The A-interlocking at Penn Station where NJ Transit and Amtrak train cross paths heading in and out of the terminal. On the left is the North River tunnel to New Jersey.

This is Why Your Summer NJ Transit/LIRR Commute Might Be...Challenging

Stephen Nessen

WNYC News | May 29, 2017

After a pair of derailments (1, 2) and weeks of delays, Amtrak will be making extensive repairs to Penn Station tracks this summer.

A NJ Transit train at Penn Station. Work continues on the tracks, where Amtrak is attempting to make several years worth of upgrades in a few months.

An NJ Transit train at Penn Station. Work continues on the tracks, where Amtrak is attempting to make several years worth of upgrades in a few months.

(Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

"We will be taking out the ties, we will be taking out the steel, we will be taking out switches and ballasts," said Mike DeCataldo, Amtrak's Vice President of Operations. "Basically, getting it down to the ground level to reconstruct the railroad."

A site near the A-Interlocking in Penn Station where Amtrak will make several years worth of upgrades over the summer, shutting down three tracks at a time.

A site near Penn Station's A-interlocking

(Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

Amtrak said the part of the tracks that will be undergoing repairs are not the same areas affected by this spring's derailments. The reason the work will take so much time is that unlike work that can be done over the weekend, this work includes replacing railroad ties at the A-interlocking, which several tracks pass over. A normal railroad tie is about eight feet. But the ties at the interlocking are over 22 feet long, and require disassembling all the railroad pieces. Not weekend work, which typically lasts 55 hours.

In response to two derailments and months of delays at Penn Station, Amtrak will make several years worth of upgrades in six weeks over the summer.

A platform at Penn Station

(Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

NJ Transit and Amtrak train cross paths heading in and out of the terminal.

(Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

There are about 1,300 trains passing through Penn each day, and just 21 tracks, so even removing three will have a huge impact. And after this summer's intensive work, there will be still more to come: Amtrak says work will continue on weekends through 2018.

This connection is known in the railroad industry as a "frog." A quarter-inch mismatch of pieces led to the derailment on March 24, 2017 in which an Acela train clipped an NJ Transit train.