(The following story by Judy Rife appeared on the Times Herald-Record website on January 14, 2009.)
SECAUCUS, N.J. — NJ Transit’s rail operations managers are investigating the cause of — and response to — switch problems that turned the evening rush Monday into a night to forget.
The problems, in switches west of Secaucus where multiple rail lines intersect, resulted in delays of up to 90 minutes for thousands of homeward-bound commuters on Main, Bergen, Pascack Valley and Port Jervis line trains.
All told, about 45 Metro-North and NJ Transit trains in both directions were delayed between 5 and 9:30 p.m. Customers received a detailed explanation and an apology Tuesday morning from NJ Transit, which operates Metro-North’s service in New York’s Orange and Rockland counties.
“It was chaos,” said Jeff Storey of Goshen, N.Y., as he recounted the confusion at Hoboken Terminal. “The times kept changing on the board about what trains on which tracks were going where.”
Storey said at one point, the board directed Port Jervis customers to a Bergen train on Track 6, where a NJ Transit employee kept announcing “This train is going to Port Jervis.”
Once aboard, however, a conductor announced “This train is not going to Port Jervis; your train is on Track 9.”
Storey said dozens of commuters immediately made for the door but the train on Track 9 left before they got to it.
The situation was similar at Secaucus Junction, where commuters arriving from Pennsylvania Station in midtown Manhattan transfer to trains originating at Hoboken.