Clocker (train)

Clocker
A PRR GG1 pulls a Clocker out of 30th Street Station in 1976, bound for New York.
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	1 hour 35 minutes
Service frequency	Multiple weekday round-trips
On-board services
Class(es)	Unreserved coach
Technical
Rolling stock	Amfleet coaches
Gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Electrification	Overhead caternary
Track owner(s)	Amtrak

Clocker was an Amtrak rail service between Philadelphia and New York City on the Northeast Corridor. It was the first service to be operated by Amtrak, when train number 235 left New York's Penn Station at 12:05 AM on May 1, 1971 bound for Philadelphia. The last Clocker ran on October 28, 2005. To replace the Clockers New Jersey Transit added four express trains on October 31, 2005 between Trenton and New York City on about the Clocker schedule.

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 listed in the NJT timetable in addition to Amtrak's. They were popular with those who commuted to New York from Trenton and Princeton Junction, as they were faster and more comfortable than NJT local trains.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} The trains were unreserved, coach class only, and used Amfleet rolling stock after the 1970s.^{[citation needed]}

Naming

A Clocker was originally a Pennsylvania Railroad express train between New York and Broad Street Station in Philadelphia. 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. (Reading/CNJ had the same two-hour schedule between Philadelphia and the Liberty St ferry in downtown Manhattan; their trains ran 7 AM to 6 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.

Although referred to as "clockers" through the 1970s, Amtrak did not officially label them as "Clockers" (or "Clocker Service") until the October 25, 1981 timetable. Between 1979 and 1981 the public timetable showed individual names for each Clocker. The Clockers were briefly rebranded as Acela Commuter in 2001 when Amtrak decided to use that moniker for most trains along the Northeast Corridor. Following mass rider confusion^{[citation needed]} between this service and the high-speed Acela Express service, the name was returned 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

References

• Boye Sagert, Kelly (2007). The 1970s. Greenwood. ISBN 0313339198. http://books.google.com/books?id=SzGfma0m6bwC.