Wednesday morning’s rush hour became more chaotic than usual thanks to delays and cancellations impacting dozens of Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) trains heading into Manhattan — and the MTA laid the blame squarely at Amtrak‘s feet.
An Amtrak power issue in one of the East River tunnels led to the service disruptions, which included five cancellations, 43 delayed trains and six diversions impacting “tens of thousands” of riders, LIRR President Rob Free explained during a press conference at Penn Station in Midtown.
“What took place this morning was unacceptable and should not happen and can not happen again,” he said. “Tens of thousands of LIRR customers were inconvenienced this morning.”
He then put Amtrak in the hot seat by blaming the massive disruptions on the federally managed agency. He also said the disruptions highlight problems that could result from a three-year repair project Amtrak has planned for the shared tunnel tubes this month.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen is a result of poor maintenance practices by Amtrak. I don’t claim to be a fortune teller, but this is exactly what we have been concerned with and warning our customers and Amtrak about.”
Amtrak seeks full tube closures
An Amtrak spokesperson said crews were conducting overnight work on Line 4 in Queens, outside of the East River tunnel.
“The work went over the outage period as we are still completing repairs,” he said. “We apologize for the inconvenience to Long Island Rail Road passengers.”
The Amtrak spokesperson also seemed to suggest that Wednesday’s service disruption would be a taste of future problems if the tubes are not fully closed for the work. The MTA has remained insistent that Amtrak could avoid LIRR disruptions by performing repair work during off-peak hours, such as nights, weekends, and even less-busy days in the summer, instead of full shutdowns of two out of four tubes in the tunnel.
“This illustrates the risk of a nights and weekends approach to complex projects, and why the full tube closure of the East River Tunnel is the most efficient method and least disruptive to service and customers,” he said. “Unexpected service disruptions, like the one experienced today, are far worse than a well-coordinated and well-planned approach that is scheduled in advance and has stronger mitigation plans in place.”
The delays came just a day after Amtrak president Roger Harris announced that the start of a three-year East River tunnel (ERT) construction project originally planned for Friday was moved to May 23.
Harris said in a letter to Gov. Kath Hochul on May 6 that Amtrak’s construction was pushed back to accommodate the MTA’s incomplete LIRR East-Bound Reroute project.
Once it starts, Amtrak’s work would involve a full back-to-back shutdown of two of the four East River tunnels, which will remain in place for about 13 months each. The MTA has said this will result in service disruptions for its 125,000 daily LIRR riders.
MTA officials explained that one of those tunnels, Line 2, will be taken out of service continuously. The other track, Line 1, will be used solely by Amtrak and NJ Transit.
Two of the four rail tunnels crossing the East River into Penn Station will be impacted, meaning that LIRR and Amtrak will need to share the two remaining active tunnels most of the time.
“That leaves two tracks for LIRR,” Free said. “So if we lose one of those tracks like we did this morning—guess what—there’s only one track. We cannot operate in and out of Penn Station with one tunnel. There would have been a shutdown if Line 2 went out of service.”
