Some NJ Transit riders say they're fed up with "unreliable" service, as heat-related disruptions continue
SECAUCUS, N.J. -- NJ Transit riders are bracing for another day of cancellations and delays.
Officials are warning commuters to expect service disruptions due to heat-related equipment issues, adding the disruptions will continue into Friday.
The most recent round of cancellations and delays started Wednesday. NJ Transit is blaming extreme temperatures for the equipment issues affecting air conditioning units and other electronic components.
As a result, dozens of trains will not operate or will be combined with other trains, and some will make additional stops.
Officials say to minimize the impact on customers, trains are strategically selected across multiple rail lines at different times of the day to ensure no one rail line is disproportionately affected.
The transit agency's revamped schedule can be found here.
The latest service disruptions will likely be addressed next Wednesday at the next scheduled NJ Transit board meeting.
"I can't trust if the train is going to be there or not"
Stop any NJ Transit rider at the Secaucus Junction train station and they likely have a recent nightmare commute to share, or at this point several.
"I'll say two to three times a week. That's a lot," one person said Thursday of the cancellations and delays.
"I'm lucky if it's 15 minutes, but other times it just goes and you don't know when it's coming," Lori McConnell said.
"The platform down there, they cancelled the 8:20. The 8:11 came and left and there's hundreds of people there right now," Dan Sullivan said.
Passengers are questioning why the agency wasn't better prepared.
"It has honestly come to the point where it's unreliable. I can't trust if the train is going to be there or not," Micaela Kraker said.
Amtrak deserves blame as well, some say
Other riders say it's Amtrak that should be held responsible for repeated infrastructure failures.
"It's Amtrak and nobody talks about the fact it's Amtrak, who runs all of this and everybody has to sort of kowtow to them, but they never get held responsible, so it's very disheartening," rider Kathy San Severino said.
"It's a different delay every week. Sometimes it's overhead wire issues from Amtrak. Sometimes it's maintenance or mechanical," Micaela Kraker said.