affordable -- though perhaps logistically questionable -- reliance on light rail cars to make the major leg connection(s) to any New Jersey station, versus "heavy rail" cars traditionally associated with commuter systems of the scale being discussed.
Light rail as this author understands it is more suitable and designed with a city or regional scope in mind, though in totality perhaps the jaunt between Honesdale and Andover are in fact nothing more than a regional connection, state lines be damned.
It will be interesting to see how this advances. Could we have a parallel option to the slogging Lackawanna Cut-Off? How would NEPA commuters out of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre feel about a commute to Honesdale over Scranton or a terminus right out of Public Square?
