NJ Transit and Amtrak service suspended due to power problems

A power outage brought all train traffic on the Northeast Corridor between Philadelphia and New Haven, Connecticut, to a halt on Thursday afternoon, threatening to disrupt evening traffic on one of the hottest days of the year.

Amtrak said a lack of electricity for trains forced it to temporarily halt service on the 150-mile (240-kilometer) line that runs through New York City. One of Amtrak’s Acela trains was already more than an hour late when it got stuck east of Newark. Another train was stuck in Queens, and Amtrak said it would send a diesel locomotive to pull that train back to Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan.

Amtrak cited “reports of a faulty circuit breaker” as the likely cause of the outage, saying the outage was unrelated to a brush fire that burned near railroad tracks and the New Jersey Turnpike in Secaucus, New Jersey, on Thursday afternoon.

New Jersey Transit commuter service to and from Penn Station has also been suspended as its trains share Amtrak’s portion of the Northeast Corridor between New York City and Trenton, NJ.

New Jersey Transit rerouted Penn Station-bound trains to Hoboken Terminal and accepted tickets on its buses. The PATH train between Manhattan and New Jersey also accepted two-way tickets.

Shortly before 5 p.m., a large crowd of angry Amtrak customers with rolling suitcases and duffel bags gathered in front of the ticket counter at Moynihan Train Hall.

An Amtrak employee addressed the crowd, saying that “nothing is moving,” and asked those waiting to leave the line unless they canceled their tickets to get a refund or rebooked for another day.

The disruption was at least the fourth in the past two months to cause long delays for commuters in the metropolitan area.

New Jersey Transit service to and from New York City’s Penn Station was suspended for about an hour Tuesday morning and all Amtrak trains passing through the station were delayed because of overhead wire problems and a commuter train stranded on the tracks, railroad officials said.

This disruption ruined the morning commute for thousands of New Jersey residents as delays also affected the state’s various rail lines.

Tuesday’s problems followed significant rush hour delays at Penn Station earlier this month caused by an Amtrak track inspection that delayed service by more than an hour.

Service disruptions also occurred in May when an overhead traffic signal wire fell in Kearny, New Jersey, striking a cable that supplies power to trains on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains between Penn Station and Newark were halted in both directions, causing delays of more than four hours.

Maia Coleman contributed to the reporting.