Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT joined Governor Phil Murphy for a working summit ahead of the summer 2025 travel season in New Jersey. During the meeting, a new progress report on the joint inspection, maintenance, and improvement program for Amtrak’s infrastructure and NJ Transit’s trains. 

Working to Prevent Delays

The two agencies have targeted work over the past year to produce significant upgrades that are expected to mitigate major service disruptions and address incidents that customers experienced in May and June of 2024.

Under Governor Murphy’s leadership, Amtrak and NJ Transit executed their joint action plan. This followed several major service disruptions in May and June 2024 and a variety of smaller incidents that reduced service reliability on the Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Trenton and New York City.

“Over the past year, we have been working diligently to address many of the issues that riders endured during the summer of 2024,” said Governor Murphy. “In partnership with Amtrak, we have embarked on an ambitious effort to increase inspections, accelerate repairs, and expand funding for capital investments. We are pleased to announce today that Amtrak has now agreed to welcome a senior-level staff member with NJ TRANSIT into their New York Penn Station control center which will help the two agencies engage in continuous collaboration. We will continue to work together so we can ensure that the people of New Jersey get where they need to go — safely and on time.”

A public meeting was held last June, which outlined the immediate actions, investigations, inspections, and repairs that Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT undertook together to address these issues. Updates on the measures were provided in August and November 2024.

These actions have contributed to a noticeable decline in similar occurrences over the past several months, as NJ TRANSIT’s on-time performance has returned to over 90%.

“NJ TRANSIT understands how vital dependable rail service is for the tens of thousands of customers who rely on the Northeast Corridor every day. Since last June, substantial progress has been made on infrastructure and equipment upgrades that should significantly lower the risk of experiencing a repeat of last summer’s service issues,” said NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kris Kolluri. “We remain committed to making necessary schedule adjustments to support Amtrak’s ongoing upgrades to the overhead wires ahead of the summer—essential work that strengthens the future of this corridor. Service reliability remains our top priority, and we deeply value our continued collaboration with Amtrak to deliver a better, more reliable travel experience for all our customers.”

Future Work on the NEC

After more than $12 million worth of work across the territory was completed in Federal Fiscal Year 24, Amtrak plans to invest more than $40 million in Fiscal Year 25.

Since November, Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT have made or are scheduling several improvements to execute their joint plan, including:

• Infrastructure Improvements: Since June 2024, Amtrak has completed more than 9,500 hardware replacements between Trenton and New York Penn Station and has completed improvements at three substations to date, with work at eight others planned throughout the year. In addition, Amtrak is performing track, signal, and other work along the NEC in New Jersey, as well as rebuilding heavily utilized interlockings in New York Penn Station.

• Increased Inspections: NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak increased visual pantograph inspections and continued training for engineers on inspection and handling, including a second, more comprehensive round of helicopter inspections of the catenary and other electric signal systems.

• Outage Collaboration: Current and upcoming work focused on asset condition and usage, corresponding with key “hot spots” from summer 2024, will require schedule changes and outages to complete the work. Both Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT have agreed to service outages over the 12 weeks leading up to summer 2025 to minimize impacts to passengers and maximize the impact of the investments, including recent adjustments to Raritan Valley Line schedules.

• NJ TRANSIT Equipment Upgrades: NJ TRANSIT has invested more than $1 billion dollars in 174 new Multilevel III rail cars currently on order, which will be equipped with Automatic Drop Devices (ADDs), similar to those on Amtrak trains, which will proactively drop a pantograph if it becomes damaged. This helps identify the section of track where the failure has occurred and will reduce the severity of an incident involving the overhead wires. An additional $1 billion investment in an additional 200 new Multilevel III cars is planned for later this year. NJ TRANSIT has also installed new chip protectors on its entire fleet before summer to better protect against catenary defects and impacts and enhance equipment resiliency. NJ TRANSIT is exploring engineering solutions with the rail car manufacturer to retrofit some of the existing fleet with ADDs.

• Response Plans: Enhanced NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak contingency response plans in the event of heat situations include strategic placement of protecting crews and heat-forecast-triggered catenary inspections. In addition, Amtrak’s new summer readiness preparation protocols call for pre-emptive activities to be completed before May 31, incorporating data, Amtrak's past practices, and international best practices to mitigate against common heat failures.

• Customer Service: NJ TRANSIT will continue investing in customer service, including improved real-time station and app announcements and the deployment of customer care teams at Penn Station New York and Newark Penn Station on weekdays during the morning and evening peak periods.

• Dispatching Enhancements: NJ TRANSIT senior management personnel in the New York Penn Station Control Center will support coordination in dispatching and priorities during complex events and support on-time performance.

• Other Actions: Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT have retained Rutgers University/Applied Testing for joint pantograph testing, which is currently underway with the participation of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

“Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT customers should feel confident in their travel this summer thanks to the leadership from Governor Murphy and the New Jersey Congressional delegation, and all the hard work Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT teams accomplished this past year together to provide the reliable travel experience our customers deserve,” said Amtrak President Roger Harris. “But the job isn’t done, as we have more improvements underway, and we are encouraged by the results so far that will lead to more upgrades and better service.”

Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT continue to work with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration on the review of the $112 million in Federal-State Partnership for the NEC grants that were awarded to Amtrak last year for three critical electric traction and signal projects in New Jersey with the Financial support of NJ TRANSIT.