NJ Transit and Amtrak service in and out of Penn Station resumed Friday afternoon — with significant delays — after an early-morning fire involving an Amtrak contractor maintenance upended the morning commute. It’s the second time this month a fire has halted or seriously delayed trains across systems feeding into the station, just weeks ahead of the World Cup.
The fire broke out just outside the Hudson River tunnels and caused damage to overhead wire and track infrastructure, according to NJ Transit and Amtrak.
NJ Transit rail service between Newark Penn station and Penn Station New York returned with delays early afternoon. Amtrak service also returned with delays. Trains running to and from points north and east of the city were also partially reduced.
Amtrak said a contractor was doing work to clean “ballast,” the stones packed underneath a track bed, off their vehicle in the area outside the tunnels when the fire broke out. The cause of the fire remains unclear.
The tunnels under the Hudson carry NJ Transit trains between the two states, and are expected to be in heavy use next month when the World Cup begins at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands. NJ Transit is increasing service through the more than 100-year-old tunnels and carrying around 40,000 passengers for every match. A disruption could completely upend getting ticketholders to the tournament.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber blasted Amtrak for yet another disruption to service in and out of Penn Station related to fires or track damage in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a fire broke out in the East River tunnels from one of Amtrak’s new NextGen Acela trains, causing a similar transit meltdown.
"This is a chronic problem,” Lieber said at a press conference. “This is an institution that is having some breakdowns regularly but refuses accountability. That has to change.”
Amtrak is leading a project to rehabilitate the East River tunnels in the aftermath of lingering damage from Superstorm Sandy. Instead of opting to “repair in place” — keep tunnels open but do the work on nights and weekends — Amtrak instead chose to shut down a tube at a time.
Lieber said doing so creates a bottleneck in emergency situations.
“Every time this happens we’re one tunnel short and we cannot run service to Penn,” he said.
FDNY received a call about a work train fire on Track 11 at around 1:30 a.m. Friday. The fire escalated to a second alarm a little over an hour later, drawing 46 units to the scene. Five workers were injured and two were transported to Bellevue Hospital with serious injuries, FDNY said.
The fire comes just weeks after an Amtrak fire in an East River tunnel upended service out of Penn Station for several days.
LIRR service to Penn Station, which was also disrupted earlier Friday by FDNY activity related to the Amtrak fire, has since been mostly restored, the MTA said. Some branches including Babylon, Far Rockaway and Port Jefferson had lingering cancellations or delays in the morning, but by noon those had cleared, according to the MTA.
As of Friday afternoon, NJ Transit said customers should expect lingering delays and cancellations on the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line.
NJ Transit said rail tickets and passes were being cross-honored by NJ Transit and private carrier buses, as well as PATH, at Newark Penn Station, Hoboken and 33rd Street in New York.
Amtrak said it is offering rebookings and refunds while it returns to regular service levels.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, the FDNY said.
This story has been updated with new information.
