More reduction in NJ Transit service due to positive train control

The Princeton Junction-Princeton Dinky train will be replaced by a bus service, as will the weekend service on the Gladstone branch.

Other trains will be operated at different times or will have different origins or destinations.

NJ Transit will offer discounts on train tickets and pass 10% in November, December and January.

The cuts add to the Atlantic City Line's temporary shutdown earlier this month and the suspension of Raritan Valley Line trains to New York Penn Station.

NJ Transit is under pressure to meet an end-of-year deadline to introduce positive train control on its trains and tracks. The reductions will help install equipment for the system on locomotives and cab control cars.

"We have carefully examined all the trains that are part of this adjustment and found the most reasonable alternatives," said General Manager Kevin Corbett.

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NJ Transit officials on Thursday provided an overview of what is being done on railway equipment at the Kinkisharyo International Railway Facility in Pittataway Township.

The agency has 142 pieces of rolling stock to equip with security technology by the end of December. According to officials, it can take a few days to a few weeks to complete the work on a single locomotive or cabin car.

Cabin cars, which allow engineers to roll the train from the opposite end to the locomotive, have been lined up inside the facility at various stages of advancement.

Officials have shown the complex entanglement of the wires that enter the system, as well as the new displays that need to be installed in the engineer's compartment.

Positive train control is intended to prevent collisions and derailments caused by human error. It can automatically slow down or stop a train that is going too fast or approaching a stop signal.

Congress demanded that freight and passenger railways install the system after a 2008 commuter train crash in southern California killed 25 people.

explainer: What is positive train control?

The National Transportation Safety Board has identified a number of derailments and accidents over the past decade since the technology could have been avoided.

These include the 2015 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia that killed eight people and a derailment in 2013 in the North Metro in the Bronx, which killed four people.

In both derailments, the trains were operating well above the appropriate speed as they were approaching curves that required a slowdown.

A lack of automatic speed control was also cited in the 2016 Hoboken NJ Transit Terminal crash, which killed one person and injured more than 100 others.

The suburban railways in particular have struggled to meet federal requirements, and among them, NJ Transit has made little progress until this year.

Corbett said the system was 13 percent complete when he arrived at the agency in January and is now over 60 percent complete.

"I'm sure we'll get there," Corbett said. "We do not take off the pedal at all."

However, service cuts that require a positive train control facility have compounded the stress of commuters who have suffered a long summer of trains being abruptly canceled.

The train control mandate is causing some cancellations, but most are due to a shortage of locomotive engineers.

NJ Transit has started actively recruiting staff, but training lasts 20 months. Last week he was given the green light to hire train and bus operators who live outside the state.

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