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New York · Transit

New York Penn Station rail service cut back for five weeks starting Oct. 9 for Portal Bridge cutover

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Amtrak and NJ Transit cut rail service to New York Penn Station for five weeks starting Oct. 9 to shift the final track onto the new Portal North Bridge over the Hackensack River.

Why it matters

The cutover is the final major step in replacing the 116-year-old Portal swing bridge — a notorious bottleneck for the 200,000 daily passengers and 450 trains that cross the Hackensack River between Newark and New York Penn Station. Once both tracks are live on the new fixed span, a century of maritime-traffic swing-bridge delays ends for good.

Full report

Amtrak and NJ Transit announced the timeline in mid-September. Construction to shift the last track, along with Amtrak-owned wires and electrical systems, begins on the evening of Friday, October 9, and is expected to wrap up by November 14, followed by safety testing.

Amtrak has adjusted more than 280 trains from October 10 through November 15. On weekdays, Acela drops from 20 to 18 trains and Northeast Regional service from 44 to 40; Keystone Service between Philadelphia and New York falls from 24 weekday trains to 10, while Harrisburg–Philadelphia and long-distance routes are unchanged.

NJ Transit's adjusted schedules run October 11 through November 14, with regular service expected to resume November 15. All rail lines except the Atlantic City Rail Line see some modification — consolidations, cancellations, changed departure times or stopping patterns. Weekday Northeast Corridor service drops from 133 to 113 trains and the North Jersey Coast Line from 99 to 87.

All weekday Midtown Direct trains on the Morristown, Gladstone and Montclair-Boonton lines will terminate at Hoboken, where tickets are honoured on PATH, NY Waterway ferries and the Route 126 bus. Extra shuttles will connect Secaucus Junction and Penn Station. NJ Transit says line-by-line temporary schedules are published at njtransit.com/portalcutover.

"Five weeks of adjusted schedules will deliver a modern, high-level bridge that ends a century of swing-bridge delays for customers traveling the Northeast Corridor to and from New York," NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri said. After the cutover, the old bridge will be retired permanently.

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