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NJ Transit commuters crowd Penn Station on April 4, the day after a derailment in the station curtailed service. A summer schedule of track will affect NJ Transit commuters the most of July and August, according to an Amtrak schedule for the work. (Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

NJ Transit train commuters will feel the biggest pain from Amtrak's Penn Station rehabilitation project during two periods in July and August when rail service will have to be curtailed, according to a schedule for the project obtained by NJ Advance Media.

"Significant service impacts" that will require "service adjustments for NJ Transit" will happen from July 7 to 25 and from August 4 to 28, when work is planned at a junction of track and switches where the Hudson River tunnel tracks branch out into the 21 tracks that serve station platforms, according to Amtrak plans.

An additional 21 projects, most of which are also in a massive junction of tracks known as "A Interlocking" are scheduled to take place on weekends during a 55-hour window from Friday nights to early Monday mornings.

That is a time that Amtrak typically uses to for maintenance and repairs that can't be done in several hours, according to the plan.

The July work will require a continuous 19-day service outage on crossover tracks, known as scissor tracks. That work will take tracks 12 and 13 out of service for 10 days, the plan said.

During that time, one of the two Hudson River rail tunnels will be dedicated to moving construction and demolition material in and out of the work site between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., the plan says.

Work scheduled between August 4 and 28 will require a 25-day continuous outage, including taking tracks 12 and 13 out of service for 17 of those days. That work includes replacing a complete scissor track crossing, signals and the concrete track bed that supports the rails.

Plans call for portions of tracks 9, 10 and 13 to be demolished and reassembled and returned to service between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. on weekdays.

Other projects include work on the weekends of May 12, 19, 26 and June 2 to address infrastructure issues found by the Federal Railroad Administration, which conducted track inspection after March 24 and April 3 derailments.

Both were blamed on track conditions.

"Most work is focused on wood ties and timber replacement," on those weekends, according to the plan. A wooden track tie was blamed for the April 3 derailment of an NJ Transit train after the tie failed and caused rails to spread apart, Amtrak officials said.

That derailment caused four days of delays and overcrowding while tracks were repaired.

@Amtrak should eat the delays and cancel trains. They dug the hole. — Big T (@BIGT_007) May 2, 2017

The schedule will be firmed up next week, once an approach is agreed to between Amtrak, NJ Transit and the Long Island Rail Road, said Christina Leeds, an Amtrak spokeswoman.

Amtrak met with NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road officials on Monday, and commuter carriers are reviewing the initial plan and developing service plans.

That initial plan received some push back from state lawmakers who questioned why the July and August work couldn't be started to coincide with the July 4 and Memorial Day holidays.

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

