Penn Station train service halted and delayed again, capping week of NYC commuter hell
All aboard for commuter hell — again.
Penn Station commuters Friday saw service on NJ Transit and Amtrak trains slow or stop altogether for the third time this week.
The frustrating snag hit NJ Transit trains about 7:45 a.m. as officials suspended service going in and out of the Midtown transit hub because of issues with Amtrak’s overhead wires, the Garden State agency tweeted.
Service resumed just shy of three hours later, albeit with 45-minute delays, according to a tweet.
Amtrak service at Penn Station was delayed by 60 minutes or more, the railroad company tweeted.
Service was still snarled by delays as of midday Friday.
Kanesha Hayes, a 39-year-old sanitation worker, already got stranded at Penn on Thursday in a 97-degree inferno packed with fellow passengers.
She worried Friday morning that she’d be late for work.
“This is the worst I’ve seen it this year,” she told The Post.
And the delays lingered into Friday evening, much to the dismay of commuters looking to get on with their weekend.
Roselyn Pozo, a 20-year-old Bronx native was at Penn Station 20 minutes before her 6:50 train to Morristown was due to leave. The train ended up being delayed by more than half an hour.
“I was just in shock. I knew about the delays and everything,” Pozo told The Post. “I just didn’t think it was going to be this bad.”
Aayush Baral, 29, an ad tech engineer from Brooklyn, was left waiting in Penn Station’s departure hall for his Mentuchen-bound train for more than an hour.
He was late visiting his family as a result.
“It’s frustrating. I want to go to my destination. I thought it would be an easy ride,” he told The Post. “Usually, it takes an hour and half for me but I’m kind of stuck here right now. I don’t know how long we have to wait here for.”
The snarled and slowed service capped a grueling week for commuters who travel in and out of Penn Station — a much-loathed transit hub that Gov. Kathy Hochul has called a “hell hole.”
The delays – which began Tuesday with yet more Amtrak overhead wire issues – unfolded on the hottest days of the year so far and raised the specter that a repeat of 2017’s infamous, transit headache-filled “Summer of Hell” could be in the offing.
The agency’s trains have experienced an infuriating number of major delays in recent months.
In May, a fallen electrical wire caused a complete shutdown of Northeast Corridor service during a weekday afternoon rush hour.
Penn Station commuter woes aren’t new.
Riders have seen their commutes ruined by a stuck NJ Transit train in 2017, an Amtrak derailment in 2018 and “server/signal issues” this past New Year’s Eve, among many other problems.
NJ Transit trains are particularly prone to problems, in large part because they’re reliant on Amtrak wires for service and the infrastructure under the Hudson River is in desperate need of upgrades and repairs.
Delays can ripple from Penn Station as commuters flood the PATH Train in Hoboken and pile onto buses.
The indignities soon could hit commuters directly in their wallets as NJ Transit is posed to impose fare hikes starting in July.
Michele Toler, 46, a marketing manager, told The Post she has never had a good experience with NJ Transit.
She stopped using the commuter railroad eight years ago after it made her miss a meeting.
Unfortunately for Toler, she returned to NJ Transit’s rails Friday amid the fresh troubles.
“Of course, of all the days, it has to be today, my first day back on New Jersey Transit, my train is delayed for 30 minutes!” she said.
Additional reporting by Zoe Hussain
