Amtrak Slashes Philadelphia to New York Trains During Bridge Cutover

Train service between Philadelphia and New York is running at a fraction of normal levels through Nov. 15 while Amtrak and NJ Transit move tracks onto the new Portal North Bridge over the Hackensack River in New Jersey.

The biggest cut falls on Keystone Service, which dropped from 24 weekday trains to 10 between Philadelphia and New York starting Oct. 10. Acela service fell from 20 weekday trains to 18 and the Northeast Regional from 44 to 40. Harrisburg-to-Philadelphia Keystone trips keep their full schedule, and long-distance trains are unchanged.

The reason is a five-week construction window to connect the second track to the new bridge. With only one track operating through the section between Newark and Secaucus, the agencies had to squeeze all traffic through a single lane. Amtrak says it adjusted more than 280 trains in total.

NJ Transit riders face their own reductions. Weekday Northeast Corridor service dropped from 133 trains to 113, and all weekday Midtown Direct trains on the Morristown, Gladstone and Montclair-Boonton lines now terminate at Hoboken, where tickets are honored on PATH trains, ferries and buses.

The bridge replaces a 116-year-old swing bridge that has been one of the biggest sources of delays on the Northeast Corridor. “This is an opportunity to once and for all put a 116-year-old bridge in the past,” NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said when the plans were announced.

Interim Amtrak President Byl Herrmann acknowledged the pain. “Work on this scale causes inconvenience, and we acknowledge that,” he said, adding that a major source of delay on the corridor has now largely been removed.

Normal schedules are slated to return Nov. 16, pending safety testing, just ahead of the Thanksgiving travel rush. Riders should check timetables before every trip until then, since weekend schedules differ from the reduced weekday pattern.