Limited Metro-North Railroad service will resume on Tuesday afternoon in the area affected by the train collision near Fairfield, Conn., which injured scores of commuters and disrupted transit for much of the Northeast.
Some Metro-North Service to Resume This Afternoon
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
Published: May 21, 2013
Reuters
Repair crews worked on Metro-North tracks in Connecticut on Sunday, following a train collision on Friday. Quick progress is allowing partial restoration of service on Tuesday.
Full service for both Metro-North and Amtrak, which share the tracks, is expected to return on Wednesday morning, but the prospect that some service would resume for the Tuesday evening rush came as a surprise to riders.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that Tuesday’s restored service, scheduled to begin after 3 p.m., would require reduced speeds of 30 miles per hour, which is standard for all new track installations. Trains will have access only to a single track for seven miles near Bridgeport, Conn., which, the authority predicted, will result in delays.
Metro-North expects to operate about half of its typical eastbound New Haven service. The first train is expected to leave Grand Central Terminal at 3:07 p.m. and arrive in New Haven at 5. The first train from New Haven is expected to leave at 4:23 p.m. and arrive at 6:17 in Midtown.
Since Monday morning, the authority has operated a temporary train and bus shuttle system in the affected areas. State officials in Connecticut urged residents to work from home if possible.
“We recognize the critical importance of both Metro-North Railroad and Amtrak to the regional economy,” Metro-North’s president, Howard Permut, said in a statement. “Although reconstruction and testing of the second track will not be completed until late tonight, enough work has been completed to allow us to operate this limited service in advance of resuming our regular schedule on Wednesday.”
The affected stretch of track was rebuilt essentially from scratch and subjected to a “stabilizer machine,” the authority said, “which simulates heavy rail traffic using vibrations.”
Crews also deployed an ultrasonic testing device, designed to find internal defects in the running rail, and a track geometry car to determine whether the track was properly aligned.
On Friday, an eastbound train to New Haven derailed and struck a westbound train on an adjacent track, injuring more than 70 people, 5 critically, at the height of the evening rush. The cause of the derailment remains under investigation.