Sunday on the Portal Cutover: Weekend Midtown Direct Runs to Penn Station, One Track Still Carries the Corridor, and the Turnpike Checks Clear
The cutover's weekday diversion does not apply today: weekend Midtown Direct trains run directly to and from New York Penn Station while the single-track operation between Newark and Secaucus continues - and a Sunday check of the Turnpike incidents page found no accidents reported near the Turnpike.
Sunday is the cutover's gentler day, and the difference is the destination. The final Portal North Bridge cutover - the five-week operation, October 11 through November 14, moving the second track from the 1910 Portal Bridge to its fixed replacement over the Hackensack River - diverts weekday Midtown Direct trains to Hoboken. On weekends, according to the NJ Transit service-change summaries read by this desk, Midtown Direct trains on the Morristown Line, Gladstone Branch and Montclair-Boonton Line operate directly to and from New York Penn Station, as they do today.
What does not change on Sunday is the constraint underneath: only one track is available between Newark and Secaucus, which is why the whole temporary timetable exists, and why the agencies' off-peak advice - travel before 7 a.m. or after 9 a.m., before 4 p.m. or after 7 p.m. - is aimed at the weekday peaks that return tomorrow. Regular schedules are expected to resume Sunday, November 15, pending safety testing, and the new fixed bridge is designed to carry trains at up to 90 miles per hour where the swing bridge it replaces has been a delay source for more than a century.
On the roads, the Sunday check was quiet at staging time: the Turnpike incidents page read by this desk for November 1 reported no accidents found near the New Jersey Turnpike. Marathon Sunday travel into the city still runs through the race-day pattern this station has carried all weekend, and Monday's first full weekday under the cutover - Hoboken diversions, cross-honoring and all - is previewed in this station's Monday commute file.
