At a March board of directors meeting, NJ Transit Executive Director Stanley Rosenblum highlighted train yard capacity problems on the Northeast Corridor, Morris & Essex, and North Jersey Coast lines, and noted that NJ Transit's recent rolling stock purchase will further clog the state's train yards unless new ones are utilized.

In Trenton, limited yard capacity is an old issue. Insufficient space forces trains to slow to a crawl as they approach the last stop on the Northeast Corridor line.

NJ Transit has long had a solution to solve Trenton's problems. But politics that push parochialism to new limits have held up its implementation.

A few miles from Trenton, in Morrisville PA, lies an unused train yard owned by NJ Transit.

"The tracks are there, the right of way exists," said Doug Bowen, President of NJ Association of Rail Passengers (NJARP). "It's an ideal way to fix the problems in Trenton."

Sweetening the deal is that Morrisville actually wants NJ Transit's trains. The catch is that its also want a NJ Transit train station of its own, providing Pennsylvania residents with direct access to New York City. NJ Transit is willing to extend the line to Morrisville if Pennsylvania pays for station construction. Preliminary talks with Pennsylvania have been promising.

But a handful of NJ legislators and Trenton's mayor are fighting the project, claiming that a Morrisville station will suck NJ money over the border. According to NJARP, one legislator opposed the project because he claimed that construction workers on the project would eat in Pennsylvania restaurants instead of New Jersey ones. And because Morrisville residents will no longer have to drive to Trenton to catch the train, Trenton's mayor Douglas Palmer is worried that the city will lose parking revenue.

The issue has languished on the back burner for years. But Transit's recent car purchase and ever-increasing demand for more and better rail transit service in the state are now likely to force the Morrisville Yard issue.

"New Jersey is hurting itself if it fights this project," says Mr. Bowen. "Not only will use of the Morrisville Yard speed up the train ride between Princeton Junction and Trenton, but it will get a number of cars off of the road. A lot of Trenton's morning traffic is caused by people merely driving to the train station."