Phil Murphy said in a news conference Friday that his priority was restoring the rail service and reaching a fair deal with the union. “The stance that we’re taking is to get a fair deal for our workers and not blow up NJ transit’s finances,

NJ Transit engineers are set to go on strike as of 12:01 a.m. Friday, the union says, bringing train service to a screeching halt. NJ Transit rail service will be fully shutdown, along with Metro-North's west of Hudson service. The strike is expected to inconvenience more than 300,000 daily commuters.

New Jersey rail engineers walked off the job on Friday after marathon contract talks stalled ahead of a midnight deadline, setting off a strike at a transit system that serves hundreds of thousands of commuters into New York City.