New Jersey Transit – which has faced criticism for storing trains in flood-prone areas during Sandy – suffered $400 million in storm-related damages, including $100 million in rolling stock, the executive director testified today.
The staggering losses include heavily damaged dual-powered locomotive engines – which were brand new – and dozens of multi-level rail cars that need repairs, NJ Transit head James Weinstein said at a US Senate commerce sub-committee hearing on the storm’s impact.
Weinstein, however, defended the agency’s decision to place trains in Hoboken and Kearney, two flood-prone areas that were completely inundated in the storm of the century.
“Based on the information that we had … there was a likelihood in the 80 to 90 percent range that no flooding would happen there,” he said. “And that combined with the history that the Meadowlands [Kearney] … has never flooded in the history of our railroad led us to conclude that that was the appropriate place to put the equipment.”
He said it takes 12 hours to shut down the entire NJ Transit rail system, so they were making decisions well before the storm hit.
In addition, the agency – which is conducting an internal review to its response to the storm – was leery of storing trains in its Pennsylvania facility because that area ended up cut off when last year’s tropical storm Irene damaged the northeast corridor.
“Obviously we’re informed by this storm and we’ll make adjustments in the future,” he said.
US Senator Frank Lautenberg – who chaired the sub-committee – said that it seemed the agency did the best it could.
“It doesn’t sound like there were other choices,” he said.
MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota and Port Authority Executive director Pay Foye also testified.
Foye said that all of the PA’s facilities were impacted by the storm, but that the PATH system took the hardest hit.
The New Jersey-New York subway system is still running limited service.
MTA head Lhota said that the subway is still running fewer trains because of damaged sustained during Sandy.