The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Metro-North Railroad announced it has resumed near-normal service on the full length of the Hudson Line after crews worked for 43 hours straight to clear 350 cubic yards of soil and debris and 250 cubic yards of rock and cement walls from a mudslide in Scarborough that covered all four of the line’s tracks.
The railroad had operated bus service over the weekend to allow passengers to continue travel while train service was suspended between Tarrytown and Croton-Harmon.
Full-length Hudson Line train service with the train departing Poughkeepsie at 4:12 a.m., and service resumed through the area of the mudslide minutes after 4:45 a.m. with Train 700, the 4:42 a.m. departure from Croton-Harmon, due into Grand Central at 5:47 a.m.
“I can't say enough about the Metro-North workers who've been out there all weekend long. There's just been a tremendous, tremendous effort to get the service back this morning. We've got four tracks in that area; two have been cleared and we’re running on two, we've got two more that need to be cleared away,” said Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi. One of the other issues is that we're still working with the property owner up above to make sure that the slope is stable. And that's part of the plan in terms of bringing the service back on those two tracks. At this point. I would expect we're probably going to be running on two tracks for the rest of this week.”
MTA's Effort to Reduce Congestion-Related Delays
To reduce the potential for congestion-related delays four of the 158 trains the Metro-North operates daily were canceled on Oct. 23: Two during the morning rush, the 6:42 a.m. train from Poughkeepsie and the 6:45 a.m. train from Croton-Harmon.
Since the mudslide was reported at 9:45 a.m. on Saturday, crews worked around the clock to successfully clear soil, debris, rock, and cement walls from two of the Hudson Line’s four tracks. Crews are breaking apart the rock walls to reincorporate segments to help stabilize the slope where the mudslide occurred, and they are repositioning other segments to the shoreside of the Hudson Line, transforming it into “rip-rap” that stabilizes the coastline alongside the rail line.
Work is expected to continue for days to clear the mud and debris from the remaining two tracks.
To reduce congestion in the area where tracks are limited, reverse-peak trains will bypass Philipse Manor or Scarborough during the morning and evening rush hours.
Customers looking to travel north to those stations in the morning will need to ride a northbound train to Ossining or Croton-Harmon to board a southbound train, according to MTA. Customers looking to travel south from those stations in the evening will need to ride a southbound train to Tarrytown to board a northbound train.
