Amtrak trains were delayed for hours on Thursday. It’s yet another sign of America’s terrible rail service

A power outage shut down Amtrak trains along its Northeast Corridor on Thursday, disrupting evening commutes and causing train delays that stretched into Friday morning.

The power failure occurred Thursday afternoon, amidst a heat wave that has set temperature records across the East Coast. The outage between New York and Newark meant delays in all rail service out of New York that afternoon. Amtrak ended up suspending rail service between New Haven and Philadelphia as its crews worked to restore power, causing “significant delays.” The effects lingered into Friday morning, with some early trains canceled as well.

The disruption was felt along the Northeast Corridor; trains to cities like New Rochelle, Harrisburg, and Boston were canceled completely. The full Northeast Corridor on Amtrak, which stretches from Boston to Washington, DC, includes 2,200 daily trains; 820,000 trips happen each weekday along that corridor, either on Amtrak or one of the commuter railroads like New Jersey Transit.

New Jersey Transit also experienced snags Thursday into Friday, due to overhead wire issues on Amtrak lines (which are also used by NJ Transit). Though transit leaders said a brush fire in Secaucus, New Jersey, was not the cause of the electrical issues, NJ Transit said the fire compounded the service impacts and affected repairs.

The power outage on Thursday was due to a malfunctioning circuit breaker. Gery Williams, an executive vice president of Amtrak, told the New York Times that on Thursday he met with NJ Transit officials to figure out a plan to upgrade the infrastructure, adding that there had been “too many” significant disruptions recently. A May power outage, caused by downed overhead wires on the tracks, suspended Amtrak and NJ Transit service for hours during rush hour. On Friday, following the Thursday issues, NJ Transit again experienced suspensions because of overhead wire issues.

Even before the power outage, around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Amtrak Northeast warned on social media that riders could see delays due to the extreme heat. “High temperatures may require trains to operate at lower speeds, resulting in delays of up to 60 minutes between the hours 12 noon and 7:30 p.m. for the remainder of the week,” the rail service shared.

This array of service disruptions illustrates a lack of investment in U.S. rail, as decades of infrastructure planning prioritized cars and roads over trains. That has left Americans without a reliable (or high-speed) rail system, often pushing them to choose air or car travel instead, which results in more warming greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere. (There is a renewed interest in rail brewing as both Amtrak and companies like Brightline work to build and improve service).

The warnings about delays due to high temperatures also highlight the cascading effects of climate change caused by those fossil fuel emissions—which leads to more frequent and more extreme heat waves.

Extreme heat can cause steel train tracks, bridges, and the train system’s overhead wires to expand. That means Amtrak must operate its trains at lower speeds as a safety measure; such heat restrictions are based on the rail temperature, not the ambient temperature. Rails can often become significantly hotter than the surrounding air—up to 30 degrees hotter in direct sunlight.

Along with heat waves, other extreme weather like wildfires, floods, and landslides have disrupted Amtrak service across the country. In a 2022 Climate Resilience report, Amtrak said that severe weather disruptions, which are expected to increase in both frequency and severity, are projected to cause a $220 million revenue loss in the coming decade.