Clocker

AGG1 pulling aClocker departingPhiladelphia in 1976
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Discontinued
Locale	Northeast Corridor
First service	1910s
Last service	October 28, 2005
Successor	NJ Transit
Former operators	Pennsylvania Railroad,Amtrak
Route
Termini	Philadelphia New York
Distance travelled	91 miles (146 km)
Average journey time	95–110 minutes
Service frequency	Multiple weekday round-trips
On-board services
Class	Unreserved coach
Technical
Rolling stock	Amfleet coaches
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Electrification	Overhead catenary
Track owner	Amtrak
Route map Legend Dist. Station Northeast Corridor toBoston South 0 mi 0 km New York City NY NJ 10 mi 16 km Newark Penn 25 mi 40 km Metropark 33 mi 53 km New Brunswick 48 mi 77 km Princeton Junction 58 mi 93 km Trenton NJ PA 74 mi 119 km Cornwells Heights 87 mi 140 km North Philadelphia 91 mi 146 km Philadelphia–30th Street Northeast Corridor toWashington, D.C. This diagram: view talk edit

TheClocker was a passenger train service betweenPhiladelphia andNew York City on theNortheast Corridor at first by thePennsylvania Railroad and later byAmtrak. The service was nicknamed theClocker by riders as trains were scheduled to leave each terminal at the top of the hour. The name was eventually adopted into official use by Amtrak in 1981. The service was briefly renamedAcela Commuter in 1999 before the name reverted toClocker in 2003.

Amtrak discontinued the service on October 28, 2005, and it was partially replaced by additionalNJ Transit express trains betweenTrenton, New Jersey, andNew York City at times approximating theClocker schedule.

TheClocker was originally aPennsylvania Railroad express train service between New York andBroad Street Station in Philadelphia;^[1] the name was unofficial, and PRR timetables did not use it. Soon afterNew York Penn Station opened in 1910, the express trains began departing New York and Philadelphiaon the hour through the day, giving rise to the Clocker name (which the railroad itself seems never to have used). Until theelectrification of the Northeast Corridor in 1933, mostClockers were scheduled to both leave and arrive on each hour, but faster schedules after electrification eliminated the on the hour arrival.

Pennsylvania Railroad cut back on the schedule, and by the time Amtrak took over the nation's passenger rail service on May 1, 1971, theClocker service no longer ran hourly.

At the launch ofAmtrak, the railroad assigned each run an individual name (listed in the table below). Starting with the October 1981 timetable, Amtrak officially adopted theClocker name for the service.^[2] The trains were unreserved, coach class only, and Amtrak targeted theClocker service at commuters travelling to local stops bypassed by the high-speedMetroliner trains, theRegional trains, and other named long-distance trains.

During the 1990s,NJ Transit started contracting with Amtrak to accept their monthly passes on theClocker trains. These two decisions drastically shifted the clientele on the trains. Monthly ticket holders from New Jersey preferred theClocker trains over the NJ Transit trains because they were faster and more comfortable, meanwhile, Amtrak's passengers avoided theClocker trains because they were slower and frequently crowded. Also, the monthlies meant that few passengers traveled to or from Philadelphia.

Until 2002, the 7:59 AMClocker fromPrinceton Junction included a private club car known as Club 200 that members paid up to $1,200 per year to join (equivalent to $2,098 in 2024). This was the last private club car used in regular commuter service on the Northeast Corridor.^[3]

When theAcela Express was introduced in 1999, Amtrak launched what it called the Capstone Program, a short-lived plan to re-brand theNortheastDirect,Keystone Service andEmpire Service trains asAcela Regional and theClocker trains asAcela Commuter.^[4] Following mass rider confusion between this service and the high-speedAcela Express service, the name reverted toClocker in 2003.^[5]

By the early 2000s, NJ Transit was paying $6 million per year to compensate Amtrak for monthly ticket holders riding Clocker trains,^[6] and was loaning Amtrak its newALP-46 locomotives to haul the trains'Amfleet coaches.

On October 28, 2005, Amtrak discontinued theClocker service altogether and sold the Northeast Corridor operating slots to NJ Transit which used them to partially replace the service with additionalNortheast Corridor Line express trains between Trenton and New York City at times approximating theClocker schedule.^[7]

• Media related toClocker (train) at Wikimedia Commons

• Former Amtrak routes
• Railway services introduced in 1971
• Railway services discontinued in 2005

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from March 2021
• Commons category link from Wikidata