Amtrak’s work to overtake the primary of two tubes of the East River Tunnel is on schedule, officers of the federal railroad stated Wednesday.
“The tunnel is looking like it’s in great shape,” Laura Mason, Amtrak’s govt vice chairman of capital tasks, informed reporters. “We are about halfway through our outage — six months into a 13-month outage.”
Opened in 1910, the East River Tunnel consists of 4 rail tubes linking Manhattan and Queens. Two of the tubes — Nos. 3 and 4 — primarily serve the Lengthy Island Rail Street, the primary consumer of the tunnel, permitting its service to Penn Station. The opposite two tubes — Nos. 1 and a couple of — are utilized by Amtrak, which owns the tunnel, for its service on the Northeast Hall, and by NJ Transit for storage of commuter trains in Queens’ Sunnyside Yard.
Tubes 1 and a couple of took on salt water throughout Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which Amtrak has stated corroded sign and energy wires. The inundated tubes additionally suffered from spalling concrete alongside the tunnel benchwall — the construction via which the tunnel’s high-voltage energy strains run.
A building employee adjusts the wiring rack the place low-voltage cables will probably be put in within the coming months. (Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Each day Information)
After a lot back-and-forth between Amtrak — the tunnel’s proprietor — and the LIRR — its main consumer — the feds launched into a two-step plan to close down and wholly renovate the water-damaged tubes separately.
Tube No. 2 closed in Could to be gutted and rebuilt. It’s anticipated to reopen in July 2026. The identical work is anticipated to start in Tube No. 1 in fall of 2026, and final one other 13 months.
Sixty toes beneath Midtown on Wednesday, the din of a prepare transferring via Tube No. 1 may barely be heard above the non permanent air flow system put in in Tube No. 2. Solely the unique concrete lining and the overhead wire used to energy the trains remained from how the tunnel regarded this spring.
“All of the old concrete has been demolished and removed, [we’ve] torn out the old benchwalls, torn out the collapsed terracotta ducts, cleaned out the drainage and done a lot of leak mitigation,” Mason stated. “Right now that tunnel is the driest it’s been in many many years.”
Baggage of demolition particles sit on the western finish of the East River Tunnel’s Tube No. 1. (Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Each day Information)
A bit of newly poured benchwall ran alongside a portion of the tunnel’s southern wall, the place repairs to the unique century-old tunnel lining may be seen. On the northern facet, new conduits and spacers marked out the place one other, decrease benchwall would quickly be poured.
“I’m really proud of the progress the team has made,” Mason stated.
Whereas the tubes are out of service, the tunnel can solely function at 75% capability — a actuality that involved LIRR President Rob Free within the run-up to the preliminary closure.
The prepare boss, who additionally toured the worksite, echoed these considerations Wednesday.
“That’s my job as president of Long Island Railroad — I have to stick up for our customers,” he stated, “because I think we all can agree, there’s great risk to the operation from this project.”
However Free additionally struck a extra diplomatic tone.
“There’ve been bumps, but we’ve done a good job of mitigating them,” he stated. “Look, we’re at 96.3% on-time performance for the Long Island Rail Road.”
“We’re pleased to see what we have seen so far,” Free stated of the development job’s progress. “We ask that we continue to make good progress.”
The tunnel can even start carrying Metro-North site visitors as soon as the MTA’s Penn Entry enlargement brings New Haven Line trains into Penn Station — service that would begin by late 2027.
