The NJ Transit rail strike halts service statewide as talks with the locomotive engineers union stall. Officials urge swift, fair resolution.

It was the Garden State’s first transit strike since 1983 and will affect hundreds of thousands of morning commuters in the New York Metropolitan area.

The agency’s contingency plan is to move rail commuters to busses, but only about 20,000 of the daily rail commuters could be accommodated through bus routes, president and chief executive officer of NJ Transit Kris Kolluri said. The plan won’t go into effect until Monday, leaving commuters to fend for themselves on Friday.