Monday Is the Portal Cutover's First Real Test: Midtown Direct Goes to Hoboken, and One Track Carries the Corridor
The weekend schedules were the rehearsal. On Monday the five-week Portal North Bridge cutover meets a full New Jersey commute - single-track running between Newark and Secaucus, Midtown Direct diverted to Hoboken on weekdays, and cross-honoring on PATH, the ferries and the 126 bus.
Check your Monday train tonight, because the weekend pattern is not the weekday pattern. The Portal North Bridge cutover - the five-week operation moving the final track from the 116-year-old Portal Bridge to its $2.3 billion replacement over the Hackensack River - enters its first full work week on Monday, and the weekday rules are the hard ones: with only one track available between Newark and Secaucus, fewer trains run into New York Penn Station, and weekday Midtown Direct trains on the Morristown Line, the Gladstone Branch and the Montclair-Boonton Line terminate at Hoboken instead of Penn Station, according to the cutover plan reported by NorthJersey.com and NJ Transit's own service summaries, both read by this desk. Weekend Midtown Direct trains keep going to Penn; Monday's do not.
The detour system is built to absorb them. Rail tickets are cross-honored on PATH at Hoboken and 33rd Street, on NY Waterway ferries between Hoboken and West 39th Street, and on NJ Transit's No. 126 bus between Hoboken and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. PATH is adding capacity where the diverted riders land: Hoboken-to-33rd Street trains every six minutes, down from eight, through the 7 to 9:30 a.m. peak, and increased evening service between 4 and 7 p.m. The Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line run reduced schedules on the single track, and Amtrak is eliminating more than 280 trains across the five weeks. NJ Transit's advice has not softened: work from home if you can, and if you ride, travel before 7 a.m., after 9 a.m., before 4 p.m. or after 7 p.m.
The cutover runs through November 14, with regular schedules expected to resume Sunday, November 15, pending safety testing - which makes Monday the first of roughly fifteen weekdays on the diverted pattern. The payoff is the point of the pain: the 1910 swing bridge that has stranded the corridor by sticking open is being replaced by a higher, fixed bridge that does not have to move for boats at all. Until November 15, the corridor runs on one track and a plan - and Monday morning is when New Jersey finds out how the plan holds at full load.
