As if the trains weren’t bad enough!

New Jersey Transit riders on Monday and Tuesday not only experienced delays, but some service was canceled altogether — thanks to a longstanding loophole that gives engineers and crew members the right to take two days off from work when changing schedules.

Several trains were taken out of service this week “due to manpower shortage” and “crew shortage” as transit employees took advantage of the contractual clause, according to officials.

NJ Transit tweeted out the cancellations and provided a link to its homepage, outlining the affected routes.

A spokesperson told CBS that service was being directly affected by the loophole, which allows workers to take 48 hours off when choosing a new assignment ahead of a schedule change.

Senior employees typically are allowed to choose first, followed by those who’ve been with the agency for a shorter amount of time.

The clause, paired with summer vacations, has ultimately spelled trouble for commuters.

“It’s all our tax dollars that are being used in these facilities,” explained one rider, Varun Sheoran.

“I would say they should plan on doing something in which they have more of a workforce or somebody as a backup, so that our schedules are not affected,” she said.

A source with direct knowledge of the situation told CBS that another problem that’s causing the manpower shortage is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s constant understaffing of workers.

They claimed NJ Transit hasn’t hired any engineers in years — and when it does, it takes too long to train them.

Len Resto, president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, agreed, saying the cancellations were also the result of poor planning.

“We have an emergency going on right now, Amtrak doing work, and the last thing you need to do is add more inconvenience to passengers by canceling a train because you don’t want to work that particular shift,” he said. “I would imagine that the clause was put in there to avoid situations of fatigue where an engineer may be asked to work a double shift, which they can’t do through FRA regulations. But it seems to me, there needs to be some common sense tied to that.”