Four huge NYC service disruptions at Penn Station in a week? No way to run a railroad

It’s no way to run a railroad: For the fourth — yes, fourth — time in less than a week, commuters who rely on Penn Station train service faced major delays Monday as New Jersey Transit and Amtrak halted service, citing “overhead wire” issues.That followed major backups on three days the week before (as well as problems in May), with wire problems also blamed for some of the trouble.Amtrak, which owns the tracks into Penn, is responsible for maintaining the wires, though it blames some of the recent problems on NJ Transit — on a device called a pantograph mounted atop trains that can get caught up in the wires, for example.Of course, riders don’t care who’s at fault; they just want to get to work and back in a reasonable time.And they have every reason to demand that — especially as already-high NJ Transit fares are set to spike a whopping 15% on July 1, with 3% yearly bumps thereafter.Indeed, the entire nation deserves better: America isn’t a third-world country, and the city is supposed to be a commercial world capital.Commuters need dependable service in and out.Hundreds of thousands of Garden Staters rely on NJ Transit each day — and train disruptions impact most of them, as rail troubles wind up crowding the buses (and the Port Authority-run PATH trains) too.Meanwhile, the folks running these railroads can’t even say when the transit nightmare will end (if ever).Even though some big bucks ($22 billion) are supposed to be pouring in from President Biden’s infrastructure programs, while his fellow Democrat, Gov.

Phil Murphy, oversees NJ Transit.Riders should be screaming their heads off to their elected representatives — and vote them out of office if they can’t get it fixed, be it Biden, Murphy or anyone else.Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today's top stories Please provide a valid email address.

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