Overnight track work that lasted longer than expected at an East River tunnel snarled Wednesday morning commutes for riders on seven out of the Long Island Rail Road’s 11 branches.
The MTA warned riders to expect “delays, cancellations or diversions” to Grand Central Madison in lieu of Penn Station after Amtrak track work that required the power to be turned off went on longer than expected at an East River tunnel used by the Long Island commuter rail network. Minor delays are lingering this morning, but Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams said it turned the power back on by 10 a.m. and does not expect the issue to disrupt the evening commute.
The agency extended a planned overnight power outage for track near the East River tunnel into the morning rush while overnight crews carried out track repairs in Queens just outside of the tunnel. Abrams described the work to Crain’s as “typical overnight maintenance” and said no additional overnight work is scheduled this week that could spill into the morning commute.
The issues spurred delays and cancellation on the Babylon, Far Rockaway, Hempstead, Long Beach, Port Jefferson, Port Washington and Ronkonkoma branches.
The track where crews conducted repair work is not part of Amtrak’s $1.6 billion plan to shutter one of four East River tunnels for repairs over the next four years that MTA and Amtrak officials are publicly feuding over.
The MTA is urging Amtrak to avoid a tunnel outage by carrying out the work on nights and weekends, like the MTA did for repairs to the L train East River tunnel in 2019, but Amtrak has refused and argues that the project is too complex to be carried out entirely during the overnight and weekends. Abrams sought to spin the Tuesday night track work lasting longer than expected as an example.
“This illustrates the risk of a nights and weekends approach to complex projects,” said Abrams in a statement. “Unexpected service disruptions, like the one experienced today, are far worse than a well coordinated and well planned approach that are scheduled in advance and have stronger mitigation plans in place,” he added.
Amtrak on Tuesday said it is delaying the East River tunnel reconstruction by at least two weeks — transit officials had planned the first of the tunnel outages for May 9 — as it waits on the MTA to wrap up its own repair work on an East River tunnel.
LIRR President Rob Free said he will hold a Wednesday morning news conference to update riders on this morning’s Amtrak power outage and what they can anticipate going forward.
