The Lakewood stop was to pick up and drop off passengers as well as Jolly Tar Trail bus service. Ocean County stops for the Blue Comet included Lakewood and Lakehurst. This had the Blue Comet service at a disadvantage, as PRR Atlantic City-New York information was readily available for passengers heading to points north.īlue Comet debut, Red Bank, NJ February 17, 1929. Reports from travelers indicate that Blue Comet information was not readily available at the Atlantic City station. After the merger, the PRR owned two-thirds of the trackage. Also that year, the PRR and Reading Company (RDG) consolidated their southern New Jersey routes and formed the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines. Service was reduced to a single daily round-trip by April 1933. The Blue Comet was initially a success, but fell victim to the Great Depression. A billboard was installed on the Routes 33 and 34 overpass at Farmingdale listing the times the train would pass that area.
The Blue Comet ran on-schedule 97 percent of the time for the first five years. The PRR charged extra fees for parlor cars on the Nellie Bly. The PRR charged extra for its all-parlor car Atlantic City Limited and New York Limited. The Blue Comet offered extra accommodations at the regular coach fare and assigned seats so passengers knew exactly where they would sit. To eliminate a costly Pullman parlor car lease, in which the CNJ had a loss ten months of the year.To better compete with the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) for Atlantic City passengers.To eliminate passenger service south of Winslow Junction, and replace rail service with bus connections.There were three factors behind the creation of the Blue Comet:
This gave the train and Lionel an almost mythical quality. Inspired by the train's elegant beauty, speed and the sublime power of its towering locomotive, Lionel offered a standard gauge model of the train in 1930. It was featured in a British 1937 Gallaher Ltd collection of tobacco cards entitled "Trains of the world." Billed as the "Seashore's Finest Train", it was dubbed a "Symphony in Blue." Lionel founder Joshua Lionel Cowen was among those who frequently rode the Blue Comet. Periodic articles about the train appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and local papers such as the Red Bank Register. The Blue Comet was published in several periodicals and trade magazines such as Railway Age (March 1929), Fortune (the first issue in February, 1930), The Modelmaker, and several advertisements for ELESCO Superheaters and Feedwater Heaters. Following its first arrival in Atlantic City, a formal dinner was held for railroad officials at the Hotel Dennis.
This was due in part to a clever ad campaign via radio and newspaper which spurred public interest. Thousands of spectators along the line came to see the new train. As the Blue Comet made its way to Atlantic City, it was put on display for patrons, railfans, and local residents to see and inspect. The first revenue passengers to board the CNJ's new flagship at Communipaw Terminal were Miss Beatrice Winter and Miss Helen Lewis of New York. Inaugurated on February 21, 1929, the Blue Comet was designed to provide coach passengers with deluxe equipment, accommodations, and service at a regular coach fare. The locomotive was capable of 100 miles per hour, and the railroad claimed the train itself was the first east of the Mississippi to be equipped with roller bearings for easy starting and stopping. The tickets for the train were blue, the dining car chairs were upholstered in blue linen, and the porters were dressed in blue as well. The colors chosen for the Blue Comet's locomotive and passenger cars were ultramarine and Packard Blue, for the sea, cream, for the sandy coastal beaches, and nickel. The Blue Comet would take NY&LB trackage to Red Bank, then follow the Southern Division Main Line to Winslow Junction, where it would travel over the Atlantic City Railroad's tracks to Atlantic City. White in 1928, this train whisked passengers from Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City to Atlantic City, making the total trip from Manhattan (via ferry to the Jersey City terminal) to Atlantic City in three hours. The Blue Comet was a named passenger train operated by Central Railroad of New Jersey from 1929 to 1941 between the New York metropolitan area and Atlantic City.ĭesigned by Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) president R.B.
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