- Amtrak owns much of the Northeast Corridor rail line and will spend $40 million on infrastructure between Manhattan and Trenton.
- Though Amtrak owns the infrastructure, the vast majority of the more than 400 daily trains that run on the corridor are NJ Transit trains.
NEWARK — More short-term service disruptions are coming for NJ Transit commuters as Amtrak continues to replace long-outdated wires, signals and power systems in a bid to stave off a repeat of 2024's summer of hell, which featured waves of disruptive delays and cancellations.
Amtrak, which owns much of the Northeast Corridor rail infrastructure — the busiest passenger rail route in North America — is responsible for keeping it in a state of good repair. To that end it will invest $40 million this year to upgrade the infrastructure between New York Penn Station and Trenton.
Though Amtrak owns the infrastructure, the vast majority of the more than 400 daily trains that run on the corridor are NJ Transit trains.
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Getting this work done before the summer is critical because the old infrastructure is susceptible to extreme changes in temperature, especially the heat. Last summer and the summer before, drooping wires, power system failures and signal problems affected hundreds of trains over the course of scattered days and weeks.
Another $12.5 million worth of work took place last year to replace old parts, install 3.5 miles of overhead wires and perform comprehensive inspections.
Repairs have already begun along Northeast Corridor
The new wave of disruptive work has already begun, with Raritan Valley Line service affected for about two weeks this month while overhead wires were replaced between Rahway and Elizabeth.
Other major projects that will begin in the coming weeks include the replacement of 12 breakers, work that will continue through the end of the year, and catenary replacement near where tracks intersect in Rahway.
Kris Kolluri, CEO and president of NJ Transit, said customers will be informed of the service changes three to four weeks in advance.
“What we intend to do is publish a list of all the outages we are planning between now and the first week in June well in advance, so our customers will know,” Kolluri said Tuesday at a press conference held with Amtrak’s senior management and Gov. Phil Murphy.
Tony Coscia, Amtrak's board president, said the national passenger railroad has “really upped our game.”
Gov. Phil Murphy agreed. “We started with an intense period of collaboration, and I think that has yielded a lot of positive fruit for commuters on both systems,” Murphy said.
Upgrades a contrast to last year
Amtrak’s dedication of funding and workforce to these decades-old equipment issues is a contrast to some of the rhetoric last year, when it was unclear when some of this work would take place and how it would be funded, as blame was put on NJ Transit’s equipment.
The emphasis now is on replacing Amtrak’s outdated overhead wires, or catenary, which droops in the heat and can become tangled with the pantographs that deliver power from the wires to the train.
While Amtrak has replaced some wires in New Jersey with a constant tension system, which automatically adjusts them if they droop, Amtrak confirmed the upcoming wire replacements will still use a fixed tension system. A spokesman added: "With less wear and tear, the replacement wire will lead to less sagging. We are expecting to replace some areas of the corridor with constant tension — but that is more long-term."
In the meantime, NJ Transit is also installing auto-drop devices that will drop the pantograph completely if a low-hanging wire is detected, and it will get reattached manually by the locomotive engineer.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in terms of creating a whole new regimen of inspecting assets," Coscia said. "The best way to deal with an asset that’s old and has risk of not performing is to identify it before that failure takes place and fix it.
"The best way of being able to do that involves finding the best state-of-the-art technologies that are available, make that inspection as meaningful as possible — and we’ve done all of those things," he said.
Improved incident response
Incident response will be another priority of the railroads this summer, through several new initiatives:
- Increased inspections of wires and other systems.
- New firefighting equipment.
- Strategically placed crews.
- Consistent and frequent messaging to customers when delays are happening.
In addition, Amtrak is now allowing a senior member of NJ Transit staff to be in the New York Penn Station dispatch room.
Being preemptive and anticipating heat-induced problems "has been a big part of the partnership, as opposed to only reacting to challenges,” Murphy said.
“We can’t bat a thousand, on the one hand, but on the other hand a lot of progress has been made with tangible and specific impact, positively, on the commuter experience going forward,” he said.
(This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.)
