NEW YORK (WABC) --
An icicle in a tunnel under the river stopped commuter
railroads in their tracks.
It happened on the commute home last week.
Because of icicles that were half the size of a ruler.
It may be the last place on a railroad you'd expect to find ice; in the tunnels, deep beneath the Hudson River where it never snows.
But there it is, a six-inch dagger aimed at the heart of the evening rush hour.
"In the last five years this is the worst winter we've had," said John Kremp, the Amtrak Division Engineer.
Amtrak's John Kremp says ice forming on the overhead electrical system causes the railroad's circuits to short-out. His work crews are now patrolling the tunnels, round-the-clock to break-up the ice.
"And if you didn't do this?" Eyewitness News reporter N.J. Burkett asked.
"There would be no trains moving," Kremp said.
That is almost what happened on Friday night.
"We just want to go home!" a commuter said back on Friday.
Thousands of Amtrak riders and New Jersey Transit commuters jammed Penn Station after an electrical cable snapped in the middle of the evening rush hour.
In weather like this, ice forms almost as fast as work crews can break it loose.
The tunnels are more than one hundred years old and they leak.
Water dripping from above freezes with the help of passing commuter trains roaring through the tunnels at over 60 miles per hour.
"There are only two tracks and so when we need to take one of those tracks out to do what we need to do, it causes a disruption," said Craig Schulz, an Amtrak Spokesman.
It happened on the commute home last week.
Because of icicles that were half the size of a ruler.
It may be the last place on a railroad you'd expect to find ice; in the tunnels, deep beneath the Hudson River where it never snows.
But there it is, a six-inch dagger aimed at the heart of the evening rush hour.
"In the last five years this is the worst winter we've had," said John Kremp, the Amtrak Division Engineer.
Amtrak's John Kremp says ice forming on the overhead electrical system causes the railroad's circuits to short-out. His work crews are now patrolling the tunnels, round-the-clock to break-up the ice.
"And if you didn't do this?" Eyewitness News reporter N.J. Burkett asked.
"There would be no trains moving," Kremp said.
That is almost what happened on Friday night.
"We just want to go home!" a commuter said back on Friday.
Thousands of Amtrak riders and New Jersey Transit commuters jammed Penn Station after an electrical cable snapped in the middle of the evening rush hour.
In weather like this, ice forms almost as fast as work crews can break it loose.
The tunnels are more than one hundred years old and they leak.
Water dripping from above freezes with the help of passing commuter trains roaring through the tunnels at over 60 miles per hour.
"There are only two tracks and so when we need to take one of those tracks out to do what we need to do, it causes a disruption," said Craig Schulz, an Amtrak Spokesman.
And it's not going to change until there's either a new Hudson River Tunnel or the temperature goes above freezing, whichever comes first.
Source: www.wabc.com
Other tunnels have also experienced similar problems.
OSAKA — The Tokaido Shinkansen Line linking Tokyo and Osaka ground to a halt Thursday morning after an icicle shorted out a power line, Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) said.
The incident occurred near the Otowayama Tunnel on the Kyoto-Shiga prefectural border.
Tokyo-bound bullet trains were suspended between Kyoto Station and Maibara Station, in Shiga Prefecture, from the start of the day’s services until 7:55 a.m.
According to JR Tokai, water dripping from an expressway overpass formed an icicle that came in contact with the power line and caused a short circuit. The icicle was about 65 cm long and 5 cm to 6 cm thick.
The railway said it had never heard of such an incident stopping trains before.
The suspension, coupled with snow in the vicinity of Maihara, resulted in delays of up to two hours for trains bound for Tokyo and about 20 minutes for Osaka-bound runs, JR Tokai said.
After services resumed, trains ran at lower speeds of between 70 kph and 230 kph between Nagoya and Kyoto stations because of the snow, it said.
According to the local meteorological observatory, temperatures in Shiga Prefecture’s capital of Otsu fell to minus 4.4 at midnight Wednesday, the lowest so far this winter.