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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

People who land at Newark airport in New Jersey and want to use the trains to get to New York City have to figure out the difference between Newark Penn Station and New York Penn station. Must be awful for people who do not use English as their primary language.

At the Secaucus station, the two Penn Stations are in opposite directions, and I am sure many end up going the wrong way and wasting an hour.

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My wife once purchased a ticket over the phone for the Acela line from the Penn Station in New York, but they misheard it as the one in Newark. So it's even hard for Amtrak!

Something we learned out of all this was that each train company used to have their own station in each city, before things became consolidated, so it makes sense for there to be many stations for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

That's also why many cities (DC, LA, St. Louis for example) have a "Union Station": that indicates a station that was specifically built for multiple railways to have access to, hence "uniting" their tracks.

It is also aweful who speak English as their primary language.

Source: me, wondering if I want the Bronx bound train or the Queens bound train

But you can ride all day on that token as long as you don't leave the station :P

Tangent, but Conquering Gotham is an interesting history of how New York Penn Station came to be and its eventual, uh replacement, with the current structure.

Turns out, before the Pennsylvania Railroad built the tunnels under the river , you had to take a ferry from New Jersey.

The platform changes at Secaucus junction can be hectic even if you do know there's more than one Penn Station!

There's a Penn Station in Baltimore too. Making that mistake nowadays is less of a personal safety issue than it used to be, at least.

I take the Amtrak from NY Penn to Baltimore Penn and back again to visit friends. The first time I was booking that route I was a bit confused.

Now you’re in Newark

Concrete jungle where dreams are smothered

There’s nothing you can do

Because you’re in Newark

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