Weekend talks between New Jersey Transit and the engineers’ union proved successful: a tentative agreement has been reached, signally an end to the first rail strike for the transit system in decades. The locomotive engineers’ strike began Friday at the rail system with 100,000 daily riders and left commuters either working from home or searching for other ways to travel across the state or over the Hudson River to New York City. Regular rail service is expected to resume 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, correcting an earlier announcement that stated trains would move again on Monday. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s office said service would wait until Tuesday to resume “as it takes approximately 24 hours to inspect and prepare tracks, rail cars and other infrastructure before returning to full scheduled service.” “This agreement reflects the commitment of both the BLET and NJ TRANSIT to remain at the table engaging in productive conversations, and I commend them both. Most importantly, it ensures the resumption of rail service for the 100,000 people who depend on our rail system on a daily basis,” Murphy said in a statement. Neither Murphy nor the engineers’ union shared the specific details of the agreement. “While I won’t get into the exact details of the deal reached, I will say that the only real issue was wages and we were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month and beyond where we were when NJ Transit’s managers walked away from the table Thursday evening,” said Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman at NJ Transit. The statement said the deal would be submitted for a ratification vote by the national union and also require a vote of the New Jersey transit board at its next regularly scheduled meeting June 11. The walkout preceeded down-to-the-wire negotiations on Thursday that didn’t produce an agreement. It triggered the state’s first strike in more than 40 years and comes a month after union members overwhelmingly rejected a labor agreement with management. Union members were nearly unanimous in authorizing a strike last summer, and 87% of them rejected the latest agreement. Mark Wallace, the union’s national president, had said NJ Transit needs to pay engineers a wage that’s comparable to Amtrak and Long Island Railroad because some are leaving for jobs on those other railroads for better pay. The union had said its members have been earning an average salary of $113,000 a year and it wanted to see an agreement for an average salary of $170,000. NJ Transit leadership, though, disputed the union’s data, saying the engineers have average total earnings of $135,000 annually, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000. The union has seen steady attrition in its ranks at NJ Transit as more members leave to take better-paying jobs at other railroads. The number of NJ Transit engineers has shrunk from 500 several months ago to about 400. The engineers are responsible for operating trains, ensuring safe and smooth transport between stations. NJ Transit is the nation’s third-largest transit system and operates buses and rail in the state, providing nearly 1 million weekday trips, including into New York City. The walkout halts all NJ Transit commuter trains, which provide heavily used public transit routes between Penn Station on one side of the Hudson River and communities in northern New Jersey on the other, as well as the Newark airport, which has grappled with unrelated delays of its own recently.