I've learned that it's all downhill from Princeton to West Windsor.

Since I visited my sister yesterday, I came in on the Princeton Dinky this morning as she is heading off to school; this means I got to the Princeton Junction at about 6am.

I hopped on the dinky, and it pulled away from the station as usual. But after going for less than a minute, the normal lights went off and only the dim yellow glow of the back-up lights stayed. It was dark enough that the phosphorescent dots that guide passengers to emergency exits shone brightly in comparison. The train became rather quiet: there was no sound of engine to be heard, just that of the air conditioning. Slowly we came to a gradual halt right before where the track crosses US Route 1.

Right around that time, I heard one of the conductor say to the driver, "We're on backup battery, but I don't think it'll be enough to get us there. Maybe we should roll back?"

Then the conductors started radioing the controls (or whoever is tech-support for NJ-transit) asking whether there is a power-outage on the Dinky line.

"Hi, this is the Dinky driver, we -"

The other side bursts into laughter hearing the words "Dinky driver".

"- have lost power. Can you check from your end whether the power is being delivered on the Princeton branch line?"

It turns out that the power is delivered. So the problem is on our side. This sort of explains why the Dinky often fails to run and gets replaced by a bus shuttle.

So after fiddling with the controls a bit trying to get the power to come back on, the driver said to the conductor, "Okay, we have two choices, either let it roll back to station and reset there, or reset here. I really don't want to reset here: if it doesn't work, we'll lose air and be stuck out here in the morning cold." At this point I am fairly confused about how they proposed to move the train back to Princeton Junction when we don't have power. I was perfectly expecting to be rescued somehow. Fortunately I didn't have the chance to enjoy a bigger adventure than the one I already did.

I couldn't quite hear how they decided on what they decided on. But eventually the driver went to the back and did a reset... basically the same thing that we geeks do to fix a computer. Lo-and-behold, the lights did come back on. The driver sighed in relief and said "Guess we don't have to let gravity do our job for us." It then dawned on me that when they said "roll back" they mean that literally: over-riding the brakes and just let the train roll all the way down hill to Princeton Junction.