Some Amtrak Services Being Canceled This Summer at New York Penn Station

Yesterday, I received this notice from Amtrak, which includes several service disruptions this summer at New York’s Penn Station, thanks to the major construction occurring there. 

In our efforts to continue providing you with a safe and reliable travel experience, Amtrak® is accelerating work to strengthen and improve operations at New York Penn Station during the summer. The Infrastructure Renewal program will advance several years of already planned work to improve conditions on tracks, switches, and other infrastructure at Penn Station into less than two months. 

While some services will be impacted by the renewal work, Acela® Express service will run as scheduled. To account for the majority of the work, the following service adjustments have been made to Amtrak‘s schedule, in effect from July 10 through September 1: 

• Northeast RegionalSM: Three weekday roundtrips between New York and Washington have been canceled. Service between New York and Boston will operate as scheduled.

• Keystone Service®: Three weekday roundtrips will start and end in Philadelphia, and one weekday roundtrip will start and end in Newark, New Jersey. Service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg will operate as scheduled.

• Empire Service®: To be announced shortly

• Crescent®: Will operate daily between Washington, DC and New Orleans. If traveling to or from destinations north of Washington, DC, you will be able to connect to other services.

Schedules are up to date, and anyone with a trip already booked on affected routes has been contacted. Additional work will last through approximately June 2018, with most of it occurring on weekends to minimize the impact on service.

I’ve inquired with Amtrak as to which specific services are impacted by this, and which specific train departures are being canceled. 

For now, the above notice is what’s known.

Big Takeaways:

• Some Northeast Regional commuter trains will be canceled. 
• Keystone trains will be reduced, and operate from Newark or Philadelphia. 
• Crescent will depart from Washington.
• Empire Service – TBD

I’ll update everyone once I hear back on which specific trains are being impacted.