A combination of sweltering heat, strained infrastructure and breakdowns and mechanical issues at Amtrak and the New Jersey Transit Authority caused pain and lengthy delays for tens of thousands of commuters across the Northeast this week.
Rail service between New Jersey and New York’s Penn Station was suspended before the Thursday evening commute and again Friday morning. New Jersey Transit Citation “There’s a problem with Amtrak’s overhead lines.”
The root cause of the disruption is still under investigation, but it occurred on the hottest day so far this year, causing longer commutes amid a sweltering early-summer heatwave.
“Unfortunately, a series of unique events have recently come together to cause significant delays in the New York area and impact service across a significant portion of the Northeast Corridor,” Amtrak President Roger Harris said in a statement Friday.
Harris added that on Thursday a circuit breaker supplying power to the trains “suffered a catastrophic failure on one of the hottest days of the year, bringing a serious wildfire close to the tracks.”
He also said Amtrak is working with NJ Transit to “understand and address recent disruptions related to NJT trains operating on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor infrastructure, which appear to be specific to the facility and region.”
Amtrak and NJ Transit trains share the century-old tunnel that connects New York and New Jersey, the only passenger rail service connecting Manhattan with the rest of the Northeast Corridor, which runs from Washington, DC, to Boston.
Extreme heat puts strain on infrastructure
The cause of this week’s transport disruptions has not been determined, but rail experts said the extreme heat could be putting strain on infrastructure.
To function, many trains use one long piece of welded metal called a “continuous weld,” but as temperatures rise it expands, creating stresses that cause the rails to bow, said Curtis Morgan, director of freight trades and senior research scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
“It could cause a derailment,” he said. “Trains will be instructed to run at a slower speed due to the extra strain on the rails.”
this week, Amtrak warned High temperatures across the region slowed some trains, causing delays of up to an hour.
Most Amtrak trains operate at speeds between 125 and 155 mph, but when temperatures approach triple digits, trains are slowed to 80 to 100 mph. Gerhard Williams, Amtrak’s executive vice president of service delivery and operationsHe added that the extreme heat had played a small role in disruption to train services this week.
A heat advisory was in effect for New York City until Sunday night, with the heat index reaching nearly triple digits at times. National Weather Service.
The summer months will put additional pressure on rail infrastructure, said Clinton J. Andrews, director of the Center for Urban Policy Studies at Rutgers University and an expert on engineering, urban planning and climate change mitigation.
“Summer heat, like other extreme weather events, challenges not only our bodies but also our infrastructure systems, and is of particular concern for public transport, particularly fixed-gauge transit,” Andrews said. “Firstly, the steel tracks and the overhead wires that power the trains tend to expand during heatwaves.”
Most of the delays and cancellations in the New York City metropolitan area this week were caused by power and overhead problems, faulty breakers and a train malfunction at Penn Station, transit officials said.
Mona Hemmati, a postdoctoral researcher in climate physics at Columbia University, said people can expect to see delays and cancellations to public transportation in the future due to extreme weather caused by climate change.
“It’s important to understand that high temperatures increase the risk of derailment. You have to consider what high temperatures do to the steel, the overhead wires and so on,” she said, referring to the electrical wires that provide power to trains.
“Climate change, rising temperatures and a warmer atmosphere are causing more heat waves. We should expect more prolonged periods of extreme heat,” she added.
The New Jersey Transit Authority did not comment on weather-related delays, but said in a statement Friday that the impacts to service this week for customers were “unacceptable.”
“We are as frustrated as our customers,” the company said.
NJ Transit operates 700 trains every weekday over hundreds of miles between Philadelphia and New Haven, Connecticut, but most of the disruptions occurred between New Jersey and New York.
Commuters’ dissatisfaction
Many commuters who struggled this week said they hope the situation will improve soon.
“I’ve taken NJT three times this week and it’s been awful every time. I wrote a play and they were almost two hours late for rehearsal on Tuesday,” said Roma Torre, a New Jersey resident and former anchor for local news station NY1 who regularly uses NJ Transit. “I fully understand there are infrastructure issues, but the problem is poor service.”
“We’ve had problems every day this week,” said Tina Palazzo, a lawyer who commutes to Manhattan on NJ Transit. “What’s normally an hour’s commute, it took me more than three hours yesterday to get home.”
Palazzo, who lives in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, said she took the day off work Tuesday to avoid missing her son’s high school graduation.
“It’s awful. There’s no communication at all,” she said of her commute this week.
This article was originally published on NBC News
