the move to the Graham line, it was abandoned. The line from Harriman to Middletown is now the Orange County Heritage Trail. In the mid-1990s, as Orange County started to become a popular place for commuters, political pressure caused the MTA to start improving service, building a new station in Middletown-Town of Wallkill, expanding parking at Harriman, and other improvements. In the 2000s, growth in Orange County accelerated, so the MTA added more service, and started to expand parking lots, which became paid lots in line with the rest of the Metro-North system. In spring 1997, the Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS) and the CSX Corporation agreed to acquire Conrail, and the acquisition was approved on July 23, 1998, and implemented in 1999. As part of the transaction, the Port Jervis Line went under the control of NS. Metro-North leased the entire line from Norfolk Southern on April 1, 2003, for 49 years, with the possibility of outright purchase in 2006. Also in 2003, Secaucus Junction station opened, reducing travel time to Midtown. One oddity that results from the unusual arrangement between the MTA and NJ Transit is that, although the MTA subsidizes the service and maintains all of the facilities (except for the Suffern station), the actual operation of the line is almost totally under the control of NJ Transit–the trains are operated by NJT personnel; the trains are dispatched from Hoboken and the ticket vending machines on station platforms are NJT machines, not Metro-North's. The fare system is a combination of NJT and Metro-North policies. Hurricane Irene Service north of Suffern was suspended due to severe damage from Hurricane Irene on August 28, 2011. 14 miles of the line were damaged. The roadbed was washed away, signal cables were exposed or went underwater, bridge structures were exposed, the right of way along the Ramapo River eroded and track was damaged. Shuttle train service between Harriman and Port Jervis started in September, and full train service resumed on November 28, 2011: one month earlier than anticipated. Future expansion In 2008, Metro-North and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) began a joint feasibility study of a possible branch from the line to Stewart International Airport, which the Port Authority had taken over the year before, ending a seven-year privatization experiment. The PANYNJ withdrew from the study after its first phase, having decided that express bus service could