This company just cannot get its act together. Today, in continuation of the seemingly endless array of problems it faces, New Jersey Transit derailed a train on a rail switch between the Main and Bergen lines. Note to readers: the Bergen line is the one I commute on twice daily.

Thankfully I woke up at 6 A.M. this morning to make church at 7 A.M. for Ash Wednesday, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post on a train right now, I’d still be waiting. Typically I take a train at around 8:30 A.M., which once transfers are all said and done will put me at work between 9:15-9:30 A.M. However today I reached the train station at 7:40 A.M. just after mass.

The train station looked crowded upon arrival, but I was excited thinking I would catch the 7:45 A.M. train and arrive at work a bit early today and get some extra stuff done. To my dismay, I stood amongst the masses for approximately 10 minutes with absolutely zero inkling of what was occurring just a few stops away. Finally a woman’s voice came through the loudspeaker, and said “due to mechanical problems, all trains are indefinitely delayed in both directions.” Funny I thought, “mechanical problems,” they seem to be fond of that one.

A little more waiting and finally some rumors started to circulate through the crowd about a train derailment a few stops away. Nothing was official, so we continued to wait, patiently scanning the tracks looking for some sort of activity. The rumors continued to build, and I whipped out my Sidekick to log onto to NJ Transit’s web site. Yup, rumors confirmed, the web site acknowledged the derailment and said to expect significant delays.

Another loudspeaker announcement a few minutes later said that all eastbound trains would be arriving on the westbound side of the track, so me and 400 other people made the trek to the opposite side of the train station. After waiting a few minutes on that side, another loudspeaker announcement claimed that there would be over one hour delays on all trains. OK, we thought, but was this effective as of now or retroactive to the trains that were supposed to arrive 2 hours ago?

Our question was answered when a train finally arrived a few minutes later, but not before media helicopters starting buzzing around overhead. So it appears as if I will make it into work on time today, but only thanks to Ash Wednesday. The Lord works in mysterious ways.