Amtrak Train Derails In Hudson River Tunnel, Causing Delays For Morning Commute
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A disabled Amtrak train caused major delays in and out of Penn Station for the Friday morning commute.
The maintenance train derailed inside the North Tube of the Hudson River Tunnel around 6 a.m., leaving only the South Tube open for use. More than four hours later, Amtrak tweeted the train had been removed and service was restored with residual delays.
As of 12:30 p.m., some Amtrak trains were experiencing residual delays, while New Jersey Transit and Long Island Rail Road said their service was close to schedule. Earlier, Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT riders faced up to 60-minute delays for the morning rush.
Riders told CBS2's Reena Roy the disruptions made them late to work, miss meetings, cut it close with flights and even miss a wedding.
"Pretty awful, waiting here 60 minutes for a train," one man said.
"I'm very stressed out. I was supposed to be at a meeting an hour ago," another man added.
"It's not a good feeling, not a good feeling," said Garrett Gillis, who had been asked to witness a good friend's wedding in Trenton but had to miss out. "It just sucks that it had to happen today of all days."
This is just the latest in a series of service disruptions for the agencies.
On Monday, an NJ TRANSIT train lost power, leaving commuters in the dark with no air circulating for hours. Then on Tuesday, the Amtrak-operated portal bridge over the Hackensack River malfunctioned for more than an hour after opening for marine traffic.
CBS2 has been demanding answers from elected officials about the aging bridge all week. Governor Philly Murphy has promised changes, and on Friday called on other officials to step up.
"It's a mess we inherited but we're going to claw through it," Murphy said. "If you're a commuter and you're frustrated I don't blame you. We will fix this, we need the federal government to help us fix it. We need Amtrak, but we will fix it."
"The delayed commutes, missed family time and lost economic opportunity this week show yet again how much we need to Build Gateway Now. Today's delays would not have happened with a new Gateway tunnel, which will create badly needed resiliency so trains can operate around minor disruptions without wreaking havoc on the entire Northeast Corridor rail system. There is simply no more time to waste in building a new Portal Bridge and Hudson River Tunnel to finally bring 21st Century transportation to 200,000 passengers a day," Gateway Project Trustees Steven M. Cohen, Tony Coscia, and Jerry Zaro said in a statement Friday.
