Major New Jersey Transit summer 2024 service disruptions created by a crippling combination of Amtrak’s “questionable maintenance” on its largely 1930s-designed Northeast Corridor variable tension catenary system (according to sources Railway Age spoke with) and excessive heat hopefully won’t repeat themselves now that the two agencies are cooperating on fixes.
NJT operates the majority of trains on the NEC between Trenton, N.J. and New York Penn Station, including services that feed into the NEC (North Jersey Coast Line, Raritan Valley Line, MidTOWN Direct, for example). NJT pays Amtrak a high price for access under a formula established under PRIIA (Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008). When service imploded this past summer, creating mounting tensions between landlord and tenant, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy stepped in to say “enough is enough.”
Following several major service disruptions in May and June affecting tens of thousands of passengers, Murphy convened a June 27 meeting involving the CEOs of both agencies, NJT’s Kevin Corbett (who co-chairs the Northeast Corridor Commission) and Amtrak’s Stephen Gardner, to determine a joint action plan designed to address the problems. After issuing an initial Joint Report in August (download below), Amtrak and NJT on Nov. 20 released a second Joint Report (download below) and discussed recently awarded grants for nearly $300 million in federal funding.
The Nov. 20 Joint Report comes “after five months of inspections and short-term repairs,” the agencies said. Amtrak and NJT made the following improvements “that have greatly contributed to a noticeable decline in similar occurrences over the past several months, returning service quality to typical levels”:
- Amtrak performed 240 track-miles of catenary system inspection on the NEC between Trenton and New York City and renewed approximately 2,000 hardware components.
- Amtrak conducted helicopter inspections of the entire NEC overhead catenary system between Trenton and the North River Tunnels leading to New York Penn Station and made 839 hardware replacements from the defects identified from the 2,000-plus catenary structures captured from photographs taken during the inspections.
- Amtrak performed photo inspections via a special hi-rail vehicle of tunnels and tracks within New York Penn Station.
- Amtrak identified and remediated electric traction components and replaced overhead wire to ensure reliability.
- NJT and Amtrak increased equipment inspections and used high-definition video from cameras mounted on the roofs of NJT’s ALP46 and ALP45-DP electric locomotives to document the interaction of NJT pantograph equipment with Amtrak catenary.
- NJT also completed visual and hands-on inspections of approximately 82 route-miles of catenary on its territory.
In addition to those improvements, Amtrak recently received nearly $300 million in grants, applied for with NJT support and matching funds, from the Federal Railroad Administration, for several infrastructure modernization projects. This includes funding “to advance further planning, development, or construction activities”:
- The Amtrak Sawtooth Bridges Replacement Project obtained $187.5 million for final design and preconstruction services, which includes updated track, signals, catenary, and other infrastructure in the 2.5-mile territory for replacement of the 115-year-old NEC bridges in Kearny, N.J.
- The Amtrak Substation 41 Renewal Project, which will replace and protect from the potential of flooding a key point on Amtrak’s NEC electric traction system, received $80.2 million to construct a new substation in Kearny.
- Amtrak signal system upgrades between New Brunswick and Elizabeth, N.J. received $18.6 million for project development and design of modernizing the existing signal system along 26 miles of the NEC for increased train throughput and improved speeds.
- Amtrak NEC catenary upgrades from New Brunswick to Newark secured $13.4 million to fund the completion of the design and the environmental review of the project, which will result in the replacement of the almost 90-year-old catenary structures with a modern constant-tension system along 23 miles.
“While we are pleased with the progress that has improved reliability for tens of thousands of NJT rail customers, our joint efforts will continue,” said Corbett. “It’s essential that we sustain the same level of attention we have demonstrated over the past five months. In addition to the work we are doing to add fiberglass protectors on our pantographs to protect them from impact damage on the NEC catenary, NJT will continue to support Amtrak’s efforts to accelerate the work to upgrade the most vulnerable infrastructure along the NEC.”
“Our partnership with NJT and joint commitment to Governor Murphy to ensure that our collective customers have safe and reliable train service is achieving results,” said Gardner. “Amtrak and NJ T will continue to conduct inspections, make short-term repairs and seek more funding to fully modernize all aspects of our infrastructure over the long term, including our electric traction system, catenary, signals, switches and more.”
“This summer, I brought Amtrak and NJT together to address unacceptably long, disruptive rail delays on NJT that were a consistent problem in the spring and early summer,” said Murphy. “While the fundamental challenge facing our mass transit system continues to be aging infrastructure, we believe that these completed repairs, and the infrastructure investments to come, will make sure [passengers] have an easier time getting where they need to go when they need to get there.”
