You know, there’s usually a transportation story with Mercury retrograde...

There was the famous Jet Blue incident a while back, and then air travel was halted over Europe this spring... This time, it’s the trains in the Northeastern United States.

Now, blaming train mishaps on Mercury retrograde is a bit difficult, since even on a good day things don’t go all that smoothly on the rails. But two significant incidents happened on Monday and Tuesday.

First, a cable fire affected signals on the Long Island Rail Road, effectively stopping train traffic in and out of Jamaica - the busiest railroad bottleneck in the world - for an entire rush hour. As of today, service is still not back to normal. Then, on Tuesday, Amtrak needed to halt Northeast Corridor service due to low-voltage power problems.

In an Associated Press release, from the Kansas City Star (click here for the full story): the director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers said the most likely cause of the Amtrak problem was software issues in a computer system the railroad is upgrading. We shouldn’t take it was a sign of “an antiquated, decrepit or underfunded system,” says he.

Well, we can always take to the roads. Although in another Mercury retrograded story, there is apparently an 11 day old traffic jam in China, which is expected to last into September.

Eh. Maybe I’ll just stay home.