East Coast rail systems recover after storm

Despite gloomy predictions of no service whatsoever for Monday morning commutes up and down the Northeast seaboard, passenger rail services were slowly being added, though much service remained unavailable.

Among the earlier service restorations: PATH, the bistate rail service linking Newark and Jersey City, N.J., with downtown and midtown Manhattan. PATH was offering limited service by Sunday evening, with modified service available at all 13 stations Monday morning.

“We were the only service up and running at all on Sunday [in the New York metropolitan area],” one PATH conductor noted, with some pride, to Railway Age Monday morning.

New York City’s vast subway system showed signs of life Monday as well, with the former IRT (numbered) lines operating in Manhattan in time for the morning rush hour. The A train also was in operation, making all local stops. As noontime approached, subway service had been restored on the vast majority of the system, though service frequency was still below normal in many cases.

Long Island Rail Road’s West Hempstead branch was the only line boasting a “good service” rating by the railroad, as significant hurricane damage to the system was being identified and addressed. But LIRR itself claimed “near-normal” service on seven of its routes. Metro-North Railroad, hammered by wind and water damage, was not operating early Monday; at noon Monday it said it hoped to restore limited service on its Hudson and Harlem lines. 

New Jersey Transit trains were operating on the Atlantic City Line, the corporation’s southernmost line, but all passenger rail services leading to Hoboken and New York were not in operation Monday morning. Bus services and light rail operations were being offered, however.

Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor was operating betweenWashington, D.C. and Philadelphia Monday morning, but was closed north ofPhiladelphia due in part to significant flooding on the NEC at Trenton, N.J.

Though Amtrak resumed service on the southern end of theNEC, the Maryland Transit Administration warned its passengers to plan fordelays Monday morning on its MARC Penn Line, linking the nation’s capital andBaltimore, which uses the NEC. All other services, including light rail, wereoperating with some modifications as MARC operated in “storm recovery mode.”

Philadelphia, which like New York shut down its entire railtransit system due to weather for the first time in history, had its light railtransit and bus lines in operation Monday (some were back in service Sunday);SEPTA regional rail services had not yet resumed service on  Monday morning, but a SEPTA notice saidresumption would occur, though “with delays and occasional disruptions.”

In Massachusetts, MBTA, unlike many other operators, at first attempted to keep operating despite storm conditions, but early Sunday cancelled many services. MBTA on Monday said its services were back in operation, with residual problems on the T’s Green Line’s Riverside branch.