After Travel Meltdowns, Amtrak and N.J. Transit Offer Plan to Fix Mess

Amid a torrent of criticism about the recent spate of chaotic commutes, officials of Amtrak and New Jersey Transit laid out a plan on Thursday to identify and fix the problems plaguing their operations.

The two railroads, which share the tracks of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor from Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan to Trenton, N.J., pledged to scrutinize their infrastructure and equipment to investigate why they have performed so poorly in the last several weeks. The detailed plan came on the heels of an impromptu meeting on Thursday called by New Jersey’s governor, Philip D. Murphy.

Mr. Murphy, a Democrat who promised to fix New Jersey Transit’s operations if it killed him, said the series of disruptions had been “unacceptable.” Kevin Corbett, the chief executive of the transit agency, and Amtrak’s chairman, Tony Coscia, agreed.

“Our absolute commitment is to get stuff fixed,” Mr. Murphy said at the round-table meeting, held at his office in Newark.

The officials have not yet reached consensus on what is causing all the delays and suspensions of service to and from Penn Station in Manhattan, the nation’s busiest transit hub.

Most of the breakdowns have occurred in the most heavily traveled segment of the Northeast corridor, between New York and Newark. Some have clearly been caused by failures of Amtrak’s antiquated infrastructure. But others have involved New Jersey Transit trains’ getting caught up in the overhead electrical wires that provide power to them.