(Reuters circulated the following article on June 21.)
NEW YORK — An Amtrak power problem briefly shut down rail service in the New York area during morning rush hour on Wednesday, the second such problem in less than a month.
Eight Amtrak trains and 28 New Jersey Transit trains running between Newark, New Jersey, and New York’s Pennsylvania Station experienced delays of up to 48 minutes due to low voltage, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.
That is one of the most heavily traveled stretches of the railroad’s Northeast Corridor.
“When you have a hiccup like that, in that time frame, it causes significant delays,” Black said. “We’re back to normal operations now.”
Trains of both Amtrak, the national passenger railroad, and NJ Transit, which shares tracks in New Jersey with Amtrak, resumed normal operation around 8:30 a.m., Black said.
On May 25, a power outage shut down rush-hour train service between New York and Washington for more than two hours, stranding passengers in tunnels and forcing evacuations on the tracks.
That outage was Amtrak’s largest disruption since the big Northeast power blackout of August 2003.
Rail infrastructure in the northeastern United States has suffered from years of neglect, federal authorities say.
The Transportation Department Inspector General’s Office concluded last year that a $5 billion backlog in capital projects along the Northeast Corridor threatened current and future service reliability.