6 events in Passaic County with a date

Spanning The Decades

Despite upgrades, transit officials warn delays will continue for NJ Transit and Amtrak riders

By: Colleen Wilson
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Commuting on the northeast Corridor will likely get worse before it gets better.
..... That was the case in the first 10 days of December, [2025] after NJ Transit and Amtrak customers endured delays or cancellations on five of those days due to overhead wire issues, signal problems, an engine failure and problems caused by contractors working on the new Portal North Bridge.
..... And no two disruptions ear the same. Delays can range from minutes to hours, and in the worst cases trains are canceled altogether, leaving commuters to scramble and guess about the best way to get home or find a way to a can;t-miss meeting or appointment.
..... Gerbard "Gery" Williams, Amtrak's executive vice president of service delivery and operations, said there's no belittling the impacts these issues have had on customers, but that things are trending in the right direction as disruptions have become shorter on the whole.
..... Since at leas t2024 - when a hellish spring and summer led to hours-long delays and cancellations, sometimes on back-to-back days during various weeks - Amtrak and NJ Transit have overhauled how they work together, inspect equipment and make repairs .
..... Since the summer of 2024, here are some of the improvements:
* 31,500 feet of overhead wire was replaced.
* 12,000 pieces of hardware, such as clips, rods, cotter pins and bolts, were replaced.
* NJ Transit now has a seat in the dispatch room with Amtrak to weigh in about trains coming and going in the tunnel to New York Penn Station.
* There are almost daily inspections that occurs in person and using helicopters during nearly all hours of the day along the Northeast Corridor, instead of only during off-peak times.

What happened in December

..... Despite the progress, the problems that occurred in December [2025] are "symptomatic of an infrastructure that is 100 years old," said Kris Kolluri, president and CEO of NJ Transit.
..... Just like the folks who put all their efforts into the centenary systems and replaced 10,000 parts leading up to this past spring, [2025] an exact same effort has to be taken now on switches, on signals and on tracks," Kolluri said. "This is the only way we're gong to block and tackle these problems."
..... Williams broke down each incident that occurred in the first 10 days of December: [2025]
* December 2: An Amtrak train broke down, which rally "gummed things up," Williams said.
* December 4: An overhead wire issue near Newark was caused by the contractor working on the Partial North Bridge. It hindered overhead wire construction efforts and returned power to the railroad.
* December 4: There was an overhead wire issue near Metropark after the structure that holds the caternary wire collapsed and the wire fell on an NJ transit train.
..... Williams said officials are still working to determine what caused the structure to fail and noted that this problem was "hard to catch during inspection
* December 5: An overhead wire problem occurred near Secaucus, and it is still being investigated to determine whether it was cause by a dropping wire or an NJ Transit pantograph, which is a structure atop a rail-car to deliver power to the car.
* December 9: A switch problem occurred in Kearny between Newark Penn and Secaucas Junction stations.
* December 10: An overhead wire issue occurred at Secacus near the Portal North Bridge construction when the contractor accidentally demolished a power feeder cable. Amtrak has personnel at the site to monitor construction and "should have mitigated it," so the railroad shares some responsibility, Williams said.

Portal North Bridge impact

..... As construction of the new Portal North Bridge over the Hackensack River between Kearny and Secaucus nears completion, the challenges grow larger to maintain an active railroad while transitioning to the new tracks.
..... "You're running live trains. You have live infrastructure right adjacent to it," Williams said. "Everybody has worked really well thus far to not have these issues. and this was just unfortunate timing."
..... In February and March 2026, the first track of the new $2.4 billion Portal North Bridge is expected to carry trains, but it will require a multi-week outage that will case a number of NJ Transit trains to be rerouted or canceled.
..... Williams said the Portal Bridge cut over to the new tracks will be one of the biggest transition he's seen in more than 36 years in the railroad industry.
..... "We're excited about it, but it just requires a lot of careful work, especially on the signaling side," he said. "There's a lot of wiring and testing."
..... NJ Transit is expected to announce more details on the cut-over and how it will affect customers in January. [2026] But once the new Portal Bridge is live - the transition of both tracks is expected to take place before the end of the year [2026] there be 2 miles of new track, signals and wires designed to reduce the number of disruptions experienced between Secucus and New York Penn station.
..... Amtrak eliminated the movable functions of the nearby Dock Bridge, which should also reduce a number of known failure points.
..... "It'll make a huge positive impact," Williams said. "The points of failure will not be there [at Dock Bridge] anymore, so between that and what we've done at Portal with the new bridge, new catenary, new signals, it should make a significant impact."

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