Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced plans Sunday to invest $10 million upgrading the power supply for the Metro-North New Haven line to prevent future outages like the one in Mount Vernon last fall, which disrupted rail service for several days.
In a contract between the Connecticut Department of Transportation, Metro-North and Connecticut Light & Power, CL&P will replace aging transformers in Cos Cob, Greenwich to nearly double the power supply and increase redundancies in case of an outage.
“The New Haven line is the busiest single rail line in the country and, each day, takes more than 60,000 travelers off of our already congested highways,” Malloy said in a written statement. “In anticipation of adding even more service on this state owned rail corridor, we want to ensure riders have as safe and reliable a commute as possible and prevent the major system interruptions that we experienced in September.”
Plans to replace the first transformer will begin Feb. 3 and work is expected to take 16 days to complete.  The second transformer to be replaced will be completed mid-March and act as a back-up emergency transformer on standby.
Malloy said he plans to meet with the new Metro-North president, Joe Giulietti, and the CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Thomas F. Prendergast, Feb. 13 to address additional concerns with the line’s operation.
