Train Track Snarls Cap Off Annoying Week For New Yorkers

Train track snarls that cramped the Friday commute for thousands of workers were just the latest setback in a week of annoyances for New Yorkers.

The morning commute for train-going New Yorkers was thrown for a loop Friday morning when a freight train derailed in the Bronx, suspending service on the popular Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson line. A spokeswoman for Metro-North said the derailment of about 10 of the 24 cars hauling trash “couldn’t have happened in a worse location.”

The train’s cars were stuck between rock walls, so the derailed cars had to be removed by crane.

Workers looking to ride the Hudson line to get off at the train station in Yonkers and take buses to the Van Cortlandt Park subway station, where they caught another train back into the city.

With a heat wave gripping the city, the train track snarls were a little too much for some people to handle.

“So far, not a good Friday,” one man wrote on Twitter, noting that it felt like 105 degrees. “No trains to Grand Central, get off at Yonkers, buses to subway stations… grrrr.”

It was a bad end to an annoying week for many New Yorkers. This week saw the temperature reach the mid-90s every day, with afternoon temperatures topping the 100-degree mark in many areas. The heat wave has been accompanied by high humidity that’s turned subway stations into saunas.

New Yorkers got another annoyance when state police issued an Amber Alert just before 4 am on Wednesday morning, one that caused call phones to ring and vibrate with the message. Police later found the mother accused of abducting her young son, but many residents complained about the early morning jolt awake.

The train track snarls on Friday were the latest problems for Metro-North, which saw dozens of people injured when two trains collided near Fairfield, Connecticut, in May.