NJ-ARP Blog

I think I’ve finally figured out that there is someone in Penn Plaza named Operating Difficulties. I don’t know who he or she is, but clearly this person is the scapegoat (or perhaps the legitimate cause) of most things gone wrong with NJTRO.

Yesterday, 6/9, provides some insight into Operating Difficulties’ workmanship in the 96+ degree swelter:

What a mess yesterday afternoon. Platform supervisors at NYP sending MetroPark-Metuchen-Edison-New Brunswick riders onto a Trenton super express; no announcement of stops until the train left the platform; everyone spilling out onto the 3/4 platform in Newark. Monitors not working or displaying incorrect info; Train crew at NWK unsure of what stops they were making; unintelligible PA announcements on the platforms over the din of an F40 screamer on Track 5. Ugh.

Once we departed, Operating Difficulties was put at blame by the train crew several times, especially for the three other New Brunswick-bound trains that passed us on Track 3. So I called Penn Plaza and asked for Operating Difficulties’ extension.

It turns out that Operating Difficulties actually has an extension, or so I was told. I was put through a series of transfers and was eventually connected to CTEC-8. I quickly learned that there was a track circuit break just east of County Yard messing up signalling, and that’s why trains that should have been behind us on 4 were bypassing us on 3. Our conductor was listening in courtesy of my speakerphone and the quiet of a multilevel coach. He proceeded to offer some choice suggestions to the dispatcher for not informing him of the problems or the workarounds.

When he was done, he keyed the PA and, of course, blamed our predicament on Operating Difficulties. So if nothing else, we now know that NJTRO thinks that Operating Difficulties is someone on the day shift at CTEC-8.

Posted by E-44 under Delays & Service Quality.