PRINCETON — The four masked bandits arrived by horse and ordered passengers on the stopped train to stay in their seats.
The Princeton University shuttle train, nicknamed the "Dinky" for its small stature, had the commodity the robbers from the all-male college needed most: Pretty women. As the Great Dinky Robbery of 1963 progressed, the bandits — Princeton seniors who wore cowboy garb while they staged an elaborate prank with four passengers — took the women and rode off on horseback into the afternoon light.
Nearly a half-century later, preservationists say the Dinky is in danger of being held up again — this time for good.
A proposal has been floated to replace the 145-year-old Dinky line, which predates the Orient Express and provides the shortest regularly scheduled commuter rail trip in America at 4 minutes and 47 seconds, with a bus rapid-transit system.
The Dinky shuttle, a 2.7-mile train run between Princeton Junction and Princeton University, has been in existence since 1865, the year the Civil War ended, Abraham Lincoln was buried and "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" was published. Albert Einstein enjoyed watching the Dinky and other Princeton Junction locomotives and used trains as examples to illustrate his theory of relativity.
The proposal to replace the Dinky line with two bus lanes dedicated exclusively to rapid transit in Princeton Borough and Princeton Township is in the informational stage and would need the approval of both towns. Even the most ardent supporters of a bus rapid-transit system admit it is at least several years away.
But the classic collision between the past and the future has commuters and history buffs worried. In only a few months, a "Save the Princeton Dinky" Facebook page has attracted nearly 6,400 fans opposed to replacing the train with a bus.
"You know the engineer. You know the conductor," commuter Marc Monseau, among the nearly 2,200 daily riders on the Dinky, said on a trip back to Princeton as he sat in one of the leather folding seats. "You end up doing business on the train. It becomes more of a community experience."
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Andrew Koontz is on a first-name basis with Paul the Engineer.
"I used to leave my bass (guitar) on the train and he would get it for me," laughed Koontz, the Princeton Borough Council president.
It was on the Dinky that Monseau met Koontz.
"When it’s all said and done, people like trains better than buses," Koontz said.
Aside from the aesthetics, there are the practical reasons he likes the Dinky.
"It’s a mass transportation system that works — how often do you find that in this day and age?" Koontz asked after a blink-and-you-missed-it jaunt from Princeton Junction in West Windsor to Princeton University that cost $2.75.
Part of the reason Koontz moved to Princeton was the Dinky, which provides an easy link to the Northeast Corridor Line and service to New York City, where he commuted for 16 years.
The most vocal supporter of the bus rapid-transit line is Marvin Reed, a former Princeton Borough mayor who chairs the regional master planning subcommittee.
He said it makes sense to fill the Dinky right-of-way with futuristic-looking, environmentally friendly rapid-transit vehicles that would provide more stops at more convenient locations for more riders.
That also would free up more space at the Princeton train station across from McCarter Theatre for a major addition to the university’s arts district on the idyllic campus of the Ivy League university.
"This isn’t just replacing the Dinky with another bus — this is really creating a whole different transit network," Reed said.
He envisions passengers buying their one-seat rides at kiosks, stepping into stations with real-time travel information and rolling their luggage or bicycles or wheelchairs onto the low-slung buses, similar to what is used in Denver and Boston. Buses would run every 10 minutes, providing better connections to trains at Princeton Junction. The Dinky generally arrives about every 25 to 30 minutes.
The buses would be cheaper to run, requiring only a single operator, he said.
Still, Reed, a frequent Dinky rider, understands the emotional pull of the storied train.
"There is a tremendous amount of sentiment, and I would be the first to defend it — if there weren’t any reasonable alternative," he said.
A presentation on the bus rapid-transit line is scheduled to be made before Princeton Borough’s planning board Sept. 30.
NJ Transit, which runs the Dinky, has been working on a Route 1 corridor study to improve public transit mobility, and prior studies have shown that a bus rapid-transit connection between Princeton Junction and Princeton could have value.
"The community raised the possibility of using BRT in lieu of the Dinky," NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said.
He noted that NJ Transit did not initiate the idea.
"We are responding to this possibility since it was raised by the community," Stessel said. "No decisions have been made, and the cooperative planning effort is ongoing."
Koontz said that for such an important decision, there needs to be much more community debate and discussion.
"We," he said, "are talking about an institution in town."