In January, Metro-North paid its engineers for 664 days when they didn't have to show up for work

Union officials say Metro-North derailed a plan that would have cut into the surplus engineers by allowing them to work on lines west of the Hudson River, which serve commuters from Rockland and Orange counties

Last year, 260 trains were cancelled on lines west of the Hudson, an increase of 90 percent from 2017

Rockland County Executive Ed Day has called the level of service on lines west of the Hudson "abhorrent."

Metro-North Railroad has gone on a hiring spree, adding locomotive engineers from NJ Transit and other railroads and paying them to stay home, an investigation by The Journal News/lohud has found.

In January alone, Metro-North paid its engineers for 664 days when they didn’t have to show up for work. Veteran engineers say in prior years the monthly total rarely topped 70.

Known as guaranteed or “G-days,” they function as an on-call list to cover for sick days and vacations on a railroad whose success depends on having enough engineers to ferry commuters to and from work every day.

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Metro-North defends the practice as a hedge against the looming retirements of 23 of its 416 engineers this year. They say G-days eliminate overtime expenses and guard against fatigued engineers.

“The public expects us to run trains that are scheduled to run, not cancel them if we are regularly short on engineers. This cost is an insurance policy that we take on because we know the economic impact from canceled trains is far higher," said MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan. "We are expecting attrition this year, and we right-sized the engineer pool to ensure we have the required number of engineers to deliver safe and reliable service while minimizing the potential for engineer fatigue.”

The commuter rail says January is a time when few engineers take vacation and, as a result, more are available to work. During August, for instance, there were 74 G-days.

The estimate of one union official put the cost of the January stay-at-home engineers at more than $200,000.

Union officials say they have raised concerns about over hiring with Metro-North managers over the past two years.

They say the extra engineers could best be used to resolve a crisis on the Pascack Valley and Main/Bergen Port Jervis lines, which operate west of the Hudson River and primarily serve commuters from Rockland and Orange counties.

Under a long-standing arrangement, Metro-North contracts with NJ Transit to operate service west of the Hudson and NJ Transit engineers run the trains.

In recent years, those lines have endured a surge in canceled trains and limits on service that has angered commuters and captured the attention of public officials. Last year, 260 trains were canceled on the two lines, a nearly 90 percent increase from 2017 when 138 trains were canceled, Metro-North’s year-end statistics show.

Metro-North hires NJ Transit engineers

Metro-North has been hiring away NJ Transit engineers with the lure of better pay. A 2017 investigation by The Record and northjersey.com showed Metro-North was hiring away engineers from NJ Transit at a pace of one per month.

With fewer engineers, on-time performance on the Pascack Valley and Port Jervis lines deteriorated so much last year that last month, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, voted to spare west of Hudson commuters the four percent fare increase it imposed on all other MTA lines, including Metro-North.

Last year, NJ Transit eliminated two of Metro-North’s express trains on the Pascack Valley line, while the Main and Bergen County lines, which serve Suffern, N.Y., lost four trains.

Officials blamed the installation of Positive Train Control, state-of-the-art technology that puts the brakes on speeding trains, for part of the problem.

On-time performance on the lines sunk to around 91 percent, meaning nine percent of west-of-Hudson trains arrived late by six minutes or more. The Main/Bergen Port Jervis line's on-time performance alone was 86.5 percent.

Rockland County Executive Ed Day says the arrangement with NJ Transit has sunk to “a deplorable level.”

“While they argue over G-days and overtime, the commuters are the ones that suffer,” Day said on Monday.

The Association of Commuter Rail Employees (ACRE), which represents Metro-North’s engineers, blames management for refusing to agree to a proposal that would have resolved the engineer shortage on west-of-Hudson lines. In recent months, they brought their concerns to federal and state lawmakers in the hopes they would intercede.

“We understand they have over hired to an extent but we are trying to get Metro-North and the politicians who control the purse strings to let us take over that service,” said David Hendershot, the engineers’ legislative representative with the ACRE. “To what extent there’s over hiring or a surplus that would take care of it right there. And it would probably save a fortune.”

Metro-North points a finger at ACRE.

Metro-North officials say they approached ACRE in August 2018 that would have improved NJ Transit service west of the Hudson by allowing for a small number of engineers to work on the Pascack Valley and Port Jervis lines on a temporary basis.

They say the deal foundered when the union asked for a monetary payment for all of its members.

Union officials dispute Metro-North’s version. They say the deal fell apart because Metro-North looked to handpick engineers, including some junior members of the engineering ranks, to work west of the Hudson.

The union rejected the proposal because it would have been unfair to senior engineers. For instance, senior engineers who live near the west of Hudson service territory would have welcomed a shorter drive to work but would have been prevented from bidding for the job, said Anthony Aprea, ACRE’s legislative director.

“Such an arrangement would have been a violation to members of ACRE who have seniority,” Aprea said.

As a compromise, Aprea said, the union proposed opening the west of Hudson jobs opened up to all engineers. That idea was rejected, too, Aprea said.

State Sen. David Carlucci, whose district includes all of Rockland County, said he met with ACRE and says their proposal is a good one that could solve service issues west of the Hudson.

“I think all options should be on the table because commuters are furious,” Carlucci said. “Letting MTA employees work on MTA trains seems like a no-brainer to me.”

He questions Metro-North’s commitment to west-of-Hudson service and is calling for a forensic audit to make the MTA more accountable to its riders.