After a year of canceling trains, shutting down some rail lines and throwing everything in to the effort, NJ Transit made the end of the year deadline to clear the first hurdle to install Positive Train Control, a mandated safety system.

So why do they continue to tell riders that equipment isn’t available and they still have to cancel trains, commuters ask?

Riders were asking that question almost as soon as they read Monday’s PTC victory statement on social media from the agency.

@NJTRANSIT what is lack of equipment availability? All PTC is completed @GovMurphy why all the issues still? Oh wait you are on an African Safari for Christmas so why would you care? — kevin miller (@kevmiller11) December 20, 2018

Even Gov. Phil Murphy addressed the problem on Thursday morning before he signed NJ Transit reform legislation in Summit.

“Ongoing train delays and cancelations are happening far too often,” he said. “It points to the reality that we have a lot more work to do.”

One way the reform law will help is by streamlining the process to buy parts to fix trains “so repairs are done in a timely manner and rolling stock spends less time in the maintenance yard and more time in service,” Murphy said.

NJ Transit officials blamed cancelations in part on the age of the rail fleet that spends more time in the shop for maintenance and inspection than in the past.

“Our rail service is currently operating with an aging fleet, which results in a lower mean distance between failure and requires more frequent maintenance,” said Nancy Snyder, an NJ Transit spokeswoman.

In August, the rail fleet traveled 67,612 miles in August between failures, according to NJ Transit statistics.

By contrast, trains traveled 92,705 miles between failures in September 2016, a four-year high.

Contributing to that lackluster figures are some of the oldest railcars in the fleet, the self-propelled electric Arrow III cars built in the late 1970’s, rebuilt in the 1990’s and still rolling up the miles. They will be replaced by 113 multi-level rail cars that NJ Transit’s board approved buying on Dec. 12. However, the first cars aren’t scheduled to be delivered until 2023.

“We're taking significant steps to reduce the overall age of the fleet and dramatically improve the Mean Distance Between Failures,” Snyder said about the rail car purchase.

The second oldest cars are the locomotive hauled Comet II’s that date back to 1982, but were freshened up with a rebuild in the early 2000’s. The trains that commuters call “neckbreakers” for the jerky ride, also would be replaced by multi-levels as part of an option to buy another 636 Multi level cars. That purchase has not been proposed.

NJ Transit needs 282 locomotives and cab cars to run regular train service. Officials did not have statistics for how many rail vehicles are out-of-service at one time.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.