NEW YORK — Passengers at the nation’s most used railroad station can breathe a sigh of relief, as Amtrak has completed its summer 2019 infrastructure work at Penn Station.
Full Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road operations at the New York rail hub are slated to resume Tuesday, Sept. 3, while NJ Transit will return to normal schedules as of Monday, Sept. 9.
The summer work has become an annual project for Amtrak. This year, work focused on the overall renewal of JO interlocking at the east end of the station, used by all three rail operators heading east and west of the East River tunnels. The program included complete replacement of all switches on the east end of tracks 14,15, and 16, primarily used by Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road, and all signaling systems, signal machines, and cables. Taking advantage of the track outage, Amtrak workers also replaced all third rail and power cables, installed new LED lighting at the interlocking, and repainted affected passenger platforms.
With completion of the project, which caused some operating days throughout the summer, the Long Island Railroad will restore 14 trains which were discontinued for the duration of the work. Five had been cancelled, six were rerouted to Brooklyn’s Atlantic Terminal, and three were operating two and from the Jamaica station. The LIRR also announced that four off-peak trains on the Oyster Bay Branch in September, reducing train frequency to one every two hours.
NJ Transit adjustments on Sept. 9 will include returning some Montclair-Boonton Midtown Direct trains that had been diverted from Penn Station to Hoboken, N.J., for the summer. Other schedule changes are set to begin Sept. 8 to accommodate system infrastructure improvements; new schedules will be available online and on board trains on Sept. 4.
More information and updates on Amtrak service are available at the Amtrak website and its page devoted to the New York Penn project. Long Island Railroad information is available here and NJ Transit information is here.
