On Friday, train drivers in New Jersey went on strike. About 350,000 people who usually take the train to work in New Jersey and New York City had to find another way to travel or stay at home.

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

"We gave them our final idea, but they didn't like it 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.

The head of NJ Transit, Kris Kolluri, said they are "taking a break from talking about it."

He said on Thursday that he really wanted to continue these talks soon. He was speaking with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. He said, "If they want to meet tonight, I will meet them. If they want to meet tomorrow morning, I will meet them again. I think we can solve this problem quickly. The question is, do they want to find a solution?"

Murphy said it was important to "agree on a final deal that is fair to workers, and 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 straight before the announcement. People are expected to start protesting at 4 a.m. on Friday.

NJ Transit is a big transport system in the US. It runs buses and trains in New Jersey, with about 1 million trips each weekday, including trips to New York City. Because of the strike, all NJ Transit trains are stopped. These trains are used a lot by people travelling between New York City and towns in New Jersey, and also to Newark airport. The airport has also had some problems recently.

The company said they made plans in case something went wrong. They said they would have more buses, but told people that the buses would only help a little bit on busy bus routes near train stations in New York. The new buses will start on Monday. The company will also pay other bus companies to drive buses from important parking areas during busy times on weekdays.

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

Because of the risk, travel was already difficult. The transport company was not sure what would happen, 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. They also talked on Thursday, and the mediator was there. On Thursday night, Kolluri said that they might meet again on Sunday morning to continue talking.

The biggest problem in talks between the company and the train union is pay. The union wants its workers to get paid the same as workers at other train companies nearby. They say their members earn $113,000 a year on average. They think they can 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 more than $200,000.

Kolluri and Murphy said on Thursday that the main problem is not if they can agree on a pay rise. The problem is if they can agree in a way that doesn't make other unions ask for the same, which would be too expensive for NJ Transit.

The government can stop the strike and make the workers 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 lost members because many have left for better jobs at other train companies. The number of NJ Transit engineers has gone down from 500 to around 450 in the last few months.