Former NJ Transit workers get Brightline train moving in Florida

Brightline, the country's first privately operated passenger train in decades, made its debut over the weekend between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Florida.

The chief mechanical officer who will keep those trains running came to Brightline from NJ Transit.

Tom Rutkowski is one of at least five NJ Transit employees who went to work for Brightline, and one of 93 senior managers who left the agency's rail operation from 2014 to 2016, according to a document submitted to the Federal Railroad Administration.

Brightline is expected to begin service to Miami later this year, and to Orlando by 2020.

The sleek, diesel-powered trains, built by Siemens, offer leather seats, wireless Internet, bike racks and food and beverage service. Brightline will eventually operate 16 daily round-trips at speeds of up to 110 mph.

According to Rutkowski's bio on the Brightline website, he joined the railroad in 2014 after 17 years at NJ Transit. Most recently, he was general superintendent of equipment, managing the agency's 87-acre Meadowlands Maintenance Complex in Kearny.

Rutkowski was one of about 30 NJ Transit senior employees to seek other job opportunities from 2014 to 2016.

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Robert Lavell, NJ Transit's vice president and general manager of rail operations, wrote that the employees who retired or left the agency in that time frame had a combined 2,339 years of experience.

Since then, NJ Transit has also lost a number of locomotive engineers to outside jobs, including at New York's Metro-North commuter railroad.

The departures have accompanied a deterioration in service and the emergence of serious safety concerns.

The copy of Lavell's July 2016 letter to the Federal Railroad Administration obtained by The Record and NorthJersey.com doesn't reveal the names of the NJ Transit employees who left, but it does show where they went.

Rutkowski last made $122,500 at NJ Transit, according to state employee payroll data. In his letter and more recent testimony before state lawmakers, Lavell cited salaries as a chief reason why the agency struggled to recruit and retain critical personnel.