WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Amtrak continues to investigate the cause of a major power outage that shut down service from New York City to the District early Thursday morning — leaving dozens of trains stranded along the several hundred mile stretch of track, officials said.

Transit officials scrambled a series of deisel-powered trains to remove five trains from tunnels — including one stuck in the B&P Tunnel in Baltimore for 45 minutes — shortly after power was lost around 8 a.m., officials said. Power was partially restored to the Washington and Baltimore area by 9:30 a.m., but systemwide delays continued through much of the afternoon.

Three MARC trains were stranded and others were severely delayed during the outage, said Maryland Transit Administration spokeswoman Holly Henderson. Yet many of the MARC trains were deisel-powered and continued to run.

Just seven trains on the system’s three lines were affected and one diesel train was actually able to rescue two Amtrak passenger trains during the outage, Henderson said.

Musician Larry Willis, 63, of Upper Marlboro, sat in front of a row of cabs outside Baltimore’s Penn Station, wondering how he was going to make a 2:30 p.m. flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Tel Aviv, Israel, for a concert the next day.

“I’m going to have the promoter book me a flight out of BWI,” Willis said.

Willis said he and other passengers were stuck in the dark for about 45 minutes before the MARC train picked them up. Passengers remained calm, but there was “a lot of frustration,” Willis said.

Deborah Helper, who was traveling with her husband and three children from Philadelphia to Washington for a tour of the White House, instead found herself waiting in Wilmington, Del., where her powerless train was towed.

She eventually arrived in Washington about 12:45 p.m. but missed the White House tour.

Frank O’Connor, who was traveling back to New York from Union Station, was delayed several couple hours but didn’t seem to mind.

“What are you going to do?” O’Connor said. “Everything gets delayed from time to time.”

- Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Effects of outage

» Neither the Washington nor Baltimore region’s Metro systems were affected by the outage, officials said.

» The system was expected to be on its normal schedule by late Thursday evening.

» About 5,000 commuters who use MARC’s Penn line were stranded for several hours.

mrupert@dcexaminer.com