NEW YORK (AP) – The last New Jersey commuter train to leave the World Trade Center before the twin towers collapsed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack was the first one to return, rolling into a temporary station Sunday with dignitaries and victims’ family members on board.

“It’s a resumption of normalcy,” said New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey. He was joined on the short trip under the Hudson River from Jersey City, N.J. to the temporary PATH station by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New Jersey Sens. Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg.

“Today, we’re proud and we’re pleased to bring back to the people of this region something that was taken from us on Sept. 11,” said Anthony Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Thelma Stuart, whose husband, Port Authority police officer Walwyn Stuart Jr., was instrumental in safely evacuating that train – and who then returned to the trade center, where he died – rode in the first car with her 3-year-old daughter, Amanda.

“It’s a great honor,” she said.

As the train surfaced from the tunnel under the Hudson River, passengers saw the construction site that the trade center has become.

The World Trade Center station itself looks stripped down and industrial, with exposed beams and a corrugated steel ceiling. The bare-bones aesthetic is softened with panels bearing quotations about New York from notables including Edgar Allan Poe and Gene Kelly.

The station, in the northeast corner of ground zero, was restored over 16 months for about $323 million, after crews gutted two train tunnels down to their steel frames and installed nearly 7,000 feet of new track. A permanent, $2 billion transit hub will take its place in 2006.

The station is expected to accommodate up to 50,000 passengers a day. Before the attacks, the station handled about 67,000 daily passengers; they had to switch to ferries, cars and buses after the station was destroyed.

Bloomberg said re-establishing transportation between New Jersey and lower Manhattan “is really going to make an enormous difference to many people’s lives and be part of the real revival of downtown Manhattan.”

Regular passenger service between New Jersey and the World Trade Center station started later Sunday.

Jean Mitchell of Hoboken, N.J., who lost a friend in the attack on the twin towers, was crying as she got off the train.

“It’s the same stairs, the (same) newsstand,” she said. “It’s a victory, an absolute victory.”

While dignitaries marked the resumption of train service, about 40 members of groups representing trade center victims held a protest across West Street from the trade center site.

The survivors said they lobbied unsuccessfully to have the reopened station named World Trade Center Memorial Station, and object to the Port Authority’s plans to build an additional train track, which they consider an infringement on sacred ground.

“We’ve been treated like children,” said Lee Ielpi, whose firefighter son was killed at the trade center. “From here on in, no more nice guy.”