Month: July 2003

This is the worst month for commuters in the history of NJ Transit. Last night, an Amtrak Metroliner from New York to Washington—the train that immediately precedes my usual ride—took down some power lines, causing at least two-hour delays. Since at the time NJ Transit had no idea when the trains would be running again after this incident, Denise was nice enough to drive to Newark to pick me up.

Let’s take a quick recapitulation of NJ Transit’s recent woes:

1. July 8: Amtrak train hits and kills man on tracks. Trains delayed for more than two hours.
2. July 14: NJ Transit train derails between Newark and New York causing minor injuries and extensive delays.
3. July 15: Power outage caused delay of more than an hour.
4. July 21: Power outage due to thunderstorms.
5. July 28: NJ pulls 91 cars out of service for failing inspection. Fewer cars are available and more commuters than usual are stuck traveling without seats and forced to stand.
6. July 29: And finally, yesterday, an Amtrak train brings down power lines causing extensive delays.

I think that captures everything, at least on the Northeast Corridor line. NJ Transit is offering 15% refunds (as Stacey mentioned) for people who purchased a monthly pass, but I don’t think that really makes up for it.

On a completely unrelated note, if you scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar, you will see some statistics: the fifteen top comment-posters on this site. Movable Type didn’t make this feature easy, I had to work it out with a SQL query to the database. I also had to do some editing of comments to help the system recognize that “Darren” and “Darren R. Sussman” are the same person, whereas “Becca” and “Becca” are not always the same person. Take a look and see if you made the list!