Engineers at New Jersey Transit are poised to go on strike one minute after midnight Friday morning, a stoppage that would create huge problems for 100,000 daily train commuters, businesses across the New York metropolitan area as well as fans of Shakira and Beyoncé,

NJ Transit and an engineers’ union appear to be steaming ahead to the first major rail strike in decades starting early Friday, even as both sides convene in Washington, D.C., where they pledged to continue negotiations.

New Jersey Transit urged riders to reach their destinations before the end of the day Thursday or risk being stranded as talks continued in a bid to avert a rail strike by train engineers that would affect some 350,