Rail Improvements Highlighted by Murphy, NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak

On Nov 20, 2024

Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT joined Gov. Phil Murphy today to share the progress on their joint inspection, maintenance, and improvement program for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) infrastructure and NJ TRANSIT’s trains. Today’s meeting follows a June 27th meeting led by the governor to determine a joint action plan designed to address major service disruptions that occurred throughout the summer.

After issuing a report in August, which included details of joint efforts and progress to date, Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT released a new progress report today and discussed the recently-awarded grants for nearly $300 million in federal funding to modernize critical rail infrastructure in New Jersey.

“With today’s meeting, we are proud to announce that Amtrak has now completed its inspection of all 240 miles of catenary overhead wire systems between Trenton and New York City. And while the fundamental challenge facing our mass transit system continues to be aging infrastructure, we believe that these completed repairs, and the infrastructure investments to come, will make sure New Jerseyans have an easier time getting where they need to go when they need to get there,” Murphy said.

“Our partnership with NJ TRANSIT and joint commitment to Governor Murphy to ensure that  our collective customers have safe and reliable train service is achieving results,” said Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner. “Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT will continue to conduct inspections, make short-term repairs and seek more funding to fully modernize all aspects of our infrastructure over the long term, including our electric traction system, catenary, signals, switches and more.”

“While we are pleased with the progress that has improved reliability for tens of thousands of NJ TRANSIT rail customers, our joint efforts will continue,” said NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kevin S. Corbett. “It’s essential that we sustain the same level of attention we have demonstrated over the past five months. In addition to the work we are doing to add fiberglass protectors on our pantographs to protect them from impact damage on the NEC catenary, NJ TRANSIT will continue to support Amtrak’s efforts to accelerate the work to upgrade the most vulnerable infrastructure along the NEC.”

The execution of the joint action plan followed several major service disruptions in May and June, together with a variety of smaller incidents that reduced service reliability on the NEC between Trenton and New York City. Following June’s public meeting with the governor, Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT outlined immediate actions, investigations, inspections and repairs that both companies undertook together to address these issues.

Over the course of the past five months, Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT made the following improvements executing on their joint plan:

• Amtrak performed 240 Track Miles of catenary system inspection on the Northeast Corridor between Trenton and NYC and renewed approximately 2,000 hardware components within the area;
• Amtrak conducted helicopter inspections of the entire NEC overhead catenary system between Trenton and the North River Tunnel, right outside New York Penn Station and made 839 hardware replacements from the defects identified from the 2,000+ catenary structures captured from the photographs taken during the inspections;
• Amtrak performed photo inspections via special hi-rail vehicle of tunnels and tracks within New York Penn Station;
• Amtrak identified and remediated electric traction components and replaced overhead wire to ensure reliability;
• NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak increased equipment inspections and used high-definition video on top of locomotives to document the interaction of NJ TRANSIT equipment with Amtrak wires;
• NJ TRANSIT also completed visual and hands-on inspections of approximately 82 route-miles of overhead catenary system on its territory.

In addition to those improvements, Amtrak recently received nearly $300 million in grants, applied for with NJ TRANSIT support and matching funds, from the FRA for several projects that will modernize the area’s infrastructure. This includes funding to advance further planning, development, or construction activities as follows:

• The Amtrak Sawtooth Bridges Replacement Project obtained $187.5 million for final design and preconstruction services, which includes updated track, signals, catenary, and other infrastructure in that 2.5 mile territory for the replacement of the 115-year-old NEC bridges in Kearny;
• The Amtrak Substation 41 Renewal Project, which will replace and protect from the potential of flooding, a key point on Amtrak’s NEC electric traction system and protect it from the potential of flooding, received $80.2 million to construct a new substation in Kearny;
• Amtrak signal system upgrades between New Brunswick and Elizabeth received $18.6 million for project development and design of modernizing the existing signal system along 26 miles of the NEC for increased train throughput and improved speeds;
• Amtrak NEC catenary upgrades from New Brunswick to Newark secured $13.4 million to fund the completion of the design and the environmental review of the project, which will result in the replacement of the almost 90-year-old catenary structures along 23 miles.

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