NEW YORK — Despite more than 7 inches of rain that shut down New York’s subway system late Wednesday, the Amtrak tunnels connecting the Northeast Corridor to Manhattan survived tropical storm Ida without the debilitating damage that occurred as a result of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.
But other damage and power outages caused cancellation of all Boston-Washington, D.C. trains Thursday and New York-Albany-Rensselaer, N.Y. trains through Friday, Sept. 3.
Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams confirms the tunnels under the Hudson and East Rivers, to and from Penn Station and the Moynihan Train Hall, remain operational, but safety concerns and track outages caused some trains to stop at intermediate locations along the corridor Wednesday night.
These included:
— The eastbound Cardinal, held at Trenton, N.J. at 12:26 a.m., continuing to New York at 11:37 a.m. Thursday.
— The northbound Palmetto from Savannah, Ga., stopped at Philadelphia.
— Northeast Regional train No. 138 from Washington, held at Metropark (Iselin, N.J.) at 9:56 p.m.; the equipment resumed its journey Thursday morning.
— Boston-Washington overnight trains 66 and 67, terminated at mid-route stations.
— Washington-bound Northeast Regional No. 177, cancelled at New York after it needed about 4 hours to get there from Stamford, Conn., a distance of about 40 miles.
— Acela No. 2126 from Washington, which arrived in New York more than 4 hours late at 2:09 a.m., according to Amtrak’s train status report.
The westbound Capitol Limited was held for two hours at Cumberland, Md., and crept into Pittsburgh almost 5 hours late, but continued to Chicago, where it arrived 5 hours, 43 minutes late.
Long-distance trains among other cancellations
On Thursday afternoon, Amtrak announced that Empire Service trains; the Ethan Allen to and from Rutland, Vt.; and the New York section of the Lake Shore Limited would remain suspended on Friday, Sept. 3, between New York and Albany-Rensselaer, but will operate as scheduled on the rest of their routes.
The New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian, New York-Philadelphia Keystone Corridor trains, and the Washington-St. Albans, Vt. Vermonter are expected to resume Friday.
Service south of Washington, D.C., continued to operate Thursday with the exception of the Carolinian (still running between Raleigh, and Charlotte, N.C.), Palmetto, southbound Silver Star, and Boston-Newport News, Va., trains 66 and 67.
Equipment from the Silver Meteor to and from Miami, and the already-truncated Crescent from Atlanta, are turning Thursday at Washington, D.C., for their southbound counterparts. But the northbound Silver Star terminated at Washington Thursday, while the train leaving Miami Thursday is stopping at Jacksonville, Fla., to represent the southbound Star from there on Friday.
NYC and the nation dodged a transportation bullet. Get the new tunnels built; they are way long over due.
Tough conditions to operate trains in. And I am glad everyone was safe.