To the Editor:

Yet again we Dinky-riders watched as the shuttle accelerated round the bend in the Princeton Junction parking lot just as our train arrived. I’ve had this general experience an annoying number of times, but this time I decided to record the specifics and offer a solution.

Last Saturday’s local 1:14 p.m. from Penn Station arrived at the Junction five minutes late at 2:31 — exactly the Dinky’s advertised departure time. Of the 32 frustrated customers, 25 shared cabs for the last leg of their journey. We others waited for 40 minutes for the Dinky to return for the 3:11 run back to the beloved old station. Once, when I absolutely had to be in town on time, I myself took a taxi: $18 without tip.

Logically, the Dinky could have waited at the Junction until 2:53 and still arrived at the Princeton station several minutes before its next scheduled return, inconveniencing only those riders already on the shuttle at 3:11 — or it could have made an additional (unscheduled) roundtrip. The conductor explained that he would be subject to discipline for failing to maintain schedule if he had waited, but he did point out that he has the authority to leave early when an “L” is shown on the schedule. Only if his special schedule has an “H” (for hold) can he delay departure.

The Solution: Reprint the Dinky pages in the employee timetable, with each scheduled departure from the Junction annotated with “H(old) up until [7 minutes before next scheduled departure from Princeton]”, with clock-times specifically calculated for those shuttles where this works. Even more trains could be met at the Junction, coming and going, if the Dinky were able to schedule more than three round trips an hour, but that would have to be negotiated with the union. Let’s start with the easy part.

Rodney Fisk

Birch Avenue