Leaving On A New Jersey Train In Georgia

Have you ever ridden public transit in the greater New York City area and wished you were 1) not moving and 2) eating salad nicoise?

My wife’s extended family has a holiday tradition where, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, they get together to watch the 1954 movie White Christmas. You don’t need to be familiar with the film at all for our purposes, but one of the early scenes takes place in the dining car of a train, which the main characters are taking from Florida to Vermont.

A current Amtrak search says it would take about 35 hours of travel to get from Miami to Burlington, not including a layover in New York City. Let’s be generous and say that’s what the trip would have taken in 1954. One of the plot contrivances of White Christmas has Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye enduring this trip without reservations in a sleeper car; their only option is to make the trip in the dining car.

Though that sounds like an unpleasant experience, the movie doesn’t linger on that uncomfortable reality for too long, thanks to the romanticism of train travel. Maybe it takes forever and ruins your lower back, but the train is the agent of possibility, pushing you forward into new lands and forging new relationships.

Which brings us to today’s Facebook Marketplace find:

Listed for $16,000

Condition: Used - Good

This is a Path car formerly used to go from New Jersey to NYC. Includes all doors and windows. Running gear and hitches have been removed to delete unnecessary weight. This car can easily be moved and set up as a bar, tiny house, or restaurant. Approximate weight is 18000 lbs its 53 feet long and 12 feet high. Accessories below the car can be removed to set it closer to ground level. Currently it is on railroad ties and about at operating height.

I am not here to disparage public transit in the New York City area. I have happily used the New York City subway and bus systems, the Long Island Rail Road, the JFK AirTrain, New Jersey Transit trains, Metro North, the NYC Ferry, the Roosevelt Island Tramway, the Staten Island Ferry, and, yes, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson – PATH – lines.

While imperfect, this transit network is cheap, reasonably reliable, and even oddly charming in the right time and circumstances. I have many memories, ranging from incredibly fond to outlandishly stressful, from riding the train around the city with friends and loved ones.

But. I have never, even in my most joyful times as a New Yorker, looked around a subway car and thought “this should really be a restaurant.” I have never boarded a PATH train to Hoboken and wished it could be my tiny house. I appreciate, with sincerity, the primary function these cars serve. If they are to have a second life, it should be as part of the restoration of a coral reef or, failing that, anchoring a laser tag experience.

You may be wondering what outer New Jersey town this retired PATH car lies in. The answer: Alpharetta, Georgia, over eight hundred miles from The Garden State. How did it get all the way down there, and why? Is that why the seller is so confident that this can “easily be moved” shortly before telling you it weighs about four minivans and is the length of a semi trailer?

I mean, just look at that graffiti’d-up bad boy. Do you think it smells like “delightful bistro” in there?

Theoretically, I can understand this project as a challenge. You find yourself in possession of a decommissioned PATH car. You do not have your own personal transit system into which it could be integrated. You now have to decide how to retrofit it. Maybe you figure out how to set it up with a series of jacuzzis and cold plunge tubs and rename it the PATH Bathhouse.

Just remember: You’re going to pay $16,000 for the opportunity to take on this work. Admittedly, that is a steep discount from buying a PATH car new; the Port Authority shelled out $2.5 million per car when they ordered 72 new ones a few years ago.

As with so many items we find on Facebook Marketplace, whether $16,000 represents a fair price is entirely up to you as the prospective buyer. There is no Kelly Blue Book I am aware of where we can find a range of values for “decommissioned subway car which we might turn into a bar.” There are no competitors elsewhere on Facebook offering similar cars, so we can’t go bargain hunting.

Despite my hesitation, I invite you, brave entrepreneur, to prove me wrong. Acquire this PATH car and turn it into one of the world’s finest and most exclusive restaurants. Call it Gravy Train, and put my picture up with a note that says DO NOT SERVE THIS MAN. I am your first doubter, and I do not deserve the fruits of your labor and vision.

Just please tell me how and why this New Jersey rail car made its way to Georgia in the first place.