by railtrailbiker
Standing-room-only conditions on some Port Jervis line trains should ease today as more cars have been returned to service.http://www.recordonline.com/archive/200 ... ains14.htm
"We've had all the seats filled and people standing every day," said Mike Coco of Highland Mills, who takes the 7:09 from Harriman. "It's been tough in this heat."
Another Highland Mills commuter, Al Fasano, said conductors were telling commuters they were short cars because of "air conditioning maintenance."
"They couldn't do this maintenance in March?" said Fasano.
"Maintenance," however, turns out to be a misnomer.
Spokesman for Metro-North Railroad and NJ Transit said a new design problem with their 265 Comet Vs forced them to pull the cars and operate some trains in both systems with fewer cars than usual over the past week.
"We expect to have all the cars back in service as of tonight's rush hour," said Ken Hitchner, a NJ Transit spokesman, yesterday.
Dan Brucker, a Metro-North spokesman, said the new cars were pulled to examine why the blowers, or fans, in the air conditioning system weren't working. Engineers determined the circuit breakers that control the blowers were tripping regularly, apparently because of faulty signals being transmitted through their wiring.
