By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
PLAINSBORO — The idea has been broached numerous times over the years, according to both municipal officials and township records.
Advocates say that the construction of a full-service train station — or at least an extension of the Dinky line — in Plainsboro Township would allow Plainsboro commuters to depart for work from the friendly confines of their own town and help relieve the parking crunch at Princeton Junction train station and other regional rail facilities.
But there are a multitude of problems in bringing a train station to Plainsboro for the first time in nearly 50 years, according to township officials interviewed Monday.
They cited planning issues specifically related to the current level of development in Plainsboro Township — especially the properties adjacent to the Northeast Corridor — that doom the construction of such a facility, at least at any time in the near future.
As someone with years of experience in the development of Plainsboro, Township Administrator Robert Sheehan believes that the development that has shaped Plainsboro into the town it is today precludes the construction of a train station.
”When you have an asset like a train station in your community, you plan for it,” said Mr. Sheehan, who used to head the township’s Community Development Department. “As a community, we have not planned for that. It is a retrofit that just wouldn’t work.”
Mr. Sheehan pointed to development around the railroad tracks, and in other areas of Plainsboro, that were simply not there three decades ago, when the township that currently has around 21,000 residents only had a few thousand.
The development in the intervening time should have been planned differently if a train station was to be contemplated, according to Mr. Sheehan.
”If it was in place 25 years ago, and we could have appropriately evolved to accommodate it,” Mr. Sheehan said.
Peter Cantu, Plainsboro’s longtime mayor, had similar sentiments about the idea of building a new station in the township.
”You would have to plan for both parking and traffic,” said Mayor Cantu. “In Plainsboro there are very limited spaces where a train station could be built.”
In fact, with both South Brunswick and North Brunswick townships actively considering the construction of rail facilities, Plainsboro Township has officially supported the construction of a facility in South Brunswick under Mayor Cantu.
”We have supported it in South Brunswick,” said Mayor Cantu. “We just didn’t see the potential for a full-service train station here in Plainsboro.”
In extending the Dinky line, another problem besides parking facilities and traffic infrastructure is the restrictive right-of-way under the Plainsboro Road bridge over the Northeast Corridor line, Mayor Cantu said.
”It has been looked at by NJ Transit,” said Mayor Cantu. “They thought it was not viable, for reasons of the constraints of the existing facilities.”
Price quotes for modernizing the Plainsboro Road bridge are not available, but the current project that seeks to modernize the very similar Alexander Road bridge over the same tracks in West Windsor Township is costing upwards of $12 million.
”If you have enough money, you can solve any problem,” Mr. Sheehan said.
West Windsor resident Peter Weale said he has pushed for an extension of the Dinky for many years, reaching out to local companies and municipal government to elicit support.
NJ Transit has not supported the idea, he said.
”Transit always has a million and one reasons why they couldn’t do it,” Mr. Weale said.
But Mr. Weale continues to advocate for a Dinky extension, maintaining there is unused space around the Amtrak right-of-way, and the new line could be a boon to the various corporate and research entities in that part of Plainsboro.
If Mr. Weale were successful in getting the ball rolling on a Plainsboro train station, it would certainly not be a first for the township.
At one point in its history Plainsboro Township actually boasted two train stations, one just south of the Plainsboro Road bridge near the Walker-Gordon facility. That station was in service from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s.
North of the same bridge was the Schalks Crossing station, which went out of service in the late 1800s.
Plainsboro’s passenger rail service, nevertheless had its moment of fame. An important political rally took place on Nov. 2, 1940, when Republican presidential hopeful Wendell Wilkie arrived by train to the southern Plainsboro station to a cheering crowd of supporters and 75 New Jersey State Police.
Mr. Wilkie went on to give a speech at a rally at the nearby Walker-Gordon farm to a crowd estimated at more than 30,000, according to documents on display at the Plainsboro Historical Society.
Longtime Plainsboro resident Rudy Wellnitz was in the area at the time of the rally when a Wilkie supporter dropped a campaign button on the ground.
”I stood on the button, and picked it up after the area cleared out,” Mr. Wellnitz recalled.
Mr. Wellnitz said the button read “I wanna be a captain too, pops,” which was apparently a button aimed at Mr. Wilkie’s rival, incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and perceived nepotism in his administration.
Before the advent of overhead wires and electric train engines, spaces in between the tracks in Plainsboro held long pans of water, which trains would scoop up at high speeds to keep their steam-operated engines going, Mr. Wellnitz said.
Voters had their say three days after the Plainsboro rally with President Roosevelt easily defeating Mr. Wilkie.
