PRINCETON, N.J. — The run of the train known as the Princeton Dinky is both impressively long and unusually short. For 145 years, this rail link in a college town has ferried students and commuters over the briefest of distances.

But Year 146 has not been kind to the nation’s shortest regularly scheduled commuter route, which travels a four-minute, 2.7-mile stretch of track between a small station at Princeton University and a larger one at Princeton Junction.

For one thing, New Jersey Transit, which operates the train, has raised Dinky fares and cut off-peak service, much as it has done with other trains and buses in these tight economic times. It has also consulted with local and university officials on a proposal to pave over the Dinky’s tracks and install a bus system that would extend through the whole town. Such a system, supporters say, could reach more people, run more frequently than the Dinky and even ease a dispute that has long delayed the establishment of a university arts complex.

But if these are the Dinky’s final days, one might not immediately sense it from riding the train. On a recent weekday morning, most of the seats in the Dinky’s one open car were filled with commuters sharing newspapers and conversation…

Read the rest of the article I wrote for today’s Times here.