NJ Transit Train Impaled By Big Chunk Of Metal

Have you seen that Hey Arnold episode where Grandpa's tale of a haunted train prompts Arnold, Gerald, and Helga to board what they believe to be a locomotive bound for the bowels of hell? But actually it turns out to be a commuter line of sorts for local steel mill workers? Remember how a sulfury stink fills their train car, the lights flicker and die, and the kids careen into terrifying darkness punctuated only by bursts of flame? That cartoon chaos would seem to approximate the nightmarish vibe on two New Jersey Transit trains Friday night, after electrical wiring came loose in the Hudson River tunnel. The result: Cars that "filled with smoke and the acrid smell of an electrical fire," per the NY Times, and at least one that impaled itself on its own overhead power line.

"There were electrical explosions and sparks," John Foley, a passenger on a Northeast Corridor train bound for Penn Station, told the Times. "People braced themselves because it felt like the train was freewheeling through the tunnel." At the same time, lights reportedly blinked on and off before the electricity failed entirely.

Shortly thereafter, some passengers on a New Jersey Coast train headed from Penn Station to the Garden State were alarmed to witness windows shatter, and a stray three-to-four-foot hunk of metal puncture the ceiling of their car. Passenger Beckie Bintrim took photos, and they are terrifying:

No one was injured during the incidents, but according to the Times, passengers waited an hour and a half for rescue trains to evacuate them from the tunnels. During that time, they sweltered in unairconditioned, overcrowded cars as passengers fled the smokier sections. All told, around 1,600 people sat trapped in the tunnels, which are in a notorious state of disrepair. In fact, this is not the first time New Jersey Transit trains have snared on their own wiring inside the passage. (Trump once appeared willing to help fund a multi-billion dollar effort to rehab these beleaguered and very busy channels, but his subsequent leveraging of the project to win support for his border wall tanked the deal.)

Amtrak suspended New Jersey Transit service between New Jersey and New York City until Saturday morning, and repairs wrapped early Monday, just before the rush hour onslaught. The Federal Rail Administration is also investigating, although according to Bloomberg, they typically take about a year to report findings.

For passengers on these hell trains, the source of the problem seemed pretty clear: As Bintrim told the Times, "It should be a wake-up call that there are serious issues with the transit system." We have contacted Amtrak to ask what clues the weekend's investigation turned up, and will update if we hear back.