NY Penn Station Tracks: Where NJ Transit Trains Leave From

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NJ Transit posts each train’s track at New York Penn Station only about 10 minutes before it leaves. Here is where every NJ Transit departure has actually left from since October 5: 3,261 departures, from NJTracker’s own record of the Penn departure board.

3,261NJ Transit departures recorded

15Tracks used

Track 2Busiest · 17% of departures

10 minTrack posted before departure · median

Penn Station has 21 tracks. In this stretch NJ Transit’s trains used Tracks 1 to 15, most of them the lower-numbered ones. Tracks share island platforms in pairs — 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and so on — so knowing the platform gets you to the right stairs before the exact track is known.

Track by track

How many NJ Transit departures each track had, and the lines that used it most.

Track	Platform	Departures	Lines
1	1/2	483 15%	Northeast Corridor 45%, Morris & Essex Lines 27%
2	1/2	542 17%	Northeast Corridor 42%, North Jersey Coast Line 28%
3	3/4	514 16%	Northeast Corridor 43%, Morris & Essex Lines 27%
4	3/4	506 16%	Northeast Corridor 38%, Morris & Essex Lines 31%
5	5/6	4 0%	Northeast Corridor 75%, North Jersey Coast Line 25%
6	5/6	47 1%	Northeast Corridor 64%, North Jersey Coast Line 17%
7	7/8	133 4%	Northeast Corridor 62%, North Jersey Coast Line 19%
8	7/8	132 4%	Northeast Corridor 48%, North Jersey Coast Line 23%
9	9/10	184 6%	Northeast Corridor 54%, North Jersey Coast Line 27%
10	9/10	171 5%	Northeast Corridor 57%, North Jersey Coast Line 25%
11	11/12	104 3%	Northeast Corridor 47%, North Jersey Coast Line 28%
12	11/12	130 4%	Northeast Corridor 60%, North Jersey Coast Line 23%
13	13/14	168 5%	Northeast Corridor 63%, North Jersey Coast Line 23%
14	13/14	127 4%	Northeast Corridor 58%, North Jersey Coast Line 35%
15	15/16	16 0%	Northeast Corridor 44%, North Jersey Coast Line 44%

By line and time of day

Weekday departures only: the tracks each line used most in each part of the day, with their share of that line’s departures then.

Northeast Corridor

Morning: Track 2 (15%), Track 4 (12%), Track 3 (12%) — 275 departures
Midday: Track 1 (19%), Track 2 (15%), Track 3 (14%) — 329 departures
Evening rush: Track 1 (14%), Track 3 (13%), Track 2 (11%) — 405 departures
Night: Track 2 (17%), Track 3 (15%), Track 4 (15%) — 264 departures

North Jersey Coast Line

Morning: Track 2 (25%), Track 4 (20%), Track 3 (17%) — 118 departures
Midday: Track 2 (21%), Track 3 (19%), Track 1 (18%) — 175 departures
Evening rush: Track 2 (12%), Track 14 (11%), Track 4 (10%) — 244 departures
Night: Track 3 (17%), Track 4 (16%), Track 2 (15%) — 151 departures

Morris & Essex Lines

Morning: Track 1 (29%), Track 2 (20%), Track 3 (17%) — 138 departures
Midday: Track 3 (26%), Track 4 (20%), Track 2 (17%) — 138 departures
Evening rush: Track 4 (21%), Track 2 (19%), Track 1 (14%) — 188 departures
Night: Track 4 (34%), Track 3 (17%), Track 2 (15%) — 41 departures

Montclair-Boonton Line

Morning: Track 1 (29%), Track 12 (12%), Track 3 (12%) — 24 departures
Midday: Track 3 (29%), Track 2 (21%), Track 8 (8%) — 24 departures
Evening rush: Track 2 (24%), Track 3 (24%), Track 14 (19%) — 21 departures
Night: Track 4 (22%), Track 3 (22%), Track 1 (13%) — 23 departures

Raritan Valley Line

Midday: Track 4 (30%), Track 1 (20%), Track 2 (15%) — 20 departures
Night: Track 12 (27%), Track 4 (20%), Track 1 (20%) — 15 departures

Trains that usually use the same platform

Of the 156 train numbers with 8 or more Penn departures on record, only 4 left from one exact track at least 6 times in 10. More keep to one platform: these 28 did, at least 6 times in 10. Even so it can change on the day; the posted track always wins.

Tracks 1/2

#7817 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (6 of 8)
#7885 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (6 of 8)
#3849 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (15 of 22)
#8617 · Morris & Essex Lines to Secaucus (12 of 18)
#3243 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch-BH (14 of 22)
#3839 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (14 of 22)
#7241 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch (5 of 8)
#7269 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch (5 of 8)
#7825 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (5 of 8)
#7847 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (5 of 8)

Tracks 3/4

#7285 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch-SQ (8 of 8)
#6941 · Morris & Essex Lines to Dover (7 of 8)
#6915 · Morris & Essex Lines to Dover (6 of 8)
#7277 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch (6 of 8)
#7839 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (6 of 8)
#6927 · Morris & Essex Lines to Dover (5 of 8)
#6931 · Morris & Essex Lines to Dover (5 of 8)
#7257 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch (5 of 8)
#7821 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (5 of 8)
#7841 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (5 of 8)
and 3 more

Tracks 13/14

#3859 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (15 of 18)
#3255 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch-BH (17 of 22)
#3957 · Northeast Corridor to Trenton (12 of 19)
#3727 · Northeast Corridor to Jersey Avenue (10 of 16)
#3263 · North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch-BH (11 of 18)

Finding your track

NJ Transit holds back the track until shortly before departure, so riders wait on the concourse and head for the stairs when it appears. The live board shows NJTracker’s predicted track for each NJ Transit train before it is posted: from the train’s own signal circuit once it has reached the station, and from this record before that. How often those calls are right is on the accuracy page, and how they are made is in the track prediction guide.

Penn tracks by destination

Each trip guide lists the usual Penn track of every train to that station.

Schedule and live data obtained from NJ Transit and redistributed by NJTracker. Times may not be real time — always check the station displays. Not affiliated with or licensed by NJ Transit or Amtrak. Track figures leave out Amtrak and the disrupted evening of September 15.