Amtrak Cancelling Service New York/Boston, including Springfield Line and Vermonter on account of He

Probably a good idea. Too much chance of debris in the CAT. Amtrak would need to place diesel on all trains for backup. In fact that may be necessary once service restored.

Link broke. Probably because it's now outdated news.

Service was restored on Monday after some inspection and some assurances from Metro-North/Shore Line East/MBTA Keiolis

At what wind speed does Amtrak cancel service?

Not sure, but it's all up to Metro-North since they own NY-New Haven. They usually shut down the catenary if they're not running.

daybeers wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:49 am Not sure, but it's all up to Metro-North since they own NY-New Haven. They usually shut down the catenary if they're not running.

Isn’t that considered the worst part of the NEC for trees coming down during storms? If I remember correctly the New Rochelle to New Haven section has a lot tree problems.

There do seem to be a lot of trees in sections of the very-urban New Haven Line. Not to mention, east of New Haven there are large portions of the line that are right on the water. There are low points all along the line, when I rode OSB-GCT (on commuter) during Elsa, there were sections of tracks slightly under water. The causeway into Stonington is another low point, and any storm surge would cause quite a bit of damage there. In the hurricane of '38, a NHRR train nearly went over on that causeway.

In the end, the storm didn't wreck havoc on the area, but a storm path the night before was just east of NHV, so the result could have been much different. We dodged a bullet, for sure.

Everyone:

First off this topic needs a new title showing the date and the storm status at landfall.
"Tropical Storm Henri Cancellations 8/22/2021: NYP-BOS; NHV-SPG and Vermonter Services"
With the title character limit exceeded by the OP "He" is not sufficient as a description.

The center/eye of Henri made landfall as a Tropical Storm at Westerly, RI at 12:15 PM Sunday 8/22.
The center tracked NW across Connecticut somewhat slowly until it reached the three state boundary
area NY-CT-MA near Canaan, CT and than turned slowly eastward across MA heading back out to sea.

Henri turned out to be a tremendous rainmaker for many - the rain totals for some locations did reach
double digits in some places. Winds were not a huge problem with Henri - 60 mph sustained gusts were
noted around the time of the noonhour landfall in CT-RI with this gradually weakening storm.

Amtrak cancelling all services from NYP north and east turned out to be very much an overreaction.
MNCR suspending all New Haven Line service was another overreaction...NYG-STM every two hours
could have been operated similar to the Harlem (to Southeast) and Hudson Lines until the "all clear"
was given for regular service levels to resume. As another comparison the LIRR suspended service on
the Montauk Branch between Patchogue and Montauk and the Ronkonkoma-Greenport "scoot" only.

Did heavy rainfall along parts of the NEC cause any flooding issues? In central New Jersey Middlesex County
was hard-hit with places such as Cranbury, NJ (just north of Princeton Junction) getting around 9-10 inches
of rain. The heavy rain in and around NYC on Saturday night 8/21 - which turned out to be an un-related upper
level low interacting with some of Henri's moisture - set records such as the wettest single hour ever recorded
at Central Park in Manhattan 10-11 PM in which almost two inches (1.94 in.) of rain fell.

The general consensus is that many did "dodge a bullet" with Henri as mentioned first by Shadyjay.
As another example early August 2020's Isiais resulted in much more serious issues such as wind damage.
With the September peak of hurricane season approaching we all should at least stay aware...MACTRAXX

There was a hurricane warning posted by the National Weather Service. Not surprising that the path moved, not surprising that the storm was overhyped by television stations and government alike. Not surprising that it was a tropical storm instead of a hurricane when it made landfall. What was surprising was the storm slowed down, did not arrive at high-tide for the south-facing beaches, negating storm surge.

it only takes one bullet on target for none of this to be an overreaction

If MNRR is cancelled then Amtrak has no choice but to cancel from NY thru New Haven. So no New haven Springfield either.

Did any of the agencies put out any information about damage they might have sustained? Or stating that they sustained none? One would never know without insider information if wires or trees came down somewhere because service was suspended. There may have been an impassible spot on the line somewhere for hours and you'd never know. The railroads simply cleaned up whatever minor damage they may have taken and prepped for service the following day. No news stories of trains stranded or broken down because nothing was running.

it only takes one bullet on target for none of this to be an overreaction

Exactly. Cancel trains and people grumble. Train gets stuck for hours due to flood, trees, power loss, etc. and it's front-page news.

Trinnau: Good point...We may never actually know if there were any significant problems on 8/22 north of NYP
because nothing ran that day. Getting service back up and running on Monday 8/23 was made easier.

FN: Think "Damned if you Do - Damned if you Don't" for this situation. No matter what there will be those that
will be upset by the temporary inconvenience of no service - and if something does happen that causes a long
delay (as example) these same folks are very quick to criticize in the media and elsewhere.

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Another thought: When I was reading the rain totals on 8/21 and 8/22 for central New Jersey something came to
mind: Was there any NEC flooding problems in the Trenton area with the Assunpink Creek?

For those unaware the Assunpink Creek parallels the NEC in spots in the Trenton/Mercer County, NJ area - and
runs right alongside the station tracks at TRE. There have been flood problems at TRE with the most memorable
occurring in July 1975 from severe thunderstorms and from Hurricane Floyd in September 1999. The depth of
the flood waters from both of these events at TRE are marked on the north side stone wall between the station
and the Delaware River bridge...MACTRAXX