Despite local furor, quiet and excitement on the rails

Gibbs was a service unit storeroom manager in Harrisburg, Pa., when his wife quit her job after giving birth to their oldest daughter. To supplement their single income, Gibbs and his wife began delivering newspapers and selling Tupperware and Avon. Sparich had been working in a steel mill before getting laid off.

Despite their different paths, both have ended up leading trains from Princeton to Princeton Junction daily. Gibbs and Sparich heard about openings at New Jersey Transit from acquaintances and have been leading Princeton trains ever since.

Today, Gibbs and Sparich are two of the most familiar faces — though unfamiliar names — to visitors traveling to and from campus via the Dinky. While the Dinky has recently been the focus of municipal battles over its potential relocation or retirement, Gibbs and Sparich have continued with business as usual, unperturbed by the local political controversy. Together, they cover two 11-hour shifts from 4:50 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.

Gibbs said he begins his workday, as he has for the past four years, with a 3:30 a.m. alarm. He arrives at Princeton Junction in time to make the first Dinky run of the day at 4:50 a.m. Each shift consists of one conductor and one engineer running the train. Gibbs collects tickets until 10:22 a.m., when the engineer pulls the train off the Princeton Junction platform for their lunch break.

By 11:00 a.m., Gibbs is back to work until his 11-hour shift ends at 3:00 p.m., when Sparich relieves him. Sparich, who has conducted for 25 years on the railroad and 12 on the Dinky, works from 3:00 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.

“It keeps you moving because you’ve got to get up so early,” Gibbs said of his unconventional hours. But Gibbs admitted that his early hours leave him drowsy by early evening. “When I sit still, the head’s going down,” he said.

Gibbs said Dinky riders are a different type of customer from those he encountered while working the main line. On his very first run on the main line, he was cursed out by a woman while the train stopped at the Newark station.

After the incident, Gibbs remembered the engineer asking him, “And you wanna do this?”

“We get some people who get up on the wrong side of the bed,” Gibbs said. “But then you get some that are the nicest.”

The Dinky riders, Gibbs said, tend to be of the latter category.

“I’d say it’s more intimate because it’s the same people every day,” Gibbs said. “They’re regulars; it’s like a small group anyway — it’s not lonely.”

Although the ride is only five minutes long, Sparich said he has formed relationships with many passengers. He has collected tickets from regulars such as John Nash GS ’50.

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In the past, the Dinky service has been the subject of criticism from riders who have missed the connecting trains at Princeton Junction to Trenton or New York. However, Gibbs said that he and the engineer try to accommodate delays as best they can.

“We try to … wait when we can, but sometimes we just can’t,” Gibbs said. While he is notified of delays via radio or a PA system, there is still a set train schedule to be followed.

Gibbs recalled one unpleasant incident with a delayed rider that resulted in a brush with the police. The passenger attempted to hold the train door for his wife, putting his arms on Gibbs in the process.

“I stiff-armed him and left him [on the platform],” Gibbs said, noting that the man was posing a safety hazard. “If the train had started moving, he could have fallen off the platform.”

The next day, the police visited Gibbs at the station and told him the passenger intended to charge him with assault.

Gibbs explained his side of the story to police, who in turn presented the passenger with the potential federal offense of delaying the train. Gibbs said the passenger dropped the charges but never apologized.

“We generally don’t get apologies,” Gibbs said. However, he was on time for the train in the next few months. “He still cut it close, but at least he made it.”

According to Gibbs, the current proposition to relocate the Dinky several hundred feet south would not affect the conductors’ daily duties. The only change would be the relocation of their office, which currently occupies the brick building a few hundred feet south from the passenger waiting room.

Yet, while Gibbs is neutral over moving the Dinky, both he and Sparich were skeptical over the proposal to replace the Dinky with a shuttle.

“I don’t see it happening,” Gibbs said. The bus alternative has been tried before, Gibbs explained, as NJ Transit operates buses between Princeton and Princeton Junction when the Dinky breaks down. “It usually takes two buses in order to accommodate the passengers, and then there’s the traffic.”

Whether or not the Dinky terminus is moved, Sparich firmly believes the train service is here to stay. “[The Dinky] has been around a long time, and I can’t see them getting rid of it.”