Full Service On Metro-North New Haven Line Set To Resume Monday Morning
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Crews were preparing this weekend for the full resumption of service on the Metro-North New Haven Line, nearly two weeks after a power meltdown caused a major service disruption.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in a statement on Saturday afternoon said full service will be back in time for the Monday morning commute.
"Regular New Haven Line service will resume Monday morning, October 7, following successful initial testing of a new electrical substation at Mount Vernon," the MTA said on their website on Saturday.
Service on the New Haven Line will be running at 70-percent of normal through the rest of the weekend, according to the MTA.
Preparations Under Way For Resumption Of Full Metro-North New Haven Line Service
"Our power department has been working feverishly to get a brand new substation up and commissioned," said Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders. "Ordinarily, that takes almost a week to do. They did it in a day and a half."
LINK: MNR Service Update
Reduced hourly service from all New Haven line stations was running in both directions all day on Saturday and Sunday, with the exception of Metro-North's Direct New Haven line service to the Meadowlands. That service will not operate on Sunday, the MTA announced.
AMTRAK also announced that it would be operating Acela Express and Northeast Regional service between New York and Boston on Sunday following repairs and testing by Metro-North in Connecticut.
Meanwhile, testing of the new substation was under way over the weekend.
"Once Con Edison turned the power on to the new substation, we were able to run tests on our all-new equipment on there, and we were successful overnight, so we're going to be repositioning trains and crews, and burning in the equipment, if you will, but they want to make sure it runs smoothly over the weekend, and everything's going to be OK on Monday."
Will Wagner was heading back to Bethel this weekend, and was thrilled.
"Well, for the first half of the first week, I worked from home exclusively and then I drove to the South East Train Station, so I had to drive 20 minutes to get to, you know, a slightly different train," he told WCBS 880's Peter Haskell.
Customers holding weekly tickets valid from Sept. 25 to the date of full service resumption can begin applying for the credits on Oct 9. Customers with monthly tickets for September and October can begin applying for the credit on Oct. 20, when November monthly tickets go on sale, the MTA announced.
Ticket holders can go to the ticket window at Grand Central Terminal or any New Haven line station to have the credit applied to a new ticket, the agency announced. For more information on the credit, click here.
On Saturday afternoon Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy released a statement regarding the service disruption.
"I'm happy for the thousands of Connecticut commuters that service will be back to normal on Monday. I hope this outage serves as a wake up call to both Con Ed and the MTA when it comes to maintenance. We need to look at why this happened and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. And we will continue to push Con Ed to reimburse residents. Connecticut did not cause this problem and we should not be on the hook for the cost," Malloy said.
Power was knocked out to the entire New Haven line early on Sept. 25 due to a failed Con Edison feeder cable. A second feeder cable was previously taken offline for scheduled service.
The New Haven line was running at about 50 percent capacity because of the outage until this week, when service was boosted to 65 percent of normal.
Frustrated commuters have complained of overcrowded trains, long wait times and poor communication since the service disruption started.
You May Also Be Interested In These Stories
