By Mark Hallum
Multiple Long Island Rail Road trains going to and from Penn Station were delayed or canceled Tuesday as power problems in one of the East River Tunnels created more transportation nightmares for commuters.
While rumors swirled that the LIRR would sue Amtrak for the repeated disruptions in service, the federal agency announced it will need to buckle down on a major overhaul despite the ensuing delays.
Penn Station, the nation’s busiest rail hub, which is owned by Amtrak, has been besieged by two recent derailments, power outages in the East River and Hudson River tunnels, and scattered infrastructure failures, all of which have inconvenienced hundreds of thousands of commuters. Amtrak is responsible for maintaining the tracks.
The latest electrical problems, which began Tuesday evening, were preceded by an Amtrak train that was stuck in a tunnel in the morning hours. The breakdown had the LIRR cross-honoring fares with the MTA. Between the hours of 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., the LIRR reported a multitude of delays and cancellations through its Twitter page on lines such as the Port Washington and Babylon.
Aaron Donovan, a spokesman from the MTA, confirmed Wednesday that 131 trains were scheduled during the peak hour in the evening. Ultimately, 44 trains were delayed and 21 trains were canceled. There was a 50.38 percent on-time performance for LIRR Tuesday, Donovan said. Delays ranged from 6 to 30 minutes in length, while the average delay was 12 minutes.
Amtrak spokeswoman Christina Leeds said the upgrades planned for the station’s infrastructure would result in the delays and disruptions of service.
“This renewal effort will replace and rejuvenate the selected infrastructure, providing needed updates, and is different than the ongoing repair work,” Leeds said. “We’ll have more on the plans in the coming days and will be working with LIRR and NJTransit to schedule this work and minimize service impacts.”
MTA spokeswoman Beth DeFalco denied rumors that the LIRR was planning a lawsuit as a direct and immediate result of the infrastructure breakdowns.
“There are no imminent plans to sue Amtrak,” she said. “As is always case, lawyers look into these types of things to explore all options, but again, there is no legal action imminent.”
Amtrak’s CEO Wick Moorman admitted to letting the whole region down in early April when he revealed the tracks in Penn Station have been in need of repair for a prolonged period of time and were the cause of two recent derailments that disrupted LIRR travel in a transit calamity that played out across several states. The statement came following an April 3 New Jersey Transit derailment caused by a compromised wooden railroad tie, which the agency had known was failing prior to the incident.
“We had notations that these timbers needed to be replaced,” he said. “We clearly did not have the understanding that there was an imminent failure.”
Eight of the 21 tracks in Penn Station were shut down by the Jersey Transit derailment April 3. The tracks were not up and running again until April 7, upending commutes for many passengers on the LIRR. It was the second derailment in the station within 10 days.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for greater funding to Amtrak and infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor after the April 3 incident, warning that lack of capital investment could have dire consequences.
“Even the smallest of maintenance issues, left unchecked, can become the reason for the next big delay — or worse — disaster. For far too long, Amtrak has been tremendously undercapitalized to the point that they now have an over $28 billion state-of-good-repair backlog,” Schumer said. “In addition, transit systems across the region lack the necessary funding to make much-needed repairs. So, simply put, no matter how hard Amtrak or other rail systems work to prioritize safety, because of a lack of funding, some projects and improvements are just not getting done.”
In a letter to Moorman and the Federal Railroad Administration, the governors of New York and New Jersey pointed out their states had not been invited to a review of Amtrak’s repair and maintenance procedures and asked to be included.
Reach reporter Mark Hallum by e-mail at mhall
