Railroad Forums 

  • East River Tunnel Sandy Rehabilitation

  • This forum will be for issues that don't belong specifically to one NYC area transit agency, but several. For instance, intra-MTA proposals or MTA-wide issues, which may involve both Metro-North Railroad (MNRR) and the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). Other intra-agency examples: through running such as the now discontinued MNRR-NJT Meadowlands special. Topics which only concern one operating agency should remain in their respective forums.
This forum will be for issues that don't belong specifically to one NYC area transit agency, but several. For instance, intra-MTA proposals or MTA-wide issues, which may involve both Metro-North Railroad (MNRR) and the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). Other intra-agency examples: through running such as the now discontinued MNRR-NJT Meadowlands special. Topics which only concern one operating agency should remain in their respective forums.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, nomis, FL9AC, Jeff Smith

 #974779  by morris&essex4ever
 
Looks like the East River Tunnels will have major work done in them during the next 4 years.

http://www.railwayage.com/breaking-news" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... -3548.html
MTA Long Island Rail Road announced Monday that Amtrak is beginning work the weekend of October 1-2 on a multi-year program for the full replacement of track in all four of its East River tunnels. MTA has urged Amtrak, which owns Penn Station, to perform this work to improve the reliability of train service linking Manhattan and Long Island points, as well as Northeast Corridor service between New York and Boston.

In May, an Amtrak train derailed in one of the East River tunnels due to a broken rail. The track damage resulted in a major disruption of LIRR service for almost a week as Amtrak crews worked around the clock to make repairs. Following this incident, inspections revealed significant water drainage issues inside the tunnels, LIRR said.

Over the course of the project work, which is expected to be completed by mid-year 2015, the total track structure in each tunnel will be replaced. New ties, continuous-welded running rail, stone ballast (rock), insulated joints, and impedance bonds will be installed for the length of each tunnel. Equally important, the drainage system throughout the tunnels will be re-established with newly re-designed drainage improvements.

The work is being performed on weekends, since fewer trains operate through the tunnels than on weekdays with the demands of the peak periods.
 #974993  by MACTRAXX
 
M&E: Speaking of East River Tunnel ties: What tie type are they planning to use there?
Composite ties like these offered by www.tietek.com may be perfect to use in the tunnels...

MACTRAXX
 #975017  by morris&essex4ever
 
MACTRAXX wrote:M&E: Speaking of East River Tunnel ties: What tie type are they planning to use there?
Composite ties like these offered by http://www.tietek.com may be perfect to use in the tunnels...

MACTRAXX
That, I have no idea about.
 #1020890  by keyboardkat
 
nyrmetros wrote:It's a great thing that we have 4 east river tunnels. Imagine if we only had 2 like the Hudson does?
Imagine if the Jersey side had four, like the LIRR does!
 #1030780  by nyrmetros
 
keyboardkat wrote:
nyrmetros wrote:It's a great thing that we have 4 east river tunnels. Imagine if we only had 2 like the Hudson does?
Imagine if the Jersey side had four, like the LIRR does!
Well, that would have been ideal. Sadly it wasn't built.
 #1030863  by workextra
 
If they want to re configure the West Side Yard leads they can make another bore double track from Manhattan to Jersey. ;-)

Talking about tunnel work (that was done 100+years ago).
I remember reading once that during the construction of the East River Tunnels there was a blowout in one of them resulting in the men being blown to the surface. Can anyone here shed light on this? Were the sand hogs all killed or did anyone survive?
 #1295886  by BobLI
 
Here is an article from Newsday regarding the shutdown. I do not subscribe to that rag but have a quote and a link to the article if you do have a subscription.

"Amtrak repairs to its superstorm Sandy-damaged East River tunnels will force the LIRR to use one fewer tube to and from Penn Station for two years, officials said Wednesday.
The project is expected to cost at least $328 million and shut down two tubes, each for one year at a time. "

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/sand ... -1.9457252" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BTW the picture in the article is incorrect!
 #1295889  by Commuter X
 
A model of efficiency. Two years to find out that the tunnels are damaged.

Are these tunnels really safe, or are officials trying to save their backsides by claiming they are?

A non-subscription link is below ....

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nyc-co ... atest_news" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1295956  by Jersey_Mike
 
Commuter X wrote:A model of efficiency. Two years to find out that the tunnels are damaged.

Are these tunnels really safe, or are officials trying to save their backsides by claiming they are?

A non-subscription link is below ....

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nyc-co ... atest_news" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Corrosion takes time to develop. Same thing happened with the NYCS tunnels. I suspect all the cables in the "chairs" are becoming more and more unreliable.
 #1296005  by Head-end View
 
Well this should be a blast. I imagine all the railroads involved will develop an operating plan similar to what was done during the major Harold reconstruction circa 1990, when things actually worked out pretty well.

Presumably some trains will be cancelled for the duration of the project to help with the capacity issue. But the problem will be that not all tracks in Penn Sta. can be accessed from all tunnels, right? So for instance when Line-4 is shut down, will LIRR trains be able to access the northernmost Penn tracks such as 18-21? Similar issues will exist for Amtrak and NJT when the other tubes are closed. Sounds like it will be a nightmare..........
 #1296014  by zerovanity59
 
Head-end View wrote:Well this should be a blast. I imagine all the railroads involved will develop an operating plan similar to what was done during the major Harold reconstruction circa 1990, when things actually worked out pretty well.

Presumably some trains will be cancelled for the duration of the project to help with the capacity issue. But the problem will be that not all tracks in Penn Sta. can be accessed from all tunnels, right? So for instance when Line-4 is shut down, will LIRR trains be able to access the northernmost Penn tracks such as 18-21? Similar issues will exist for Amtrak and NJT when the other tubes are closed. Sounds like it will be a nightmare..........
The report says that they should have temporary switches in place to allow these moves. Also, I thought tunnels 1 and 2 were needing repair, not 4.
 #1296059  by mvb119
 
zerovanity59 wrote: The report says that they should have temporary switches in place to allow these moves. Also, I thought tunnels 1 and 2 were needing repair, not 4.
Correct, it was Lines 1 and 2 that flooded.

I'll give a little bit of my own recollection here for old times sake. From my own viewpoint it seemed Line 1 suffered the worst of the damage, though I am no engineer, I am just going by what I saw working there. I work in C&S, so I have no idea what issues are at hand in the other departments. In the time after the hurricane, we had replaced 3 signal locations in Line 1 and 2 signal locations in Line 2. All the impedance bonds also had to be replaced. These locations were completely submerged in salt water, so all the signal and electrical equipment was ruined. The tunnels were completely dark as there was no lights. Although by the time I began working in the tunnels most of the water had been pumped out, others had told me the water reached right up to the catenary. The benchwalls of the tunnel were in poor shape before the storm, but probably only got worse after the fact, but the tunnels themselves are structurally sound. Initially we had to remove the signal locations and combine blocks to make one long block in each tunnel while these signal cases were sent to Lancaster to be repaired. It may have decreased capacity in the tunnel, but it was better than having no tunnel at all.

There were a number of issues that were evident after the tunnels were placed back into service. The insulated joints were showing unusually low resistance between the rails, the signal cables had filled with salt water, and some may still have salt water in them. I recall when we were cutting over one of the locations, one of the cables that had been spliced for a new signal case began to smoke. The cable was cut open and a ton of water began to poor out.What seemed fine days ago when the cable was spliced was not, the salt water had seeped into the splice over time, and once we began to close circuits, everything was shorting out. So we had to let it drain and re-splice the cable. I can only imagine this being the case in other locations as well. Had there been no splice there, we would have never known as the water would have just pooled up in the cable with the wiring being isolated. The best course of action would have been to replace the entire cable, and everybody knew that, but the higher ups tend to not listen to the little people that see these things first hand. The timeline we were given was way too short, but I guess the LIRR was breathing down the Amtrak manager's necks claiming things were taking too long all the while we were working as fast as we could to get things back to normal. They were in a rush to get capacity back up to 100% again, so a band aid fix was used, ignoring the much more serious issues at hand. These were just some of the issues I saw while I worked down there. I can only imagine the issues with the tracks and the 3rd rail on top of that. Hope that helps paint a clearer picture for everybody.