An Amtrak Acela Express races east through Princeton Junction in West Windsor, NJ. A little history.... for those interested regarding this spot along the former Pennsylvania Railroad's Philadelphia, PA to New York mainline, better known today as Amtrak's Northeast Corridor:
The station, seen here, is owned by NJT and is located on the eastbound side of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. It was built in 1987. It replaced a small one story brick and concrete structure in the mid 1950's, which itself replaced a beautiful two story structure (eastbound side) built in 1893. That structure had a balcony and a bay window but was destroyed in a fire in 1953. The 1893 building replaced a small but handsome wood framed building with gingerbread trim seen here.
Today, the station serves NJ Transit (NJT) and a select few Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor (NEC), and NJ Transit on the Princeton Branch. As of 2017, Princeton Junction was the 6th-busiest station in the NJ Transit rail system, with an average of 6,817 weekday boardings.
Albert Einstein, who lived at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, used to enjoy sitting at the station and watching the trains go by. In 1965, a prototype for the high-speed Metroliner passed through the station at the record speed (at that time) of 164 miles per hour (264 km/h) on a short demonstration run. Very few sections of the Northeast Corridor were capable of handling that speed, and most had to be upgraded before Penn Central's Metroliner service was introduced in 1969. A speed of 170.8 mph (274.9 km/h) was achieved on the same portion of track on December 20, 1967, when the U.S.-built UAC TurboTrain set the rail speed record (for a production built trainset) in North America. Not the "Acela", nor even the "Avelia LIberty" has yet to officially break that record, though a one off publicity stunt saw a NYC jet equipped RDC run reach a speed of 183.68 mph (295.6 km/h) on July 23, 1966. That record STANDS TODAY. A plaque at the station commemorates the event.
