On Friday, train drivers in New Jersey stopped working, so about 350,000 people in New Jersey and New York City had to find other ways to travel or stay home.

The workers are striking because they didn't agree with the company after talking on Thursday. This is the first time in 40 years that public transport workers in this state have stopped working. It happens one month after most of the union members said no to a work agreement with the bosses.

"We gave them our final offer, but they said no and stopped talking to us, even though there were still two hours to go," said Tom Haas, who is in charge of the train workers' union.

Kris Kolluri, who is in charge of NJ Transit, said they have stopped talking for now.

He said on Thursday that he really wanted to continue these talks quickly. He said that if they wanted to meet that night, he would meet them. If they wanted to meet the next morning, he would also meet them because he thought they could easily find a solution. He wondered if they wanted to solve the problem.

Murphy said it was important to "make a final agreement that is fair to workers, but also doesn't cost too much for people who travel to work and pay taxes in New Jersey."

The union said they talked about the contract for 15 hours without stopping before the announcement. People are expected to start protesting at 4 a.m. on Friday.

NJ Transit is a big transportation system in New Jersey. It runs buses and trains, taking almost 1 million people to work each day, some to New York City. The strike stops all NJ Transit trains. These trains are used a lot by people going between New York City and towns in New Jersey, and also to Newark airport. The airport has had some problems with delays lately too.

The company said they have plans to add more buses. They will add more buses near train stations in New York to help people get around. But they said the buses won't have much space. The new buses will start on Monday. The company will also pay other bus companies to drive people from parking lots during busy times.

But the agency said the buses won't carry as many people as the trains do now. Only about 20% of train users can use the buses. So, they asked people who can work from home to do that if there's a strike.

Because of the worry about it, travel was already difficult. The travel company was not sure what to do, so they stopped the trains and buses to Shakira's concerts on Thursday and Friday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

The groups met on Monday in Washington to talk about the problem with a mediator. The mediator was also there on Thursday. Kolluri said they might meet again on Sunday morning to continue talking.

The main problem in talks between the company and the train workers' union is pay. The union wants its members to earn about the same as workers at other train companies nearby. They say their members earn $113,000 a year on average. The union says they could agree if the company boss, Kris Kolluri, agrees to pay them $170,000 a year on average.

However, NJ Transit says the union's numbers are wrong. They say engineers earn about $135,000 a year on average, and some earn over $200,000.

Kolluri and Murphy said on Thursday that the main problem is not if they can agree on higher wages. The problem is if they can agree in a way that other unions won't ask for the same, because that could be too expensive for NJ Transit.

Congress can stop the strike and make the union agree to a deal. But this time, they don't want to do that, unlike in 2022 when they stopped a train strike.

The union at NJ Transit has been losing members because many are leaving for better jobs at other train companies. The number of engineers at NJ Transit has gone down from 500 to about 450 in the last few months.