NJ Transit pledges to hold Amtrak’s ‘feet to the fire’ after commuting meltdowns

The head of NJ Transit said he’s holding Amtrak’s “feet to the fire” to ensure the week’s brutal train delays don’t plague riders all summer — even as the two agencies trade blame over some of the problems.

On Friday, service in and out of New York Penn Station was stopped for hours during the peak morning commute and Midtown Direct trains were temporarily diverted to Hoboken. It was the third time that 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, they don’t care whose fault it is at the end of the day,” NJ Transit CEO Kevin Corbett said. “They buy a ticket. They want to go from A to B. They want to get to work on time. They want to get home or get to their kids’ game 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 runs. Amtrak has taken some of the blame but the agency recently told Gov. Phil Murphy that it also believed some issues were due to NJ Transit trains’ pantograph — an apparatus that distributes power atop the train — getting snarled in Amtrak’s overhead wires.

In alerts on Friday morning, NJ Transit blamed overhead wire issues for the hours-long service interruptions. Amtrak alerts describing Amtrak’s own delays and cancelations pointed to a disabled commuter train in New York. But NJ Transit said in a statement that the train was “inspected thoroughly” before leaving Newark and no problems were found, including with its pantograph.

In a statement on 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 each delay, we do know that, yesterday, a circuit breaker powering our trains experienced a catastrophic failure on one of the hottest days of the year and a serious brush fire also came close to our tracks,” Harris said. “Additionally, we are working with our partners at NJ Transit to understand and address recent disruptions associated with NJT trains operating on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor infrastructure, which appears unique to the equipment and area. We have established 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 issues happen on a 10-mile stretch between Newark and New York. That section is owned and maintained by Amtrak.

He said the root issue is aging infrastructure on 100-year-old train lines that haven’t received the sort of investment needed to keep up with modern usage.

“Amtrak tries to do the best they can, and they now have some real money to start doing that, but there’s a long litany of challenges on the infrastructure, particularly between Newark and New York Penn Station,” Corbett said.

Until the system receives much-needed investment planned under the Gateway Tunnel Project — which will build a second tunnel under the Hudson River for Amtrak and NJ Transit — the transit agencies need to find short-term fixes, Corbett added. The Gateway project isn’t expected to be completed for another decade.

“We can maintain our system,” said Corbett. “I know on our system, we have a high level of confidence. We want to work with [Amtrak]. We’ve offered them our equipment, our expertise to help them if they need it. But there are a number of issues. It’s not one 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 the rail services come down to “decades of underinvestment,” and cited then-Gov. Chris Christie’s 2010 decision to cancel the ARC Tunnel project, a predecessor to Gateway that would have built a new tunnel under the Hudson River.

“The problem with these kind of complex large systems is that it takes a long time to turn around decisions, bad decisions that were made in the past,” Wright said. That’s left the infrastructure that both NJ Transit and Amtrak depend upon intensely vulnerable, he added.

“What we’ve seen this week is that the system is only as strong as its weakest link,” said Wright. “Things like extreme heat — and we may have big storms coming this fall — all of them can disrupt different parts of the system. Whether it’s a signal going out, a stalled train, catenary issues, lightning strike, a fire, any one of those things can really disrupt the system.”

Travel into and out of New York Penn Station was also slowed on Tuesday by a disabled train, and commuters were stranded on Thursday due to power problems. Along with Friday’s disruptions, they’re the latest in a series of problems since May 22, when service suspensions resulted in hours of delays during the evening commute that caused issues into the next morning.

In response to the May incident, Gov. Murphy sent a letter to Amtrak asking to meet, and both Amtrak and NJ Transit have pledged to communicate and collaborate better. Earlier this month, the rail services said they would create new protocols for sharing information and coordinate service adjustments more efficiently to facilitate repairs and other maintenance. But Murphy said this week that the continued problems were “unacceptable” and pledged to look into them further.

“We’ve told them we’re prepared to give more, alter our schedule to give them bigger windows to be able to make the necessary repairs,” NJ Transit’s Corbett said on Friday. “Let’s put the BS aside, get everyone together in the same room.”

Another potential issue looms for NJ Transit commuters: Even after recently approved fair hikes, the agency is facing a budget deficit that is projected to balloon to $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.