NEW YORK CITY—New Jersey rail engineers have threatened to strike on May 16 over a salary dispute, potentially halting service to 350,000 riders in the New Jersey and New York area.
The strike would begin at 12 a.m. on Friday if an agreement is not reached and would shut down NJ Transit rail services as well as Metro-North rail lines west of the Hudson River.
NJ Transit has a contingency plan to operate more commuter buses in the case of a strike, but estimates it could handle only 20 percent of the usual train customers.
The engineers union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), has 450 NJ Transit engineers in its organization….