An Amtrak service disruption Thursday afternoon between New Haven and Philadelphia left some stranded for hours.
All eyes were on the big board at New Haven Union Station as Amtrak trains were halted and delayed during peak rush hour.
“We’re extremely frustrated because we were sitting in a nice little pizza shop, and it kept getting delayed after delayed after delayed,” Katie Sentinella, who was traveling to Boston, said.
Amtrak says two separate events affected train service. One being a brush fire in Secaucus, New Jersey near the train tracks and the other a malfunctioning circuit breaker which caused the tracks between New York’s Penn Station and Newark’s Union Station to lose power. Amtrak says as a result, service between New Haven to Philadelphia was briefly suspended impacting thousands of travelers.
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“It is kind of unsettling though,” Devlin Haven who was traveling to Boston said.
That left some trying to find other ways of getting around.
“My parents are going to come up and pick me up in New Haven instead. Very lucky guy,” Anthony Cicchetti who was traveling to Stamford said.
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Others deciding to wait it out for a few more hours.
“Sit here and eat pizza!” Sentinella said.
Amtrak now warning travelers that the heat could lead to delays for the rest of the week since trains have to run at lower speeds.
“Heat does that you know? That’s kind of the way it works. All this stuff is under stress all the time,” Cicchetti said. Amtrak says those delays will likely happen between noon to 7:30pm. Meanwhile they tell us they were able to accommodate all travelers affected from Thursday’s major delays.
