Amtrak

last week filed a federal lawsuit against the

MTA Metro-North Railroad

(MNR) claiming the New York commuter railroad is not providing Amtrak access to a shared portion of MNR-owned track in the Bronx to test its NextGen Acela trains.

The lawsuit alleges that the rejections began after a dispute about damaged wiring on MNR's New Haven Line. In January, equipment on an Acela train was damaged while running on the line; that equipment then caused damage to overhead wiring, according to a

local news report

.

Amtrak claims that since it won't reimburse MNR for the wire damage, the commuter railroad over the past month has rejected Amtrak's requests to run non-revenue trains on its lines, disrupting Amtrak's federal safety requirements for testing and causing delays and cancellations of revenue service, the report states. The railroads have had track-sharing agreements in place for more than 35 years.

However, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority countered that the lawsuit is a distraction from another track-usage spat between the passenger railroads, according to a separate

report by amNY

.

MTA representatives said that Amtrak has been delaying MNR's Penn Access project by blocking efforts to create four new stops in the Bronx along the Amtrak-owned Hell Gate Line. Currently, MNR operates on the Hell Gate Line but does not make any stops.

Amtrak officials stated the lawsuit is only related to the New Haven lines and reiterated that if MNR doesn't begin allowing nonrevenue trains to operate on the shared tracks, "systematic cancellations of Amtrak's train service would be unavoidable," amNY reported.

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