Qualla: Atlantic City Rail Terminal

Atlantic City Rail Terminal: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hikki Nagasaki, Public domain. When the Atlantic City Rail Terminal opened on May 22, 1989, it was the eastern end of a deliberate political project. The Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines had stopped running trains to Atlantic City in 1981 - the rails had been lifted, the old Atlantic City Union Station had been converted to a bus depot, and the entire rail link between Philadelphia and the casinos had been allowed to die. The 1989 reopening was Amtrak's attempt to capture the Gambler's Express market - the busloads of Philadelphia gamblers being shuttled to the new casinos every weekend. The new line ran direct from Philadelphia's 30th Street Station to the boardwalk in ninety minutes. The trains called it the Atlantic City Express. Everyone else called it the Gambler's Express. For six years it was Amtrak's most reliably profitable short-distance service.

Image: Hikki Nagasaki | Public domain

Atlantic City Rail Terminal: Five Tracks Under the Convention Center

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bruce Emmerling, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Atlantic City Rail Terminal sits directly beneath the Atlantic City Convention Center, which opened in 1997 and was deliberately built atop the rail tracks to integrate the two facilities. The terminal has five tracks served by three platforms - generous infrastructure for wh...

Image: Bruce Emmerling | CC BY-SA 4.0

Atlantic City Rail Terminal: The Gambler's Express

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0. Amtrak's Atlantic City Express ran from 1989 to 1995 as a federal effort to capture the booming East Coast casino travel market. The service was sometimes called the Gambler's Express because of who was actually riding it: Philadelphians coming down for the day or weekend to play...

Image: Farragutful | CC BY-SA 4.0

Atlantic City Rail Terminal: ACES from Manhattan

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit W. Reichmann, CC BY-SA 3.0. From 2009 to 2012, a separate service called the Atlantic City Express Service - ACES, an acronym that took some explaining - ran direct from New York Penn Station to Atlantic City. It was operated jointly by NJ Transit, with Caesars, Harrah's, and Borgata subsidizing the operati...

Image: W. Reichmann | CC BY-SA 3.0

Atlantic City Rail Terminal: The Old Union Station

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:dtcdthingy 3:30 pm 30th July 2004 (Minolta Dimage X20), Public domain. Before 1989, Atlantic City's rail service ran out of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines station - originally Atlantic City Union Station, built in 1880 and rebuilt several times - which sat slightly inland from the present terminal location. After PRSL trains stopped running...

Image: User:dtcdthingy 3:30 pm 30th July 2004 (Minolta Dimage X20) | Public domain

Atlantic City Rail Terminal: What Runs Today

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam E. Moreira, CC BY-SA 3.0. NJ Transit's Atlantic City Line runs roughly hourly during the day, less frequently in the evening and on weekends. The line stops at Absecon, Egg Harbor City, Hammonton, Atco, Lindenwold, Cherry Hill, and finally Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. The ride is ninety minutes. Li...

Image: Adam E. Moreira | CC BY-SA 3.0