The head of NJ Transit said he’s holding Amtrak’s “feet to the fire” to ensure brutal weekday train delays don’t plague riders all summer — even as the two agencies trade blame for some of the problems.
On Friday, service in and out of New York’s Penn Station was halted for hours during the morning rush hour, and Midtown Direct trains were temporarily diverted to Hoboken. It was the third time commuters were left stranded and frustrated this week as a heat wave kicked off the summer season and sent temperatures into the high 90s.
“Our riders don’t care who’s at fault at the end of the day,” said NJ Transit CEO Kevin Corbett. “They buy a ticket. They want to get from A to B. They want to get to work on time. They want to get home or go to their kids’ play on time, and they don’t care if it’s us or Amtrak “.
NJ Transit uses Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor tracks in the northern part of the state. Corbett estimated that 60% of NJ Transit trains travel along the corridor for at least some of their routes. Amtrak has taken some of the blame, but the agency recently told Gov. Phil Murphy that it also believed some of the problems were due to NJ Transit trains’ pantograph — a device that distributes power on top of the train — corroding on the wires. top of Amtrak.
In alerts Friday morning, NJ Transit blamed overhead wire problems for several hours of service disruptions. Amtrak alerts describing Amtrak’s own delays and cancellations point to a disabled passenger train in New York. But NJ Transit said in a statement that the train was “thoroughly inspected” before it left Newark and no problems were found, including its pantograph.
In a statement Friday, Amtrak President Roger Harris apologized to customers for this week’s service delays in the New York area, which he attributed to “a unique combination of events.”
“While we are still investigating the root cause of any delays, we do know that yesterday, a circuit breaker supplying our trains experienced a catastrophic failure on one of the hottest days of the year and a severe brush fire also came close to the tracks ours. Harris said. “Additionally, we are working with our partners at NJ Transit to understand and address the recent disruptions associated with NJT trains operating on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor infrastructure, which appears unique to the facilities and the area. We have created a joint team with NJT to identify the source of this damage and implement improvements”.
Corbett said NJ Transit runs 700 train trips a day on 500 miles of track, and most of the problems occur on a 10-mile stretch between Newark and New York. That section is owned and maintained by Amtrak.
He said the main issue is aging infrastructure on 100-year-old train lines that haven’t received the kind of investment needed to keep up with modern use.
“Amtrak tries to do the best it can, and they now have some real money to start doing that, but there’s a long series of infrastructure challenges, especially between Newark and New York Penn Station,” Corbett said.
Until the system receives much-needed investments planned under the Gateway Tunnel Project — which will build a second tunnel under the Hudson River for Amtrak and NJ Transit — transit agencies must find short-term fixes, Corbett added. The Gateway project is not expected to be completed for another decade.
“We can maintain our system,” Corbett said. “I know in our system, we have a high level of confidence. We want to work with [Amtrak]. We have offered them our equipment, our expertise to help them if they need it. But there are a number of issues. There is no silver bullet that can solve this.”
Tom Wright, head of the Regional Planning Association, a policy advocacy organization for the tri-state area, said Amtrak and NJ Transit have generally worked well together on projects like Gateway. But he said the problems facing rail services were down to “decades of underinvestment” and cited then-Gov. Chris Christie’s decision in 2010 to cancel the ARC tunnel project, a Gateway predecessor that would have built a new tunnel under the Hudson River.
“The problem with these kinds of large complex systems is that it takes a long time to reverse decisions, bad decisions that were made in the past,” Wright said. That has left the infrastructure that both NJ Transit and Amtrak depend on vulnerable, he added.
“What we’ve seen this week is that the system is only as strong as its weakest link,” Wright said. “Things like extreme heat — and we may have some big storms coming this fall — all of those things can disrupt different parts of the system. Whether it’s a signal going out, a stalled train, catenary problems, lightning strikes, a fire, any of these things can really disrupt the system.”
Travel in and out of New York’s Penn Station was also slowed Tuesday by a disabled train, and commuters were stranded Thursday due to power problems. Along with Friday’s outages, they are the latest in a series of problems since May 22, when service suspensions resulted in hours-long delays during the evening commute that caused problems the next morning.
In response to the May incident, Governor Murphy sent a letter to Amtrak asking them to meet, and Amtrak and NJ Transit have pledged to communicate and cooperate better. Earlier this month, rail services said they would create new protocols to share information and coordinate service adjustments more efficiently to facilitate repairs and other maintenance. But Murphy said this week that the ongoing problems were “unacceptable” and vowed to look into them further.
“We’ve told them we’re prepared to give more, to change our schedule to give them bigger windows to be able to make the necessary repairs,” NJ Transit’s Corbett said Friday. “Let’s put the BS aside, get everyone in the same room.”
Another potential issue looms for NJ Transit riders: Even after the recently approved fair increases, the agency is facing a budget deficit that is projected to top $1 billion in the fiscal year starting in July 2025.
Murphy has proposed reinstating a version of a corporate business tax surcharge to provide NJ Transit with a dedicated funding source. He and the New Jersey state legislature must agree on a budget before July 1.
Sean Carlson and Joseph Capriglione contributed reporting.