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As we reported earlier today, fans exiting Wrestlemania 35 expecting New Jersey Transit trains to be available as advertised every ten minutes instead found themselves battling long lines, a downpour of rain and insane surge prices for Uber and other car services.
PWInsider.com reader Jaysen Bowman sent the following to PWInsider.com about the situation: "I can confirm that story. I waited nearly 2 hours in line, in the rain, to be boarded all the while staff members were taking pictures of the lines and even made smart ass comments about “good luck getting home before 4 AM. NJ Transit really dropped the ball. Fans were wet and angry and tired."
Reader Brett Piscopo sent along the following photo of the chaos:
With NJ Transit getting the brunt of complaints, they have decided to do what often happens in professional wrestling: they turned on their partner and blamed WWE. It was WWE's fault, according to a statement issued to NJ.com earlier today:
"The primary factor contributing to the post-event delays was the WWE’s decision to extend the event to 12:30 a.m., which had significant operational impacts on the evening. NJ Transit was not informed of this decision until late last night," Jim Smith, a spokesman, said. “The decision to extend this event resulted in our inability to operate some of those trains due to federal requirements limiting train crew hours."
Federal regulations prevented New Jersey Transit staff from working overtime so that the advertised, promised trains could run. Instead, three train crews were forced to go home and without them, no additional trains could operate. Instead of trains every 15 minutes, fans were left twisting in the wind (and in this case, rain as well.)
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy commented on the transit issues this morning during a scheduled press conference. When asked about the post-Mania melee, commenting, "At the end of the day, if folks are frustrated, they ought to be. I would have been crazed. It’s completely and utterly ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ unacceptable. We’re fixing it. We’re gonna learn from this. I’ll be damned if it happens again.”
PWInsider reached out to WWE this afternoon about the situation and received the following statement: “We regret any inconveniences fans may have experienced with mass transportation after the event.”
Wrestlemania 35 started at 5 PM and did not go off the air until after midnight, making it one of the longest events in WWE history.
Thanks to Joseph Smith for his assistance.
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