Exclusive: Metro-North head threatens to withhold NJ Transit subsidies over Pascack line service woes Metro-North president Catherine Rinaldi said the railroad will withhold monthly subsidies to NJ Transit until service west of the Hudson improves.

Thomas C. Zambito | Rockland/Westchester Journal News

Show Caption Hide Caption Video: Metro North non-commuter ridership is up Growth in Metro North's non-commuter market has far outpaced the commuter market over the past 30 years.

Nearly 30 trains have been cancelled on lines west of the Hudson over the past two months

Come January, Metro-North will hold back 15 percent of its monthly subsidy to NJ Transit, which goes to operating service west of the Hudson River

Tensions has been mounting between the two railroads while on-time performance continues to lag

In January, Metro-North will withhold 5% of NJ Transit's monthly subsidy. It already withholds 10%

Metro-North president Catherine Rinaldi told NJ Transit she will withhold a portion of its monthly payments until express train service on the Pascack Valley Line is restored, The Journal News/lohud has learned.

In a letter to NJ Transit Executive Director Kevin Corbett, Rinaldi laid bare her frustration with NJ Transit’s failure to restore two express trains on the Pascack Valley Line that were eliminated last year as well as the surging number of canceled trains on both lines that operate west of the Hudson River.

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Tensions between the two railroads have mounted in recent months amid an engineer shortage on NJ Transit that has led to dozens of canceled trains.

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“It is very frustrating that our riders are subjected to the same unreliable service despite the fact that you have graduated several new classes of locomotive engineers in the intervening months,” Rinaldi writes in a letter obtain by The Journal News/lohud.

On-time performance has also suffered. As of last month, on-time performance west of the Hudson was at 90.2%, down 1% from the same point last year. That means 10% of trains arrived six minutes or more past their scheduled arrival.

Rinaldi said that come January the railroad will withhold 5% of the monthly subsidy it pays NJ Transit to operate train service west of the Hudson. That’s on top of 10% of the subsidy that Metro-North started withholding in December 2018 as customer frustration with canceled trains grew.

It’s unclear how much money will be held back, but it will be parked in an escrow account while the two sides discuss incentive payments in their service agreement, Rinaldi’s letter notes.

NJ Transit did not immediately return a call for comment.

Under the current setup, Metro-North contracts with NJ Transit to operate service on lines west of the Hudson, which primarily serve commuters from Rockland and Orange counties.

NJ Transit has yet to restore two express trains on the Pascack Valley that it eliminated in June 2018.

As a result of that and other issues, Metro-North agreed to spare west-of-Hudson riders a 4% fare increase imposed on east-of-Hudson riders in March. And West-of-Hudson riders won’t have to kick in more to park at Metro-North commuter lots under a revenue-boosting plan the railroad unveiled this month.

Rinaldi’s letter also expressed frustration with NJ Transit’s failure to restore an early Friday getaway train for Rockland County’s Sabbath-observant commuters.

Cancellations grow

And she noted an uptick in canceled trains over the past two months. In October, NJ Transit canceled 13 trains and so far this month 16.

“This spike in cancellations is reminiscent of the unreliable service our West-of-Hudson customers received during the spring and summer of 2018,” Rinaldi added.

Last year, 260 trains were canceled on the Pascack Valley and Port Jervis lines, a 90% increase from the previous year.

Rinaldi also noted that NJ Transit has been quicker to restore canceled service on some of its New Jersey lines, among them the Princeton Branch, as well as the Atlantic City and Raritan Valley lines.

And she said she was “very troubled” by NJ Transit’s claim that work to install Positive Train Control technology has slowed the restoration of the Pascack Valley express trains.

The federal government has given the nation’s commuter rails until December 2020 to install the state-of-the-art technology on all its lines. PTC is designed to put the brakes on speeding trains and to prevent derailments like the one on Metro-North’s Hudson Line that killed four passengers and injured dozens of others in 2013.

Metro-North’s union, the Association of Commuter Rail Employees, continues to push a proposal that would allow its engineers to operate trains west of the Hudson and reduce the number of canceled trains. The proposal has foundered amid opposition from the union representing NJ Transit engineers.

Metro-North has in recent years been hiring away engineers from NJ Transit and other railroads with offers of better pay.

That has led to a deep reserve of engineers at Metro-North, even as the train cancellations continued west of the Hudson.

An investigation published by The Journal News/lohud in March revealed that Metro-North had paid its engineers for 664 days in January when they didn’t have to show up for work. Known as guaranteed or “G-days,” they insure that the railroad will have enough engineers to cover for sick days and vacations so trains don’t need to be canceled.

LAG: Metro-North's on-time performance improves for Westchester commuters, not so for Rockland

PARKING: Metro-North wants to charge you more to park and start charging on Saturdays

G-DAYS: Metro-North pays engineers to stay home, while service west of the Hudson deteriorates